Last week I received my Brasilean National Health Card. I am delinquent in mentioning this, because Heitor reminded me at the time that this is something I might want to put on the short list of things I like about Brasil. He is, of course, very well aware of the long list of things I don´t like about Brasil. It is interesting, coming as it does at the same time as the national debate about how the health care system in the U.S. is going to be improved.
In reality, I don´t know enough about how the system works in Brasil to make any sweeping generalizations. But I have a few observations. My friend, Frankie, the Brasilean who lived in the U.S. for more than 40 years and taught ESL at L.A. Community College is now 72 or 73 years old. Owing to a car accident on the LA freeways and, at least partially, to some bad decisions he made as a consequence (not having that surgery that was recommended), he gets around only with a walker and very slowly. Once every week a nurse comes to his apartment to see how he is doing and do what little errands he requires. She routinely spends anywhere from 2 to 4 hours with him even though he rarely has anything he seriously requires from her, because he gets out every day and people in the neighborhood take care of him.
It is this nurse, incidentally, to whom I am indebted for receiving my health card. She walked my application through the system even though there is a key national identity card for which I am still waiting. In reality, I didn´t even make an application. I never signed anything. I gave her some key information and she took care of the rest. The lesson might be that it is good to know the right people. But where isn´t that the case?
As I listen to the predictable right wing efforts to demonize all efforts to improve the U.S. system as "socialized medicine," (which is not a description of anything that is being seriously considered as near as I can tell...maybe socialized insurance) I am reminded of how silly labels are when the reality is that people´s lives are hanging in the balance. Tell that person with no insurance that he/she can´t have that procedure because that would be socialized medicine, and therefore a serious mistake.
Someone tell me if I am wrong, but I have the feeling that we have at least progressed to the point where no one is stating seriously anymore that the U.S. has "the best health care system in the world." Except maybe Fox "News," which seems to have thrown in the towel and abandoned all pretense of being a serious news organization.
Ok, how many people have I pissed off today?
Tchau.
PS I learned last week that my membership in the SESC physical conditioning program is not limited to just Tuesdays and Thursdays as I originally thought. I also have access to the facilities on Fridays and Saturdays. So life is good after all (as long as you have health insurance).
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Yesterday Life WAS a Parade
I guess my comfort level when it comes to crowds is somewhere below 4 million people. Yesterday was the annual Gay Pride parade in São Paulo and, of course, I had to check it out. Heitor accompanied me and, considering that he already had experienced it in past years and knew what we were in for, it was very generous of him not to try to discourage me.
It isn´t the kind of parade where people sit in lawn chairs on the curb and watch the show pass by. Rather, the entire street is one mass of people shoulder to shoulder, and in the middle there is an almost indistinguishable movement of progress in one direction, like a wide river with a current in the middle that is moving a little bit faster than the river in general (or a little less slower. I don´t want to say anything that implies speed).
There were no floats. The only motorized equipment were big trucks, about the size of double decker buses, festooned with identifying placards and rainbow balloons. On the top level would be a mass of dancers with music pulsing at a volume way beyond deafening. (Most of the police very sensibly wore earplugs.) Many of these were entries from the city´s various bars. But the same type of truck with the same music and dancers also represented particular government agencies or labor unions, or some other organizations. Sometimes I was aware of some heads bouncing along in between the trucks, moving in the general direction of the parade, but generally we weren´t close enough to tell who they were. Those walking groups which I did identify represented gay-friendly churches or other support organizations. Conspicuously absent were politicians and large corporations. I recognized a few logos that were placarded on some of the trucks, but not many. Nothing like you would see in the US.
The parade terminated at a plaza a few blocks from where we live, but as near as I can tell, it just kind of petered out, if you´ll pardon the expression. I wanted it to end up in a park, where the celebration could continue....with food, information booths, speeches, you know...like Loring Park in Minneapolis. But I think this thing just kind of fizzled out, which might have been appropriate after all the energy it took, not just to be in the parade, but to watch it. After the parade, Heitor and I went to look for space heaters and grab a bit to eat before walking home. It was after dark when we got home and there were still stragglers from parade wandering down the street to the plaza. I expected to be up all night listening to the same gawdawful music from the parade, but it was only the normal night noise, which contributes to my theory that the whole event just kind of faded away at the end with a whimper.
