4/14/08 11 pm

I realized in Mexico 9 years ago that being in a country where you have to speak another language is one of the most intense experiences. There and here in Brazil, my language skills are those of an 8 year old (or younger). What happens at the same time you speak and listen with the skills of an 8 year old is that you – or at least I – acquire the emotions of an 8 year old. The insecurities are more profound. The happiness is more elated. As my childhood was very happy, so is this time, my third or fourth experience living as a child, speaking poorly, living to trust adults with more knowledge than I. It’s just Day 1.

So tonight, I tried to discuss the philosophy of law, especially “cause,” with my host “Mirza,” whose name I do finally know for sure. She is, you see, a judge and she should be interested and informative. I happened to bring a book on Social Philosophy, to understand better what is “fair.” Fairness is an important concept in Rotary – one of the parts of the Four Way Test (Prova Quadrupla) is “Is it fair to all parties?” It is also important in my work – how do we split the credit for the success of a basketball team between the players? I philosophized in my book, Basketball on Paper, that it should be based on the difficulty of each person’s contribution, with “difficulty” becoming then the concept of investigation. In this book I brought, the perspective is legal and economic. And it has many examples. I attempted to tell Mirza this one:

There are 3 people. Both A and B want to kill C. C is out in the desert with a big supply of water in a tank. Person A goes out to kill C by adding salt to the water in enough quantity to killl. Before C can drink the water, B steals the whole supply and C then dies of dehydration. Who is to blame?

If I explained things right, Mirza said B because of the law here. Hell, if I explained things wrong in my fractured portuguese, she still said B. The book takes the easy way and says “it depends.” And I say both equally. Regardless, Mirza explained herself better than I can relay here. She is quite intelligent and, right now, the most difficult person for me to understand because I think she really uses more complex or at least more advanced terms. I kinda understood, but I’m not sure. I love the challenge and it is important. It’s a concept that is deep, one that is interesting to me, and I really want to be able to discuss this in more than english. I will get there.

We discussed that while waiting for our ride to dinner from the secretary of the local club, whose name is something like Sergio’s, but it’s not (late note: it’s Selso). I will learn it, but he’s Sergio for this account. We went to pick up Mike, got lost, then found him, then stopped to let him run back to get his camera. At this point, Sergio said that Manaus has 8 women for each 1 man. I really didn’t believe it, but still mentioned Caltech, where the ratio was 7 men to 1 woman in my freshman class. When we got to the restaurant – an open air, well lit, fish joint that was awesome (called Bon Gosto) – I told Sergio that I didn’t believe him (even in the face of 2 nearby tables having only women). So he said to ask Kathya. And Kathya said it was 20 women per 1 man. And she added the kicker – if you ask a man, he’ll say that some man has 40 women!

And so we laughed. I laughed a lot at dinner, eating a soup with fish, shrimp, rice, and some goopy yellow stuff, and what looked like uncooked cous-cous. That was 2 soups today – the first one a prianha soup (yes, that piranha) – that were outstanding. And, oh yeah, we drank beer. I never felt it, I don’t think. But I think I continued to speak pretty good portuguese. We really don’t know what or when we’re doing on this trip. I thought we were in Manaus until Monday, then I read something about Saturday, then dinner and beer happened and now it’s Idunnowhen and I think we’re going to a town called Obidos, maybe by boat, maybe by plane and boat.
I do hope we have our luggage whenever Idunnowhen is. This t-shirt is getting nasty.