Brazil Articles (Resources)

1. The Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training website is the #1 resource I recommend most often to new Foreign Area Officers and one which I highlight in my article: So You've Got Orders, Now Read This Poem hosted at the excellent Africa OSC page.  Most notable are the country readers they have which consist of a chronological series of interviews with various embassy personnel from ambassadors to attaches to public affairs officers to management officers to GSOs.  These are an amazing supplement to studies of a country history as it offers a glimpse into our foreign policy/diplomatic posture at various points in time.   https://adst.org/Readers/Brazil.pdf  

The website also features podcasts and other articles such as the ones highlighted below. 

• Four Days in September — The Kidnapping of the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil
• The “Leaky Bucket”—Brazil and the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Brazil’s Long Detour on the Road to Democracy
• CSI: Sao Paulo — The Search for the Angel of Death

2. University of Chicago Revista Vaeranda Program

Academic department with a collection of public essays and experiences that capture a broad span of society, arts and government--such as this short essay: Revolution, not Transition: The Collapse of the Brazilian Military Regime

3. Brasilian Whatsapp Slang (my list)

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/brasilialifeafterdesign/282996878?autoplay=1 

4. In-Betweens of the Forest

Environmental activist, journalist, and National Book Award finalist Eliane Brum considers how governments and corporations destroy the Amazon and disrupt the under-recognized populations who live there, in this excerpt from Banzeiro Òkòtó.

5. https://countrystudies.us/brazil/

Related Brazil Posts:

• Brazil Podcasts
• Brazil Youtube Channels
• Brazil Starter Pack
• Brazil Articles and Resources
• Brazil Think Tanks and University Programs
  
• Brazil Movies, Doc and TV Shows

Poet of the week from Cameroon: Mbella Sonne Dipoko

In celebration of Cameroon's Independence Day (20 May 1972) my poet of the week is Mbella Sonne Dipoko.  I have provided a slew of links that can give you more background on his very interesting and colorful life.  I think that the poem that I have featured below aptly captures the spirit of the man whose life spanned the breadth of the human experience: poet, writer, chieftain, mayor, rebel and thinker.

NOTE: When I feature these poems I am not cutting and pasting them from anywhere since most of them aren't readily available on the web.   Instead I am retyping (transcribing) them from a book of poetry.  Initially this was tedious, but I have found that I enjoy it now.  Typing out the words, the stanzas, the periods, the capital letters, the commas, illuminates the poet's intent and state of mind for me. 

*From what I can tell, Dipoko wrote this poem in English.  I intend to translate it into French at a later date.

A Poem of Villeneuve St. Georges

(for M-C)

I am tempted to think of you

Now that I have grown old

And date my sadness

To the madness of your love.

All those flowers you hung

On my gate

All those flowers the wind blew

On the snow!

Why must I remember them now

And recall you calling me

Like a screech-owl

While I watched you

Through the window-pane

And the moon was over the Seine

And Africa was far away

And you were calling

And then crying

In the snow of exile

And the neighbor’s dog barking as if bored

By the excesses of your tenderness?

When I came down for you

And opened the gate

Cursing the cold of your hand

You always went and stood

Under the poplars of the river Yerres

At the bottom of the garden

Silently watching its Seine-bound waters;

And the moon might take to the clouds

Casting a vast shadow

That sometimes seemed to reach our hearts.

And then following me upstairs

You stopped a while on the balcony

As high as which the vines of the garden grew

With those grapes which had survived

The end of the summer

You picked a few grapes

Which we ate

I remember their taste

Which was that of our kisses.

And then in the room

You in such a hurry to undress

And you always brought

A white and a black candle which you lit.

Their flames were the same colour

Of the fire glowing in the grate

And you were no longer white

You were brown

By the light of the fires of love

At midnight

Years ago.