You might be wondering how these big trucks managed to move through this sea of humanity. Every truck was completed encircled by a large rope about 2 inches thick. Every six feet or so, inside the rope, was a large muscular man pushing back against the crowd. And I mean to tell you these guys were working!! The trucks creeped along within this little protective circle.
Finally, it was too freaking cold. It is winter down here. Imagine a similar parade in December. Even in southern California, I don´t think you would want to do that. Yesterday was warmer than either of the two previous days, but it was still cold whenever you were out of the sun.
One last note. My tutor today told me that he doesn´t think he´ll go to future Gay Pride parades. He said, "I´m too old for that noise and those crowds." I think he is 22.
Tchau
It isn´t the kind of parade where people sit in lawn chairs on the curb and watch the show pass by. Rather, the entire street is one mass of people shoulder to shoulder, and in the middle there is an almost indistinguishable movement of progress in one direction, like a wide river with a current in the middle that is moving a little bit faster than the river in general (or a little less slower. I don´t want to say anything that implies speed).
There were no floats. The only motorized equipment were big trucks, about the size of double decker buses, festooned with identifying placards and rainbow balloons. On the top level would be a mass of dancers with music pulsing at a volume way beyond deafening. (Most of the police very sensibly wore earplugs.) Many of these were entries from the city´s various bars. But the same type of truck with the same music and dancers also represented particular government agencies or labor unions, or some other organizations. Sometimes I was aware of some heads bouncing along in between the trucks, moving in the general direction of the parade, but generally we weren´t close enough to tell who they were. Those walking groups which I did identify represented gay-friendly churches or other support organizations. Conspicuously absent were politicians and large corporations. I recognized a few logos that were placarded on some of the trucks, but not many. Nothing like you would see in the US.
The parade terminated at a plaza a few blocks from where we live, but as near as I can tell, it just kind of petered out, if you´ll pardon the expression. I wanted it to end up in a park, where the celebration could continue....with food, information booths, speeches, you know...like Loring Park in Minneapolis. But I think this thing just kind of fizzled out, which might have been appropriate after all the energy it took, not just to be in the parade, but to watch it. After the parade, Heitor and I went to look for space heaters and grab a bit to eat before walking home. It was after dark when we got home and there were still stragglers from parade wandering down the street to the plaza. I expected to be up all night listening to the same gawdawful music from the parade, but it was only the normal night noise, which contributes to my theory that the whole event just kind of faded away at the end with a whimper.
You might be wondering how these big trucks managed to move through this sea of humanity. Every truck was completed encircled by a large rope about 2 inches thick. Every six feet or so, inside the rope, was a large muscular man pushing back against the crowd. And I mean to tell you these guys were working!! The trucks creeped along within this little protective circle.
Finally, it was too freaking cold. It is winter down here. Imagine a similar parade in December. Even in southern California, I don´t think you would want to do that. Yesterday was warmer than either of the two previous days, but it was still cold whenever you were out of the sun.
One last note. My tutor today told me that he doesn´t think he´ll go to future Gay Pride parades. He said, "I´m too old for that noise and those crowds." I think he is 22.
Tchau
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Space Heaters
Don´t be jealous. It isn´t Eden after all. The last week or two has been genuinely cold. A few days ago, the most prominent story in the online edition of Folho de S. Paulo (the city´s largest newspaper, and, yes, it really does abbreviate the word São) was about the weather. The highs and lows for the day were predicted to be 7-16 C.... or 44.6-60.8 F. It was gray all day yesterday and, so I was told, was 10 C in the middle of the afternoon. That is 50 degrees F. I know, I know, it doesn´t seem so bad to those of you in the midwest. But then nobody ever said Iowa and Minnesota were tropical paradises. You all at least have furnaces. I think our big adventure for the day will be to go looking for a space heater of some kind.
I am told it is supposed to be sunny and warmer tomorrow (Sunday) for the gay pride parade, which is the biggest in the world. It made the Guiness book of records 2 or 3 years ago when the Federal Police estimated the turnout at 2.5 million. This year, the projections are for 4 million.
