Alex is back from his deployment in Qatar and I went to pick him up in Woodstock. It was not a very big event, but it very moving to see all the families waiting for their soldier to come home. There were lots of little kid probably too young to remember their fathers (a year is along time in a young life) and some so young that they were meeting the old man for the first time.
I am proud that Alex chose to join the Virginia National Guard and then volunteer for deployment overseas. The citizen solider is a key factor in a functioning democracy and one of the duties of citizenship in America is the willingness to serve if needed. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people are involved with this today.
Beyond the patriotic responsibility, the Guard is a good deal. Alex gets his insurance through the Guard and the Guard gives him TSP to save for retirement. Because of his deployment, he earned help with tuition and job search, and he gets veteran preference in Federal jobs. I think the experience has been good for his character. Responsibility and discipline are useful traits for any young person.
The basis of civilization is not generosity; it is reciprocity. It is better if both sides give something and get something. The military is good way to do this with government benefits.
When we consider the prosperity in America after World War II, we often miss the elephant in the room. Because of the war, millions of Americans had experience with the military, where they learned skills and discipline and where they made a variety of contacts that helped them build the businesses that built America.
I am proud that Alex did the right thing. I am glad that his deployment was uneventful. He seems to have used the “gift of time” well. He read lots of books and took some useful online courses. He was a good man before; he is even a better one now.
Safe House is a cold war themed bar near downtown. I have not been there since the cold war was actually still one. Went there with my sister Chris yesterday. You still have to go in through the secret bookcase and give the secret password.
Not much has changed inside. We had the famous drink, “Spy’s demise” and looked around. The only difference I noticed was that Donald Trump is now featured on the spy wall.
It is interesting, however, to see pictures of Lenin and Felix Dzerzhinsky. Most people recognize Lenin, Felix, not so much. He was one of the most evil men ever to walk the earth. He founded the Cheka and executed tens of thousands of people. Funny how we forget. Now he is just a prop on bar wall.
Jake and I had a “traditional” day: breakfast at George Webb’s, a look at our old house, visited Mrs. Gebhardt, a stop at (formerly) Medusa, and lunch at the Cousins on KK. Added a new tradition: the beer garden at Humboldt Park. I didn’t get to drive the convertible he rented but we had perfect weather to enjoy it. Later with Greg, Dorothy, Mary and Dick, had dinner at Café Central in Bay View. Fun day and great weather.
It is maybe wiser to avoid the forest floor, but the river is another story. I understand that there are also piranha, caiman and snakes in the water, but it seems peaceful and if you stay in the boat it is mostly safe. The rivers are the highways of the Amazon.
Alex and I took a canoe out for a while. We are not good at canoe paddling. Alex has become very strong, much stronger than I am so we are always drifting in the direction his paddle takes us. It was, however, peaceful and quiet.
The rivers are very wide and the forests are flooded this time of the year, so you really do not see a shoreline, just the tops of trees and bushes.
The jungle walk was familiar enough to make me long for the forests of home and different enough that I knew I was not at home anymore.
The forest here is wet, literally dripping with dew and humidity all the time. The ground vegetation is thick, although that may be because this was cut-over. I understand that in the true triple canopy forest, which I don’t think I have ever really seen, it is so dark on the forest floor that not much grows. The forest soil here is not fertile and it there is little organic material. It is all quickly recycled into growing plants. It is a different sort of forest from those I know. I feel connected with the forests back home. Here I am clearly alien. I recognize that this is a wonderful, complex and diverse ecosystem. Maybe that just overwhelms me.
Maybe it is because it is a dangerous place. There are snakes and bugs around that can poison you. If you get stuck in the jungle at night, never sleep on the group. That is why local Indians always use hammocks. If you lay down on the ground for the night, you are likely to still be lying there the next morning, just no longer alive.
We didn’t see any big animals or really animals at all. Many of the animals are nocturnal and all the animals are good at not being seen. Life is dangerous and short for the forest animals here. Beyond that, the soil is not very fertile, so there are not rich supplies of food. This poverty is especially acute on the Rio Negro, since (as mentioned) the river does not have many insects, which form the base of the food pyramid. The nearby Rio Solimões is coffee brown, full of silt and nutrients, and so full of bugs and fish. Tourists like it less because of the bugs and the mud, but it is a more living river.
Francisco, the guide, said that there were jaguars around but not very many. This is good, since jaguars are dangerous. They will attack and kill people and you don’t see them coming. He wears a jaguar tooth around his neck and he showed it around to emphasize his point. Jaguars are stealth hunters. They hide or sneak up and then jump on their prey from behind. They go for the jugular. When they get a hold, they just hold on until the animal, or human, passes out from loss of blood. They are beautiful creatures, but nasty. I recall seeing them at the jaguar sanctuary safely behind a fence. I am glad that we didn’t run into any w/o a fence.
