EDUCATIONAL COMMUTING IN BRAZIL...
Autor: MARCELO DE ALMEIDA | Publicado: 2011-09-01T16:20:00-07:00

On the side of 'the interstate&nbsp;br-40', which links Rio de Janeiro to both Belo Horzonte and the north of Brazil, I keep waiting for a bus that just won´t come. I study for my next English language class which will be with the&nbsp;director of 'GE Celma', a place where&nbsp;jet turbines are overhauled&nbsp;in Petrópolis. Then, as a&nbsp;bunch of&nbsp;filthy trucks pass by on the highway, leaving me in a cloud of smoke, I turn to the German-English dictionary to check if a certain Anglo-Saxon word is German or Latin based. I notice that the word for 'Magic Wand' is 'Zauberstäb', but that the word 'Verwandeln' in German means 'To Transform'. That´s it, the word Magic Wand in English must also mean to transform! You must understand that I could really use a Magic Wand to beam myself straight to work right now.&nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;Suddenly, as a 'Danish Maersk Sealand truck' comes chugging up the grade, I decide to look up the word 'Wand' alone, just to make sure I´m really onto something interesting. However, it translates into ‘Wall’; ‘a division between to spaces’;&nbsp;and how about 'Ander'? I see that 'Ander' means 'another'; like in 'Andermatt Switzerland', or&nbsp;'another Swiss meadow'. Hey I like that; 'Wand', 'Verwandeln', 'Ander'- to switch to another or 'Transform'! 'Wand' probably employs the word 'Ander' to suggest that it&nbsp;moves something&nbsp;from one place&nbsp;to another. 
How´s that for studying on the side of the highway while waiting for a bus that never comes?
&nbsp;&nbsp;I look over to the other 'would be passengers' to check if they´ve seen the bus, but the women&nbsp;are holding babies and talking about what makes them so much tougher than their husbands. In the case of the men, the conversation is about why their wives can´t&nbsp;keep them locked up at home.
&nbsp;I hold my breath as a china shipping convoy growls it´s way up the highway past my bus stop; black smoke filling our lungs with toxins, but still no bus. I glance at my watch to make sure I still have time to arrive at work, who wants to lose two hundred bucks because of a faulty transport system. 

&nbsp; The next truck to approach on the ‘BRASIL-40 interstate highway’ is my favorite transport company, 'Hamburg Süd', since they were responsible for bringing European immigrants to the southern states of Brazil in the 1800´s. They, like many other trucks, always travel in pairs for road security, and that&nbsp;keeps me entertained&nbsp;because I know&nbsp;there´ll always be&nbsp;another one after the first passes, and flashes of yesteryear will go through my mind when I think of hitchhiking&nbsp;around northern Germany as a young man. I figure these trucks are evidence that the ‘port city of Hamburg’ still exists, for as long as these containers keep passing&nbsp;by on this&nbsp;Brazilian road, there has got to be a port.
&nbsp;I keep imagining the cargo coming up from&nbsp;'Süd Amerika',&nbsp;and being unloaded onto trains under foggy North Sea skies. Finally, as these&nbsp;red shipping containers leave me behind, my late bus arrives, but it´s too full to get into.&nbsp;I´m not feeling gay today to ride ‘like sardines’, and will just have to wait for the next one.