I recently learned two new words which I have had trouble remembering...bigode and bisnaga. I not only have trouble remembering them, but I tend to confuse their meanings. Yesterday, at the bakery, I could only remember bisnaga, and I decided to live dangerously. I wasn´t sure if I was ordering two french rolls or two moustaches. Fortunately, I got it right or else they would forever be talking about me everytime I went there.
Just as a friend of mine will never let me forget the time I confused cebola e cabelo, and made some comment about the onion on his head.
But I´d still prefer living with these linguistic misadventures to the adventure of looking for a space heater.
Tchau.
I am told it is supposed to be sunny and warmer tomorrow (Sunday) for the gay pride parade, which is the biggest in the world. It made the Guiness book of records 2 or 3 years ago when the Federal Police estimated the turnout at 2.5 million. This year, the projections are for 4 million.
I recently learned two new words which I have had trouble remembering...bigode and bisnaga. I not only have trouble remembering them, but I tend to confuse their meanings. Yesterday, at the bakery, I could only remember bisnaga, and I decided to live dangerously. I wasn´t sure if I was ordering two french rolls or two moustaches. Fortunately, I got it right or else they would forever be talking about me everytime I went there.
Just as a friend of mine will never let me forget the time I confused cebola e cabelo, and made some comment about the onion on his head.
But I´d still prefer living with these linguistic misadventures to the adventure of looking for a space heater.
Tchau.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Stress tests and stocking caps (I have to put something here.)
In some earlier posts I mentioned a place called SESC, or actually several places in São Paulo called SESC. I think there are something like 12 or 14 of them scattered around the city, and more in other cities as well. Although they are privately owned, and oriented primarily toward business people, they are, in most other respects, like huge community centers. The one closest to me is a modern building 8 or 9 stories high. It has multiple spaces for performing arts, a restaurant and coffee shop, a room with 25 or 30 computers for members´use, a reading room, a huge swimming pool, a gymnasium/health club as big as a basketball court, and who knows what I´m forgetting. Their business-person orientation is a little bit odd because so many other things here have a bias in favor of seniors. But it is a private organization and you know there is more money to be made from business types.
Once per month, they have a day in which business people can sign up for regular usage of the gym. Then, if there are still spaces available, they open it up to seniors. On the specified day in May I went and sat in line waiting for one of the 15 available positions. I was number 11, so I got one. But, because I was over 59, I had to make an appointment with a doctor on site for the next day. Then, because I haven´t been on any regular exercise regimen for several years, she told me I had to have a stress test before I could be ok´d for the gym. And, no, they didn´t offer that test at SESC. I would have to arrange that on my own, wherever I wanted. Obviously, if it had really been up to me at that point, my gym experiences would have ended right there. But Heitor got on the phone and found a clinic that gave me an appointement for 8 am the next day. I aced the stress test and now have a regular schedule at the gym at the cost of $R20/month. Unfortunately, I only get 2 days per week. I chose Tuesdays and Thursdays, which works nicely with my class schedule of Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. But 2 days doesn´t seem like enough. Maybe I´ll have to join a health club eventually. And my gym enrollment is only good for 1 year. If I want to continue beyond that, I´ll have to go through the same process and hope the business types leave a few crumbs for us old folks (mostly old ladies, by the way).
Tonight I am off to a party for one of Heitor´s ex bosses who has a book that was recently published. It is nice to know that I, perhaps alone of everyone there, won´t be expected to say how much I loved it or how eagerly I am awaiting the opportunity to read it.
One more thing to add to the list of things I don´t like about Brasil. People don´t know that, on escalators, the rule is stand to the right and leave the left free for walkers. It isn´t as minor a complaint as you think. Every Metro station has a series of escalators, and I only get to go to the gym twice per week, so this is part of my exercise routine. Get out of my way!!! At least some of the stations have the option of stairs.
Next time: it is actually kind of cold here in the winter. I bought a stocking cap on sunday.