Dipoko was born in 1936 at Mungo, Cameroon.  He left Cameroon for Paris in 1960 and lived there for about 25 years (I think); he died in Tiko, Cameroon in 2009 .  He published two novels: A Few Nights and Days and Because of Women.  He also published a book of his poetry entitled Black and White in Love.  From what I have been able to research, he was also a controversial figure in his service as a mayor in Cameroon (in Tiko) under the CPDM after previously denouncing authoritarianism.

LINKS:

FUUO Poets of the Week Compilation

Wikipedia Dipoko entry http://anglocamlit.blogspot.com/2007/11/profile-mbella-sonne-dipoko.html

http://www.dibussi.com/2006/06/mbella_sonne_di.html
http://www.joyceash.com/2009/12/mbella-sonne-dipoko-dies-at-73.html
http://www.palapalamagazine.com/2009/12/in-memoriam-mbella-sonne-dipoko.html
http://www.peuplesawa.com/fr/bnvip.php?prid=4085&wid=2
FUUO Happy Birthday Cameroon Post

FAO Pro Tip #1 or Ode to VapoRub

UPDATE:  I brought back this tip with me stateside for some of those sporty short flights on regionals in the western US.

The first in a series of post offering professional tips for Foreign Area Officers.  As a FAO you will likely find yourself doing a fair share of travel on small, regional, aged, dated aircraft of questionable safety and sanitary standards--especially if you cover more than one country such as the case for me.

When there is so much that you CAN'T control--its important to control the things you can.  Below is my ode to that most essential of travel aids: VAPORUB.

ODE TO VAPO RUB

As I board the crowded dated plane
i'm oppressed by the stale stank air
stagnant and seeping hot.
a cold bead of sweat
peels
        down my side

As the last passengers are
crammed and shoved inside
I am slapped with such
a stankfunkystink
that I nearly gag

heart racing panic descends
as I am assaulted
my every effort consumes me
to not wrench my disgusted face
in the direction...directions?!
of this ancient sour stench

Surely I hope
surely you are with me
                                          my confidant my savior

ahh yes, yes

you rest silently in my pocket
the smooth small curves of your cylinder body
always at the ready

Quickly I uncap you
my fingers dive in and swing
from your eucalyptus branches
                                                                              heavens
I plunge your menthol rub                             the
into my nostrils                                    to
and                                       soaring
 goes my countenance
as I am enveloped in your
analgesic caress
that blocks out and protects me
from the vile olfactory siege
laid up on me.

I close my eyes and smile
safely ensconced in your
mentholated eucalyptol
arms.

LINKS:
FAO Pro Tip #2 -- You're only a handshake away
FAO Pro Tip #3 -- There's a reason NASA missions pack duct tape
List of other poems/notable prose written while in Madagascar

Sometimes When It Rains by Gcina Mhlophe

A beautiful poem from the South African poet, storyteller and activist Gcina Mhlophe.

Sometimes When It Rains by Gcina Mhlophe

Sometimes when it rains

I smile to myself

And think of times when as a child

I’d sit by myself

And wonder why people need clothes

Sometimes when it rains

I think of times

When I’d run into the rain

Shouting ‘Nkce—nkce mlanjana

When will I grow

I’ll grow up tomorrow

Sometimes when it rains

I think of times

When I watched goats

Running so fast from the rain

While sheep seemed to enjoy it

Sometimes when it rains

I think of times

When we had to undress

Carry the small bundles of uniforms and books

On our heads

And cross the river after school

Sometimes when it rains

I remember times

When it would rain hard for hours

And fill our drum

So we didn’t have to fetch water

From the river for a day or two

Sometimes when it rains

Rains for many hours without break

I think of people

Who have nowhere to go

No home of their own

And food to eat

Only rain water to drink

Sometimes when it rains

Rains for days without break

I think of mothers

Who give birth in squatter camps

Under plastic shelters

At the mercy of cold angry winds

Sometimes when it rains

I think of ‘illegal’ job seekers

In big cities

Dodging police vans in the rain

Hoping for darkness to come

So they can find some wet corner to hide in

Sometimes when it rains

Rains so hard hail joins in

I think of life prisoners

In all the jails of the world

And wonder if they still love

To see the rainbow at the end of the rain

Sometimes when it rains

With hail stones biting the grass

I can’t help thinking they look like teeth

Many teeth of smiling friends

Then I wish that everyone else

Had something to smile about

Happy Birthday to My Love! (a new stanza)

You, My Love

I.

