The Ant Blog

Episode 4:  Deleted Pasts, Tim Howard Saves and Christ the Savior: History Lessons in Salvador Watching the Belgium vs USA match in Salvador was a slightly awkward experience. More than two thirds of the stadium was there to cheer for a Soccer team, while everybody else was watching a football match. It was a foregone conclusion that the “Football” team or Équipe de football, to be precise, would beat the “Soccer” one. But for a short while it seemed that there was nothing that Tim Howard, the brave American goalkeeper, could not save. (as illustrated in the adjoining image) Exhilaration at watching your last world cup football match in Brasil paired with a strange sense of unease that neither team playing deserves a place beyond the round, for various reasons. In retrospect that could sum up the entire Salvador experience. Something exhilaratingly beautiful and incredibly exotic, that you  wouldn't  trade for anything else, paired with that itch in the g...

Episode 3:  Montezuma and Mexican Waves in beach-side Fortaleza Fortaleza is way up north of Brasil and is a good three hour flight from Sao Paulo . And of course, the next stop in our ‘ as insightful as an ant’s view of an elephant’s posterior ’ whirlwind tour of Brazil is this little beach town turned into a fast evolving economic hub. The economy of Fortaleza is fueled in large parts by tourism, given its long winding pristine beaches; but much to local disapproval, it has ended up attracting all the other add-ons of the beach bum economy (i.e. think Pattaya ). Benny, a Mexican born American citizen is in the city to study Portuguese as part of an exchange program and his dissertation for the next six months is on  the effort to clean up the tourist trade in Fortaleza. We are staying in a eighty year old Portuguese house tucked away in a quiet part of the town, with a sweet sixty five year old- Ana, her two daughters, six dogs and several Portuguese learn...