The Congress

The congress venue was a 40 minute bumpy scary minivan ride away. I didn't mention that the minivans were often without working seatbelts. No matter - apparently I escaped unscathed. I'm back home and all in one piece.

Here is a little map of where the venue, the Centro de Convençöes do Ceará, was located. It was pretty gigantic, with a large PT fair on the main level, the congress above on a mezzanine floor. There were large coolers of filtered water everywhere, and a stand for free coffee, so I was happy. The coffee was served in teesny tiny cups, but this was balanced by the fact that it had a lot of punch. Lunch was a large buffet service, included for free.

I did my first scheduled presentation Thursday, May 13. Here is a picture of me presenting. The woman to my right is Laura, the translator, who had lived in Toronto for a few years and spoke excellent English. She was staying at the same hotel and made herself available to go over the presentations with me beforehand.

I still can hardly believe that's me, wearing a skirt for the first time in about 20 years no less. There were about 1700 people in the room. Behind me were 5 large screens, stretched out in a line, so that everyone could see everything from wherever they were sitting.

I met many of the other presenters, listened to their presentations as best I could, not being fluent in anything but English (which was a surprise to many since I'm from a supposedly bilingual country, and finally, at this late stage of life an embarrassment to me that I never found French something my brain could wrap itself around as easily as it did Spanish).

A lot of the presentations seemed to be mostly 40 minute long advertisements for various schools of osteopathic mesodermalist thought. The Upledger institute was there, being promoted by somebody from Panama .. pictures of dolphins and babies, shots of its white-and-fluffy-haired founder. I thought about, but refrained from asking about, the therapy tragedy in the Netherlands - I had my own presentation to get through.

I was unprepared, actually, for what felt a bit like rock star treatment after I was done. Scores of beautiful young Brazilian PT students, both female and male, came up directly after and wanted their friends to take a picture of them with me, in ones, twos, small groups. It's quite the custom. The camera and I have never been close friends, more like distant acquaintances. So no picture of me ever makes me look good. Whatever. I complied.

Here is a picture of me (wearing my comfortable flat shoes, with foot scabs from a different pair of sandals that had chewed my feet up pretty good the day prior) looking very short, the little fashion schlub from Canada, beside the other women in their 4-6 inch platforms and heels and guapo men; Helder, the organizer, in his guapo suit. Sarah Mottram is second from left. Fourth from left is Marlene, who was Sarah's helper throughout, Palmiro beside her. I met the other two but don't have a working memory of who they are.

Leaving Rio for Fortaleza

With the workshop over, I had a chance to see old downtown Rio, visit an incredible pastry shop (see photo), and shop for a new shirt in Ipanama, fashionista that I am (not), with Adriana (Palmiro's girlfriend), a very nice woman with her own practice there.

I had been staying at the Vilamar Copacabana Hotel a number of days before I realized how close I was to Copacabana beach - only about three blocks. I didn't wander around by myself, thanks to Palmiro's warnings; when I did go out, it was usually with him or with other designated handlers, to some preplanned place for a specific task, so I had no clue the ocean was only meters away. On my last evening in Rio a small group of us went out to eat on the beach, and it finally sank in how close it was. We ate in a tent restaurant, right on the beach, the worst food I experienced in Rio (where the food was ordinarily fabulous) - dried out chicken and fries and watered down drinks, a too-loudly-miked-and-guitared singer singing Stairway to Heaven and other old songs, (annoyingly) in English.

The highlight of that last evening was insisting we walk down to the edge of the water, where my feet and the Atlantic ocean finally met and could greet each other. It was dark; a few lit-up ships sparkled in the distance, the air was still, the waves full and slow and warm. We couldn't linger though - the one slightly-built 20-something guy with us was nervous - possibly he had visions of his little flock of older foreign female responsibilities being total mugger bait, might have been overcome by the thought that he wouldn't be able to protect all of us all by himself. He soon wanted us to go back up to the street. So, an excellent moment, one of those rarest of moments that seems to hang suspended all by itself in eternity, one I wish could have lasted a lot longer, was over, and we walked back.

Next morning we were all up early to catch the plane to Fortaleza, 4 hours north, on the north coast of Brazil very near the equator. I had my first ever Congress presentation to make the next day, and stewed over my slides some more on the plane. I sat beside a nervous woman in the window seat who had never flown before and wanted the window cover down the whole time. Palmiro was on my other side. I was informed that Fortaleza was a dangerous city, that people had started noticing that plane loads of men came from everywhere just to buy sex with children, that authorities had begun to deal with the problem. When I asked how large the city was, I was told it was "just a small city," maybe 2 million. (Two million is huge in Canada. Double the entire population of the entire province of Sask. Oh well.) As it turns out, the size of Fortaleza is more like 3.5 million if you count in all the burbs.





What I was completely unprepared for and made me ecstatic was finding out the hotel faced the beach and that I had ended up in the ocean-facing side. I was able to look out every morning and say hello to this roiling turquoise marvel, right across the street from my 4th floor room.

Next, the congress.