You inhabit me my love

Grow deep and young inside me

Like a sapling

You sink your roots

They wander

and wonderfully

entangle me my love.

You transfuse me my love

My blood is no longer my blood

For you are present even there

Flowing

Ebbing

Beating

Searching out

my innermost places my love.

You have taken up residence my love

In the furthest reaches

Of the slumber of my sleep

You run with me

Your hand in mine

In impossible places

In surreal dimensions

of my dreams my love.

You come to me my love

A smile that creases my face

An echo of your joy

Surprising me

In the midst of my day

Memories of you

Flash and burn

Images of you

flickering and searing

across my mind my love.

II.

You, like a spirit my love

Like the inside of my soul

That I never knew

Before you

Who pulses now always

Inside of me my love.

You, embodiment of answered prayers

my love

Extension of grace

Shining down upon me

Soaking into me

Seeping into my every thought

The crown upon my head my love.

III.

You are there in the morning light

my love

In my waking moments

I reach for you

I am drawn by the immeasurable gravity

Of your love my love

Against you

Amaranthine rock my love.

You infuse laughter in my life

my love

You peal

And beckon me

Your song dances

Your voice

Clarion

Notes floating

And leaping

Whirling

And washing over me my love.

You abide restlessly in my heart my love

Always increasing

Pushing me further

Multiplying passion

Never ceasing

Insatiable hunter

Of my heart my love.

Always always always my love

You will remain the lover of my youth

As we grow old and everything around us

decays and rusts

For you and I my love—nothing alters

For you my love

Are Beauty, eternally defined

Tattooed kisses accumulating

overlapping everlasting

Across the story of my life my love.

IV.

You: the radiant carrier of life my love

Your belly swollen and growing

Your face beaming and golden

You, emerging and evolving

Into an even higher form of beauty

Me, falling deeper and deeper into you

You, Possessor of generations, my love.

You: succor, nourisher and protector,

Our babies cling to you

Like vines they surround and grow to you.

Pillar of strength and zenith of grace

Your love refuses to ebb and only grows

Washing over, sustaining, and imbuing protection

You are the sun and your gravity immense

Pulling us deeper into the chasms—of your love,

Mother and lover of our children my love.

You: a beauty infinitely transcendent.

With the dawn of each day

I open my eyes to see:

Your eyes sparkling

Ever richer and deeper sapphires and emeralds.

A smile that launches my heart aloft

A kiss that arrests my very soul

Fingertips whose winding paths

Smolder and singe and ignite

My lover, my wife, my muse

for whom my love today eclipses yesterday’s

but which falls immeasurable short,

of my love with each day’s dawn.

You my love

Are me

And I

am you.

We.

my love.

We.

An excerpt from "Death Before Dying"--Sufi poetry from the 17th century

My Granny Nanny Darling (yes–that is the name by which my grandmother prefers to be addressed) and I exchange letters, books and poems from time to time.  I shared with her some Bedouin poetry that I had come across in my grad school research and she shared the below excerpt from The Sufi Poems of Sultan Bahu 1628-1658.  Sultan Bahu was a Sufi saint and prolific writer.  I love the poem below--it captures beautifully many aspects of Sufism but also the prospect of facing death at the end of life.  He remains one of the most popular poets in India and Pakistan today.

Neither am I Sunni nor am I Shi’a–my heart is bitter with both

of them.

All long, dry marches came to an end when I entered the sea

of mercy.

Many nonswimmers tried and lost; a few climbed the other bank.

They made it across safe and sound, Bahu, who clung to the

guide’s hem.

From “Death Before Dying” 

More links:
Sufi Poetry Blog

Some of my favorite poetry books: