Home in Brasil

I arrived back in Brasil on 6 May after almost 5 weeks in the U.S. It is delightful to walk down the street and be welcomed home by numerous friends and acquaintences...Fabio, the friend who cuts my hair; the man who runs the hardware store, whose name I don´t even know, who stopped me in front of his store to ask where I´ve been for so long; the doormen and handyman at our apartment house; Frankie, the Brasilean who taught at L.A. City College for twenty-five years; João, of "João e Maria" restaurant, where I frequently have lunch. I even ran into the cab driver today who took me to the airport in April, and he had a big hug for me (and I´m not that great of a tipper). Not to mention the singular welcome from Heitor.

Frankie and I were walking together today and two different people had warm greetings for him. He said that he lived in the U.S. for such a long time that he now finds it curious how Brasileans greet you on the street. He said he didn´t even know one of the people who had been so friendly.

I had my first encounter with the medical system today when I went with Frankie to get a flu shot. It wasn´t a swine flu shot, just the normal innoculation one gets before the winter flu season. Remember, our May is the equivalent of the U.S.´s November. I´ll confess it is the first flu shot I´ve ever had, but I think it is probably simpler in the U.S. Can´t you get flu shots just by standing in line at the grocery store? Frankie said he had flu shots when he was in the states and it was always a very simple procedure. Here we had to stand in line and a clerk hand wrote all of our personal information on a long form that you know just gets filed away somewhere, never again to see the light of day. Nevertheless, everyone was smiling and friendly and the process didn´t really take all that long...maybe half an hour.

Frankie likes to joke in a friendly way about Brasilean inefficiencies and peculiarities, from the perspective of one who was raised here and lived abroad for most of his adult life. We made all the usual jokes about waiting lines and rules. So I wasn´t too surprised when I lifted my left shirt sleeve to take the shot and the nurse said, no, your right arm. I asked if that was important with, I believe, only the slightest hint of irony in my voice. She ignored whatever irony there might have been and simply said yes. Now, can anyone tell me, as one who has never had a flu shot before, do they have to be in the right arm?