Three book launches, three Dutchies
Only four years late, my long-time friend Joost visited me in Brazil over the last few weeks, coming over with wife Neha and their daughter. They had wanted to visit in 2020, but what is now the distant memory of COVID put a stop to that. Now, they were visiting for some three weeks, to enjoy the cultural riches of São Paulo, Foz de Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro, and Paraty.
After São Paulo, and a balloon flight in Boituva, Natalia and I joined our fine guests in Rio. From there, Natalia had to fly to Costa Rica and then the US, while I continued on a small roadtrip with the family to Paraty. The initial plan was to stop on Ilha Grande as well, but because of escalating problems with one of the servers I’m responsible for, I couldn’t run the risk of not being well-connected on that lovely of islands.
After an absence of two years, it was good being back in Rio. It’s winter, but the weather has been exceptional, regularly coming close to, or even topping, 30 degrees, both in Rio and in São Paulo.
In Rio, I also took the opportunity to leave a mark as part of a project I’m working on. It involves attaching a commemorative plaque to benches, with Rio being the 39th city receiving this honour.
After securing the little plaque the day before the Dutchies returned from Foz, we visited the square with the bench in question a few days later.Two men were sitting on the bench, munching on a burger, and Joost’s daughter and wife were curious enough to, not very subtly, investigate the bench, and the plaque, with the men still on it.
A woman, Cynthia, who was hanging out with the men, realised what was going on. “Ah, you want to see what is written!”, and shooed the two men away, following it up with an elaborate story about the person who was commemorated with the plaque. “Ah, this man, you see, he used to be here all-the-time!”
The name on the plaque, is mine.
Meanwhile, Natalia recently published her most recent book, on her involvement with Wikileaks. She had a launch in Brasilia which I couldn’t attend, but two launches in São Paulo, and Rio, I could.
Then, after visiting Paraty, and a tearful goodbye for the Dutches, I attended a book launch of Rafael Roncato, with whom I’m working on a project on Dutch colonialism in Brazil. His book is a visual interpretation of the stabbing of Bolsonaro.