I saw this on the wall of the Churrascuria near my school. I haven’t been here since last week and this must have been posted by the staff over the weekend. Love it. Translation: “We are smart We are caring We are fighters We are delicate, beautiful and sensitive. We are romantic, sensual, and sincere. …
Invisible Woman
I have stumbled across a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy here at the farm. Case in point: I have cleared by hand over two acres of land, built a garden, pruned fruit trees, scraped the corral clean of manure, trimmed the shrubs by hand with a machete, repaired and laid water lines, cleaned the cistern …
Fotocrônica: Work Gloves
See those thorns the size of effing knitting needles? That’s a wild lemon tree, which grow all over our property. Good for caipirinhas at the end of a long day, not so good for those doing the yardwork. It seems everything has thorns here. Last year started counting thorny and stinging plant varieties as a way to …
Ok, I take (some of) it back
Life has a way of dishing out lessons in humility. Not one week after writing about how there were no lesbians anywhere in the Brazilian mainstream media, I watched Assalto ao Banco Central and now feel the need to throw some guilty applause in their direction. The character of Telma Monteiro (played by Giulia Gam), one of the …
Dragging ourselves over the gender line
There she was behind us in line at the bus station, or at least I assumed she preferred being termed “she.” Shoulder-length hair that seemed hers not a wig, hands moving in fluttering movements (really, where do they get that? how many women actually move like that?), eyebrows plucked within a centimeter of their lives, clothes a …
Sexing the Banana*
The epitome of the feminine, the papaya, can only be planted by women. Heck, in some parts of the Spanish-speaking world it is another word for vulva, which in my opinion beats beaver any day. (By the way, I could talk at length at how both Spanish and Portuguese are far better a describing the …