Tchau
Once per month, they have a day in which business people can sign up for regular usage of the gym. Then, if there are still spaces available, they open it up to seniors. On the specified day in May I went and sat in line waiting for one of the 15 available positions. I was number 11, so I got one. But, because I was over 59, I had to make an appointment with a doctor on site for the next day. Then, because I haven´t been on any regular exercise regimen for several years, she told me I had to have a stress test before I could be ok´d for the gym. And, no, they didn´t offer that test at SESC. I would have to arrange that on my own, wherever I wanted. Obviously, if it had really been up to me at that point, my gym experiences would have ended right there. But Heitor got on the phone and found a clinic that gave me an appointement for 8 am the next day. I aced the stress test and now have a regular schedule at the gym at the cost of $R20/month. Unfortunately, I only get 2 days per week. I chose Tuesdays and Thursdays, which works nicely with my class schedule of Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. But 2 days doesn´t seem like enough. Maybe I´ll have to join a health club eventually. And my gym enrollment is only good for 1 year. If I want to continue beyond that, I´ll have to go through the same process and hope the business types leave a few crumbs for us old folks (mostly old ladies, by the way).
Tonight I am off to a party for one of Heitor´s ex bosses who has a book that was recently published. It is nice to know that I, perhaps alone of everyone there, won´t be expected to say how much I loved it or how eagerly I am awaiting the opportunity to read it.
One more thing to add to the list of things I don´t like about Brasil. People don´t know that, on escalators, the rule is stand to the right and leave the left free for walkers. It isn´t as minor a complaint as you think. Every Metro station has a series of escalators, and I only get to go to the gym twice per week, so this is part of my exercise routine. Get out of my way!!! At least some of the stations have the option of stairs.
Next time: it is actually kind of cold here in the winter. I bought a stocking cap on sunday.
Tchau
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
A Nation of Asses...but not Fat Asses
A few miscellaneous scribblings which, I hope, might get me back into the habit of maintaining this thing.
I went to a McDonalds a couple of weeks ago for the first time since I started coming to Brasil in November 2005. Most everything seemed like the McDonalds in the states, or at least as I think they are. One difference was that there was no drive thru. Another was that it was raining and one of the window seals was leaking water into the, shall we say, dining area. Of course window seals can leak anywhere, but I chose to interpret this as evidence of shoddy Brasilean construction. Another big difference was that all(!) of the kids working there were skinny. I think of McDonalds as a symbolic cause of the U.S. obesity problem, and here there wasn´t any body fat on the whole crew. I mentioned this to my tutor and he got reflective for a few seconds and then said he thought that was true for all the McDonalds that he knew of. I wonder if McDonalds is trying to send a subtle message to Brasileans: "Don´t believe everything you read. You don´t have to worry about becoming a nation of fat asses."
And speaking of Brasileans and asses, it needs to be said that this country has a disproportionate number of great looking, well-defined asses nicely packed into tight blue jeans. Google Brazilean Butt Lift if you want to know about a certain plastic surgery procedure. Perhaps everyone but me already knows about this procedure. I only learned of it when reading one of Jay Leno´s monlogues on line. I don´t remember the joke, but the punch line was Tummy Tucks and Brazilean Butt Lifts.
Maybe I´ll just end on that note.
Tchau por agora.
I went to a McDonalds a couple of weeks ago for the first time since I started coming to Brasil in November 2005. Most everything seemed like the McDonalds in the states, or at least as I think they are. One difference was that there was no drive thru. Another was that it was raining and one of the window seals was leaking water into the, shall we say, dining area. Of course window seals can leak anywhere, but I chose to interpret this as evidence of shoddy Brasilean construction. Another big difference was that all(!) of the kids working there were skinny. I think of McDonalds as a symbolic cause of the U.S. obesity problem, and here there wasn´t any body fat on the whole crew. I mentioned this to my tutor and he got reflective for a few seconds and then said he thought that was true for all the McDonalds that he knew of. I wonder if McDonalds is trying to send a subtle message to Brasileans: "Don´t believe everything you read. You don´t have to worry about becoming a nation of fat asses."
And speaking of Brasileans and asses, it needs to be said that this country has a disproportionate number of great looking, well-defined asses nicely packed into tight blue jeans. Google Brazilean Butt Lift if you want to know about a certain plastic surgery procedure. Perhaps everyone but me already knows about this procedure. I only learned of it when reading one of Jay Leno´s monlogues on line. I don´t remember the joke, but the punch line was Tummy Tucks and Brazilean Butt Lifts.
Maybe I´ll just end on that note.
Tchau por agora.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)