The Brazilian Gods Must be Crazy

Meus amigos. Well I may have found a life here in Brazil, but I seem to have just lost my hard drive. I contracted a Brazilian virus, and it wiped out everyting on my computer - all my documents, photos, programs, settings and favorites – the works! I was sitting in the mayor’s office awaiting a meeting with the director of marketing and tourism, to get support for my upcoming photography exhibition, when a string of ominous red error messages popped up on my screen; and then it suddenly went black and blue. When I rebooted, all that was left were the original setting, and in the My Pictures folder, a couple stock photos that come with Windows - an olympic runner in the starting blocks, a vista of the Rockies - mocking me. None of my three thousand photos, evidence of my life these last 5 months on Planet Brazil,were left.

Backups, you ask? Yes, I have them, but from December 2005 and before my departure from Washington. Despite the valient efforts of a few techie expert friends back home, to back me up and instruct me on continued vigiliance with viruses and backups, I was completely lost, with no idea how to recover – electronically OR emotionally.

At times like these, when you are in a foreign country far from home, with few resources at your fingertips, you wonder why you came. It’s not just the computer virus, it’s all the many hardships and hurdles and mistakes piled up on top of each other. Every single day is a challenge, just getting small tasks done when you don’t speak the language proficiently – catching a bus, getting directions somewhere, buying a cake for someone’s birthday, coordinating an evening out with some friends, or even simply making a phone call using the crazy system of credit cards they have here. Everything takes so much energy. So now, with the virus spread through my computer, I had another gigantic task ahead, to cure it, with little energy to spare. And to keep the doubts about my existance here from spreading through me.

But my photographs have been such a significant part of my meaning on Planet Brazil. My camera has kept me company, when I have no one with whom to share the beauty or surprises of this place. My camera has also given me a language with which to communicate my impressions and feelings, where there’s been no one who understands English. Now, without the pictures, where was the evidence of my adventure here? And more practically, how was I going to proceed with my show?

After slinking out of the mayor’s office, I headed home, and cried the whole way across town. I even scared off the poor children who approached my car at a stoplight, as is the routine here, to clean my windshield and earn a few coins. I was not in the mood today. When I arrived home, I made some lame attempts at meditative, postive thinking, telling myself stuff like: ´Anne, what’s important, the bits and bytes of ideas, just figments of my imagination, or my imagination itself? My memories are still here – the lessons and stories and encounters and images are imbedded in my brain and heart – even if they aren’t still buried in my hard drive. Get a life.´ Then I went to the beach and drank some strong caiperinas.

But a window of opportunity opened up. Cris hooked me up with a guy named Rodrigo, a Brazilian techie with a reputation for recovering files and drinking cerveja (junto - together). He showed at the apartment later that night, and I prayed we´d be able to communicate using my first grade Portugues and his first grade English. Luckily, it turns out that technology is universal, as is the language, which happens to be English. You just have to speak the words - hard drive, click, email, virus, BIG problem - with a Portugues accent. So we managed to get by, with the help of many beers, and some special software Rodrigo had is his bag of tricks. After of hours of searching and cleaning, 2 packs of cigarettes, and all the beer in my fridge, he found my files hiding in some deep, dark corner of my hard drive. 45 separate folders of Brazil 2006 photos were back, along with my files of writing, research, finances et al. I managed to shoo Rodrigo out the door around midnight, before he passed out, but not before he repeated for the third or fourth time his lecture on the risks of the Internet and the many sneaky Brazilian virus creeping around out there. Obrigada, tcheau.

While problems still abound in my computer world – I still can’t use certain programs, and have lost all my outlook emails and contacts, and I am blogging from a net cafe because my machine won´t let me – I was back in business. My show was on in one week, and I had lots of work to get done - invitations and gallery arrangements, newspaper interviews and production of the exhibition. Ahhh, meaning again on Planet Brazil, gracas a deus.

Since this mini-disaster, I have had a successful exhibition opening in Joao Pessoa, featuring 30 of my best photos of Paraiba – Terra de Luz – do Olho de Estrengeiro (Paraiba – Land of Light – From the Eye of a Stranger). I was lucky-enough to get write-ups in all three of the city’s newspapers, with front-page features and pictures of my photos AND me. Nossa. Now people are recognizing me on the street and saying hello, which is a strange thing, because oftentimes I have felt invisible.

Have a look for youself at a few of peoples’ favorties - above ´Janela ao Brejo´ (Window to the Wetlands) and here to the left ´Conoas Esperando´(Canoes Waiting). More soon, the computer gods permitting.