Dangerous Currents

I still remember trying to peal off the pink wallpaper in my room. Faded pencil dashes grayed the wall, marks of my childhood. We were moving and I was trying to understand what was going to happen to the only home I'd ever known. The idea of another nine-year-old girl replacing my height marks with her own bothered me. Couldn't I just take the wallpaper with me? What if I didn't like who was going to be sleeping in my room?

Life in Sao Paulo, Brazil's polluted metropolis, had reached a boiling point. Fed up with crime and corruption, my parents packed our lives into a couple of suitcases and announced we were moving. They were determined to leave. So determined that they took off with no jobs or family to anchor them. It paid off and they traded Sao Paulo's smoggy skyline for suburban Miami's green lawns and strip malls. They never looked back.

That was 18 years ago. This week, much to their dismay, I reversed that journey. With four suitcases and 1 1/4 jobs between us, my husband and I moved to Brazil. We left behind stable jobs in the US, a wonderful apartment and some of the best friends we've ever had, and landed in a country that almost everyone agrees is falling apart. The laundry list of Brazil's current problems will give any place a run for its money.

Gripped by the worst recession since the 1930's, a mysterious Zika epidemic, a failing health system and a political crisis that is threatening the country's democracy, Brazil is paralyzed. Yesterday, the president was impeached, sparking mass protests around the country.

But my memories here planted in me a curiosity I've long wanted to water. After we left, I spent my summers trying to piece together a Brazilian identity. I'd try to pick up new slang from my cousins, mimic the style of Brazilian actresses I saw on TV, listen to sad Bossa Nova songs on repeat, hoping the lyrics would seep into me.

Still, I was always playing catch up. On prolonged trips the holes in my identity would inevitably shine through, and I'd return to the United States a stranger in both lands. As I moved around the world, nothing would make me happier than seeing a glimpse of Brazil abroad. The thick green hills of Mozambique, the empanadas in Chile, the windy roads in France, all looked like home.

It's time to see the real thing. I want to rediscover Brazil as an adult, dive into the good and the bad, and pack up my own bags when I think it's time to go.