We are in Recife, our first stop on the Brazilian mainland,
which is a huge city of well over a million inhabitants built on a perfect
beach that stretches endlessly along the coast. It has million dollar condos
overlooking the ocean, and, literally a stone’s throw away, shockingly
ramshackle slums built on stilts in the inter-tidal zones of rivers and swamps.
The contrasts are everywhere. We shop for our food at a pristine modern mall
where security ride around on Segways and I visit the markets across the river
where the stink of garbage, crime, and poverty batter my senses in equal
proportions. Brand new luxury vehicles speed along highways past swarms of
dirty barefoot children scouring the ditches for scraps to eat. 
Sophie and Adelheid have left (sob) and HS and I are alone
together on the boat awaiting the opening of the customs office after the
holiday so that we can get the required paperwork completed and start to hop
south towards Rio. While we wait we are staying in an upscale marina which has
tennis courts and swimming pools, luxurious indoor and outdoor seating areas,
quality snack bars and restaurants. It is reminiscent of a classy resort. It,
again, has high walls topped with barbed wire and armed guards at the gate
24/7. I walk in and out, often wearing my tatty sailing outfits, without
showing any ID, but am never questioned. How do they know I belong? Do I?
Christmas Eve I convince HS to go out with me to a free public
performance - part musical, part unknown Christmas carols, part Cirque de
Soleil take off – held outdoors in one of town squares. It is all in
Portuguese, of course, and definitely a re-telling of the story of the First
Christmas, and though we enjoy it thoroughly we cannot figure out for the life
of us how the two slapstick comics who keep farting, the male cheerleader
squad, the lone violinist who plays love songs, or the many LionKingesque
animal characters fit into the story…
Christmas Day is slightly melancholy. I cannot quite shake my
guilt at being here, south of the equator, so far from my children… I had
understood from HS before we left that we would, without question, be at sea
over Christmas and yet here we are on land. I could have flown home, convinced
my kids to fly down here to be with me, but I didn’t know, and by the time I
got here they all had other plans. I feel a bad mother for avoiding my parental
duties of providing a family Christmas complete with parties and stockings and
turkey and trimmings and I worry about the karma of this situation. Also I
worry that I may have set a precedent of us not spending Christmas together
that I will come to regret in future years. I have never not had Christmas with
my kids. What was I thinking? How can I enjoy the loveliness of these
surroundings, palm trees by the pool and a white gloved waiter offering me yet
another cold drink, with this unease hanging over me? Will it pass?
I try to avoid my predicament by pretending that my biggest
problem of the day is choosing a photo to post on facebook. I have decided,
since I am not 16, that I can only post picture one per place that I visit, yet
we have been in Recife for several days and my camera and I have walked miles
together. Do I choose the exotic heron feeding at low tide, the soccer team
playing on the beach, the beautiful old church with the evening sky in the
background, the slums that fill me with despair, the couple choosing a plastic
reindeer… do I choose a photo that typifies as best as possible the city, one
that seems ‘artistic’, one that summarizes in some way my personal journey…
I had a very good chat with one of my kids just yesterday, and
the other two have e-mailed to say that their internet is too intermittent to
allow for skype so they will talk to me after New Years,,, hopefully tomorrow
when I get up and Christmas is over I will be able shake off my malaise,
hopefully when I get home they will all still be healthy and happy and making
good decisions on their own, hopefully they miss me, if not as much as I miss
them, then just a little bit. I think that, perhaps, is my greatest worry, that
I am the only one who feels out of sorts.
Hope everyone else had a fantastic Christmas together with
their family!
