Anyway, so Lima was really nice too, though my first two days I was in a hostel due to a mixup in how/ when/ where to meet the person who had offered to host me on their couch. But eventually a little crew of couchsurfing folks came to my hostel to retrieve me, and I spent the next 4 nights staying with the wonderful family of my new friend Luis. In Latin America it is a lot more common for kids to still live at home until they are married or go away to college or something (but most live at home while they study), so even though Luis is the second youngest at 20 (the youngest brother is only 11, and super adorable), he and his 4 older siblings all still live there, in a small but cozy 2 bedroom apartment in Callao, which is a northern suburb of Lima. Their family was so warm and sweet and welcoming to me, I didn't feel awkward at all, even though sometimes "family" dynamics make me nervous. We went to the beach the day after I arrived and it was actually a blast, even though the "beach" itself was pretty grey and dismal seeming. Anyway, I stayed with them while I sorted out all the insane, ridiculous details for how to get to Brazil, since I hadn't initially realized that I not only need a passport but a very expensive visa to go there. I also had been totally confused about when Carnaval was happening, thinking it was in early March, but in reality it is right now, the first weekend in February (I discovered this on Monday). I really wanted to make it for this Carnaval Revolucao that I found out about from a wonderful boy named Gui who responded to my post on the Queeruption list serve about radical stuff in South America. He was really excited have someone from queeruption come, and I have been really looking forward to meeting some cool activists here in South America, since so far I have kind of been totally out of that loop for the last few months (well, not in Chiapas, but that was different).
Anyway, so basically I decided to race against time and I put in all my visa application stuff right before the Brazilian embassy closed for lunch on Tuesday morning... waited around, spending the day catching up on email, checking out ticket prices (the cheapest one I found was about $340 US) and basically writing to every single couchsurfer in Rio about staying at their house when I arrived into town. Then, at four thirty I went back to the embassy and waited on the edge of my seat to see whether they would have my visa ready or not.... there were three of us there in the same boat, and at first they tried to tell us sorry, they weren't gonna be able to do it, because they wanted to close. But we were like, PLEASE!! I had already checked and there were no more flights to Rio after Wednesday, since I'm assuming they were all totally booked up with people going to Carnaval. The boy beside me had a flight that night, and so somehow, defying all odds of beaurocracy, they took pity on us and at the stroke of six, ended our anguished waiting by handing us our shiny new visa (well, they were inside our passports, but you get the point).
Getting here, at last, was a whole other epic adventure, and almost didn't happen... I was running late in getting to the airport on Wednesday morning, after staying up late to play "Monopolio" with Sandro (the 11-year-old), Luis and Ivan, another Couchsurfer from France. But finally, I made it to the airport, just one hour before our flight was due to depart, and raced up to the counter where I handed over my passport, visa, plane ticket... but where, the man asked me, was my yellow fever vaccination? WHAT?! Holy crap. In the midst of all my hasty freaking out, I had totally and completely forgotten that we also need that to get into Brasil, which was, by this time, really losing it's lustre. The man informed me that there is a health center in the airport that would do it, but I needed to have waited for 10 days before trying to then enter Brasil. I looked pathetic and told him I didn't have 10 days, and he said I should try to see if they would backdate the paperwork for me, which, when I actually did then go and ask them, the women at the health center were not amused by. I went ahead and got the stupid shot anyway, even though by now I was totally despairing of ever going to Brasil, and once I had done that and paid my $30 I ran back out, only to find the guy from the airline there waiting for me, eager to learn whether they had actually done it like he said. I told him no, and he was like, "well, okay, let me see if there's anything I can do" (in Spanish, of course), and he waved me back through all the security stuff and then talked to his supervisor, and suddenly, before I knew it, he was like, "okay! You're in! Now RUN cause you are really late" and after thanking him profusely I did exactly that. I must've looked like such a maniac, running all over that airport, cursing or talking to myself under my breath for the entire time I was there. But eventually I made it, and soon we were in the air, headed for Rio de Janiero.
The funny thing is though, I had gotten an email just that morning from Gui, my contact for the Carnaval Revolucao, that they weren't in Rio, they were in Sao Paolo, so why on earth was I going to Rio?! I was like, "ahhhhh!!!" So it was even more insult to injury when I arrived at the departure gate and learned that we would actually be stopping in Sao Paolo, but that I wouldn't be able to get out there since my luggage was already checked through all the way to Rio. Bitter irony, or something like that. Anyway, the one guy from Rio who had written back to say I could stay when I showed up at midnight hadn't yet given me his contact info, so when I got into Rio I decided to stay up all night with a nice Canadian couple who was in the same boat, so we could wait for the internet cafe to open and figure out just what we were all gonna do.
I eventually decided that my best course of action would be to go directly to Sao Paolo on the the bus, so that is what I did. I was soooo tired it wasn't even funny, and I kept having to go check email in all these expensive places and there was trouble with the cash machine and blah blah blah, but eventually, I made it, and trudged up the street with way too much stuff on my back, located Gui's house, and there, walking by at that very moment, was Gui himself, who recognized me pretty much instantly. From there on, though, it's been smooth sailing! Everyone here has been SOOOO amazing and warm and open and excited about meeting me and talking to me, even though I totally can't speak Portuguese and many people's English is very limited. I am so humbled and happy about the way people have just been really willing to go out of their way to try to communicate with me, and make sure I'm included in things. A bunch of folks from other cities (this is one of the biggest national gatherings of radical activists in Brazil) have invited me to come and stay with them, and a particularly adorable couple from Rio want to set up a little workshop for when I come so I can talk to people about my experiences with Radical Queer organizing.
As for the conference itself, again, I have to say that Humbling is an apt word for what these folks are doing here. First of all, the animal rights element is incredible. I have never been to a radical gathering where a comprehensive understanding of animal rights is so throughly present that it goes without saying that virtually everyone there is vegan and actively working for animal liberation. They just absolutely get it, that there is no way you can separate the oppression of animals from the oppression of people and the environment, and it is sooo refreshing for me to be surrounded by people who are already on board with me on that! Not to mention that the food they have been making has been some of the most delicious stuff I've ever had. Other things going on at the event have been a huge variety of films, workshops on everything from bicycle activism to vegan parenting to permaculture to indigenous spirituality; lectures and speeches of many kinds, and bands, dj's and performers throughout the day and waaay into the night. Funnily enough, the big famous guest speaker who is here right now is John Zerzan, a very well-known and controversial anti-civilization/ anarcho-primitivist author from Eugene, Oregon. I say "funnily" because I actually met John, very briefly at a friend's house, in 2001 when I was hanging out in Eugene, and also because I actually don't agree with a lot of his views on things. But since we are the two token Americans here, we've had a few nice conversations in the past few days and I'll say that despite our differing opinions, he is actually a really nice guy and it's kind of cool to be able to say I was hanging out with a "famous anarchist" in Brazil, right?! ha ha.
So yeah, that has been my experience so far. I am soooo glad I decided to come here, and I really want to go home and learn some Portuguese and come back for a lot longer. The stuff these guys are doing is really amazing, and I think I could both learn from and contribute a lot. Of course, that wouldn't be for a while but it's definitely an Idea I'm seriously considering right now...
Today is the last day of it all, so I'm going to go now and spend a little more time hanging out with these amazing folks before they pack it up and start heading back to their respective cities. I hope all of you are doing as well as I am. Take care and let me know what you're up to! Thanks for reading! xoxo, Pike.