That long brown thing in the picture is an ant nest. Maybe it would be more appropriate to call it an ant hive. The outside was crawling with ants. Francisco squashed a few and rubbed them on his hands. He told us that the native Indians would do that and rub it all over their bodies to mask their scent when hunting. The local Indians are also stealth hunters. They hide or sneak up on their prey and then dispatch them with an arrow or poison dart. Neither has much range in the woods, so they need to get close, close enough to smell the animal and be smelled. The ant juice makes hunting like this practical.
We didn’t see any Indians in the wild. They are not very numerous and those that still live traditionally are protected and contact with them limited. Meeting “wild” Indians is potentially hazardous to all involved. While I was there, I read an article about three people killed by semi-wild Indians. Evidently one of them worked for the electric company and made himself unpopular by trying to collect bills. He was marked for death, but he caught a ride with a couple other people, thereby dooming them too. Those are situations I cannot predict so prefer to avoid.
BTW – walking is not the way you usually get around in the jungle. It is difficult to walk most places. With all the water, boat is the best way to go. Alex and I paddled a little. I will show pictures in the next post.
Although they make a big deal about presenting the operation as a scientific endeavor, the monkeys are not really wild and they essentially perform for tourists. When they put out the fruit, the monkeys come. It is interesting to see them all swing on over. They look pretty buff. New World moneys have prehensile tails, i.e. they can grab onto branches with their tails. Old World monkeys cannot. The red faced monkey above is called locally an “English” monkey, with reference to the red skin which the locals think resembles a fair-skinned Englishman with a sunburn.
The monkeys are not dangerous, but we were told that they might try to grab jewels or cameras. They did not. They paid no attention to us at all. You can see Espen with the monkeys in the picture below. Espen is the one wearing the shirt.
We went down to Ft Benning, Georgia to see Alex graduate from boot camp and infantry school. He graduates tomorrow. Today he had his “turning blue” ceremony.We got to give him his blue braid.
He lost some weight but mostly developed a stern look.I think he looks good.
The boys and I helped Mariza move into her new place. It is a very nice place, completely renovated, and they did a really good job. I like the neighborhood. It is “recovering” but already pretty nice. Within easy walking distance are restaurants, take out places and a Giant.
I know that my impressions are not statistically valid, but I think you can get a feel for a neighborhood by walking around. It seemed peaceful. One of Mariza’s neighbors, a guy called Greg, introduced himself as we were bringing in stuff. He said that he had lived in the neighborhood for thirty years. It had gone through good and bad times, but things were getting better. It is the kind of neighborhood where I would be happy to live so I am glad Mariza is there.
You always pay more for taxis in Rio. They are used to tourists and they know that there is a kind of differential tourists are willing to pay, or maybe don’t know they are paying. But this time I got by w/o too much trouble. I suspect the driver that took us from the airport to the hotel was taking us for a ride. When I noticed we seemed to be going the wrong way and commented to him, he told me that there was a big music festival and we could not take the usual shorter route. Maybe that was true. I ended up paying more for an extra-long ride and when he gave me change, he did so with small bills, pausing each time until I just told him to keep the rest. But on the way back from Sugar Loaf, we got a driver who actually used the meter and it told the right amount. We went with the notorious “flat rate” to the statue of Christ. I didn’t mind paying, since the guy waited for us and took us back down. When I came with Espen a few months ago it was hard to find a taxi back. The convenience was worth the price and the taxi driver was interesting.
He told me that he had been driving cab for about seven years. He was a cop before that, but police work was too dangerous. He said that in his police academy class of seventy, twenty-four had been killed in the line of duty four years later when he decided to seek a more tranquil profession. Of course, he was a cop in the middle of all that trouble with drug dealers in the favelas. Things are calmer now.
Taxi drivers in Rio own and maintain their own cabs, although licensed and regulated by the city. He can have up to two other people drive the car. His car is completely flex-fuel. It can run on gasoline, ethanol or natural gas. These days by far the best fuel is natural gas. It costs the least and gets the most mileage per unit, more than twice as much as ethanol. Ethanol is the worst. Mileage is poor for the price. Gasoline is in the middle. Natural gas also has the advantage of better engine wear and less pollution. He asked if we use much natural gas in the U.S. We don’t. Busses often run on natural gas and some delivery fleets are turning over to gas, but we don’t currently have the infrastructure. I suppose that might change with the fracking boom. Changing to natural gas makes the cities cleaner and quieter than they would otherwise be, in addition to saving money.
Rio really is a pretty city. Mariza is visiting and I wanted her to see it. We went to Acre last time she was here. That was an interesting experience, but not the pleasant one you get in Rio. Rio is really one of the world’s most beautiful cities.
We saw a double rainbow over Copacabana. It was gone before we got our cameras. Would not have done it justice anyway. But the red sky was still interesting. Red sky at night, sailors delight. The picture doesn’t do that justice either.
