Bem-vindo a Brasil and Saying Goodbye to a Friend

I recently learned about the death of friend through Facebook. To say that Eliseo and I were the greatest of friends would be an exaggeration but he was a friend and his death has actually dominated my conscious thoughts for the last week. When Eliseo and I lived together at New Guild Co-op, I was the cycling fanatic. He used his bicycle but wasn´t half as zealous about commuting by bicycle as I was. When he moved to New York City that changed. I know that he used his bike as his primary form of transportation from his facebook posts about riding across the Brooklyn bridge while it was raining. On my birthday this year, he wrote one of the most memorable birthday wishes for me. "May your chain never slip, your tires never puncture, your calves never cramp, and may the sun always shine on the road you're on. From one bicycle riding madman to another, happy birthday."

To learn that he died from the injuries he sustained from getting hit by a car while riding his bicycle only saddened me more. He held on for five days after the accident with several moments of consciousness and false hope of a recovery. I am always saddened when a bicycle commuter gets killed by a car but this time I wasn´t separated by the normal degrees of separation that I usually have between me and the victim. Eliseo is not just another ghostbike to me; he was a real person who loved life.

Getting disrespected by truck drivers on the last stretch of road in Argentina was even more offensive to me than normal. I am used to drivers refusing to acknowledge the deadly force they harness with their hands on the steering wheel of several tons of steel hurling down the road, but this time it was personal. I couldn´t help but glower at them accusingly each time they passed me with minimal space between me and them, even if the fault was not so much theirs as it was of the Argentinan government for not providing adequate space on the highways for all forms of transportation. This includes not just myself but all of the poor folks who also ride bikes or ride motorcycles that seem to have lawnmower motors for their engines.

Eliseo wanted to be a writer. He would constantly post haikus on his facebook, renewing my interest in this poetic form. I consider the fact that he had big dreams that died with him to make his death even that much more tragic. His death has been a reminder to me that life is too short and can be taken from us at any moment. It can´t be taken for granted. He was never able to create his opus and this resonates with me. In his honor and in honor of all of those who have lost their lives way too early, I plan to redouble my efforts to savor every single moment I have on this planet. I am going to make a much greater effort in conquering the last of my remaining fears that stand between me and total happiness. I know what you are all thinking: what is this world- travelling, knife-fighting, ganjobiciclatholic anarcyclist afraid of? I am still afraid of rejection both in romance and in my creative and professional life. I am going to make an effort to talk to the pretty girl standing alone at a party. I will seek out more musician friends and work more actively to perform the music I love. I will try harder to find a job that I love, not just one that pays the bills. I will no longer let my fear of rejection limit my options.

I have really been appreciating the admonition that you should be careful what you wish for these last few weeks. After riding through the altiplano of Bolivia, I was so sick of the cold that I found myself desiring the other extreme that I am so used to from growing up in Texas. Well, I have gotten that and then some and now I miss the cold. It sure was nice being able to camp without constructing my tent as there were no mosquitos or blood-sucking gnats. I never got any of the skin rashes which always seem to be optimally placed for maximum discomfort. I didn´t have to deal with thunderstorms, though I am always mesmerized by the beauty of the lightning. I forgot about the enervating effects of the heat. At the end of the day, I am just that much more exhausted. This is all just a reminder that the physical challenges of my bike ride are not over even though I don´t have to deal with multiple-day ascents.

These last few weeks have also reminded me that there is indeed some crushing poverty in Argentina. I have seen the dilapidated houses which all seem to be concentrated in the northeast. I had also grown used to all the gas stations having Wi-Fi and cappucino machines but no more. I was just happy if there was shade now. Argentina cut down the majority of its old-growth forests a long time ago to make space for ranch and farm land. What remains of the forests are mostly obscene rows of eucalyptus or pine trees ready to be harvested to meet domestic wood demand. I am happy that the Argentinan lumber industry has developed a sustainable model but not happy that it came only after the decimation of almost every last natural forest in Argentina. It is really sad when poverty forces people to do things that are bad in the long term for a short term gain.

I mentioned earlier that I was looking forward to the mental challenge of learning a new language. It is most definitely satisfying to know that I can actually hold a conversation in Portuguese but I feel somewhat stupid. I have gone from using mostly Spanish, which I speak pretty much automatically, to using a new language. In all fairness, I did prepare for this. I have actually been reading through my Portuguese-English dictionary and memorizing regular and irregular conjugation forms. I have made it all the way to the "l"s. There are a lot of similarities between Spanish and Portuguese but there are a lot of differences as well. The main difference is the pronunciation which varies a lot just within Brazil. I think I am going to have to choose a pronunciation and just stick with it. I can read and hold conversations in Portuguese but my mind does not work fast enough to follow São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro accents in rapid fire on television. I actually speak significantly more Portuguese now than I spoke Spanish when I lived in Mexico five years ago. Welcome to Brazil. It is time to learn Portuguese or die.

It is interesting seeing the news from a Latin American perspective instead of my typical American perspective. The news we watch on the T.V. or read in American papers is so myopic that it drives me crazy. I am particularly irked by C.N.N. in Spanish. Not only is the news U.S.-centric but it is often innacurate. I still remember when they had a news story about the Bolivian city of Sucre celebrating its bicentennial. The only problem with the news story was that the stock photos they showed of the city for the news segment were actually of Potosí. I know this because I was in Potosí at the time and I had recently been to Sucre.

C.N.N. also bungled the news when they showed a short headline stating that the Argentinan Supreme court had just declared that arresting people for small amounts of marijuana was unconstitutional. This is technically true as the specific case involved several young people in the city of Rosario who were arrested by police after they were searched and it was discovered that they were carrying small amounts of marijuana. It did not, however, reveal the whole truth as the court struck down a law that refers to the possession of all drugs, not just marijuana. The court did not define the amounts that would be considered small enough to be considered as "for personal consumption" only. That is up to the legislature which, I suspect, will model the new law on the one that was recently passed and signed into law in Mexico.

American media is definitely guilty of omission when it comes to reporting on the rest of the world but it is also guilty of underemphasizing the importance of certain stories to the rest of the world. Another example in the recent news is the issue of Colombia´s signing of an agreement with the United States allowing for the U.S. use of Colombian military bases for drug interdiction. This issue is buried in the back pages of American newspapers but is in the front-page headlines here. I was watching a televised meeting of Unasur which is kind of like a mini-U.N. composed of just South American countries. Literally every single South American president was at the meeting in Bariloche where the issue of the U.S. military presence in Colombia was the main topic of discussion. I couldn´t help but notice who was noticably absent: Barack Obama. Despite his pledges to renew diplomacy with Latin America, he refrained from making what would be the most symbolically significant way of demonstrating the United State´s renewed commitment to strengthening its relationship with Latin America. He probably hasn´t even met half the people that were in the room. If Hugo Chavez and Alvaro Uribé can put aside their personal enmity to share a room together than Obama can make an appearance. He could have, at least, sent his Secretary of State who was also noticably absent.

As further evidence that United States is quickly becoming an international backwater, Uruguay recently legalized adoption of children by gay couples. Their was also an article in the news about how every student in Uruguay is going to have their own personal laptop to aid in their studies. I might have to move to Uruguay as they seem to be on a more progressive path than the U.S.