&nbsp; A thick layer of ocean fog begins rolling into the deep mountain valley now until eventually we are all enveloped in it´s cleanliness. Clouds&nbsp;seem cold and clean but their dampness hurts my lungs, especially since I´m a Southern California man. 
&nbsp;&nbsp; After some minutes I start pretending that Petrópolis is a place called Hamburg Süd, and&nbsp;continue imagining loading docks down in Rio de Janeiro lifting these heavy containers onto 'Dampshifffahrers', or 'huge ships' bound for Europe.
&nbsp;&nbsp; I return to my dictionary and look up the word 'Augenblick' which I´d&nbsp;picked up from&nbsp;my favorite news channel- the ‘Deutsche Welle';&nbsp;the word&nbsp;means 'A Moment'. I now flip through the musty old pages (everything in Petrópolis gets musty), and what comes up for 'Augen' is 'eye' and for 'Blick' is 'blink or glance'. Wait a second,&nbsp;the&nbsp;term for&nbsp;'Moment' in a German´s mind is seen as 'a glance&nbsp;of the eye'?! 'Augenblick' or 'eye blink', is that right?.
&nbsp;&nbsp; I step back from the pavement to let another truck convoy pass; it´s an 'Itaipava beer truck' this time. Oh, this beer brewing company is Brazilian, I remind myself, and I&nbsp;make up&nbsp;a new theory that the cleanest trucks are national companies. The multinationals such as 'White Martins' tend to keep their minds on the money and not worry about what their dirty trucks look like.&nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;Glancing over&nbsp;now at the pretty girls who´ve just arrived,&nbsp;and taken shelter from the advancing cloud drizzle&nbsp;under the bus stop roof, I see that they return my&nbsp;attention till I become self conscious; I´m married, I can´t keep looking at them. But their stares inspire a thought. What will become of the&nbsp;forgotten people of the world as these big businesses come creeping in and gobbling up all the resources?
&nbsp;Then I notice that every other truck that passes honks their horns at the girls. The teenagers sometimes yell back in fun- "Is your money the kind that folds or the kind that jingles?" That´s what it´s all about when you´re family can´t make ends meet. I get mad at the Brazilian government, and start swearing under my breath- They´ll never invest any real money to fix this mess, will they? 
&nbsp; According to my dictionary&nbsp;'Vergangenheit' is&nbsp;the German word for the past. &nbsp;Brazil´s&nbsp;destructive and negligent&nbsp;past allowed endless children to be born, but the country never invested in them. Perhaps this hard reality&nbsp;will change soon, with all these multinational companies clogging up the highways...

&nbsp;&nbsp;The fog is coming in thick now, almost like a blast of refrigerated air, cooling my overheated body; nice. I fan my face with the book as my thoughts go back to childhood visits during winter,&nbsp;before I became aware that&nbsp;Petrópolis&nbsp;actually gets&nbsp;hot in the summer.&nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp; The next truck to work it´s way up the pavement is 'Malibu Transports'. I must say that they run a clean show for a foreign company; no black sided trucks. Also the exhaust pipe faces left instead of right so the 'would be passengers', practically sleeping at the bus stop by now, don´t get smoked out this time. 
I think back to my dad counting till- 'four' and then pretending to fine the transport company for not overhauling their engines when they got worn out,&nbsp;like the ‘highway patrol’ used to do back in California; good&nbsp;attitude Malibu! I think the future of the world is to be able&nbsp;to&nbsp;ship apples&nbsp;from California so that Australians can eat them out of season, and produce cheap shoes in china so that Americans can still afford to be nicely dressed even if they lose their jobs, and all this without messing up everybody´s countries. 
Let´s check the dictionary&nbsp;under the heading&nbsp;'future' shall we? Oh,&nbsp;in German it´s 'Zukunft', or&nbsp;'Still to Come'. Of course, the future hasn´t yet arrived, it is still coming. Languages are&nbsp;quite logical, aren´t they!
&nbsp;&nbsp;Finally as a 'Transpallet Passenger Jet Turbine Transport Truck' passes us&nbsp;on it´s way to the same place I´m going, I see another bus. A bus!!! Hold on, I must just make sure it isn´t a mirage... No, it´s ‘a real bus’! Checking my watch I realize that I´ve been waiting for one hour already. That´s Brazil.
&nbsp;It stops and I get on. All the windows are closed because most Brazilians have an aversion to rain and cold, so the bus is like a moving sauna and I begin trying to take off my jacket, but without success, since the bus is too full&nbsp;for me to move. 
&nbsp; The final stop is inside 'the Bingen bus terminal' where I hop onto a cool and empty bus towards downtown. I get off in front of GE Celma just as the next wave of fog blasts past me, freezing the air again. Their compressor house is working at full force to keep the overhauls going as night falls, and the tractors are beeping their way around the buildings in order to unload jet turbines from 'the Transpallet trucks' which pull up one after the other.&nbsp;
I think back to my childhood and understand what makes this place seem so familiar&nbsp;to me. I remember going skiing at Snow Summit Ski Area in Southern California as a kid, when my dad was still alive and supervising the ‘mechanic´s office’ there. It was always on Friday nights when the entire school would be skiing, and the snow making jets&nbsp;sounded like ‘turbines’, as&nbsp;delicate ice particles&nbsp;filled the cold air.&nbsp;
Suddenly, I recall the German word for&nbsp;'The Past'&nbsp;which is&nbsp;'Vergangenheit', and philosophize about&nbsp;how we carry&nbsp;memories around&nbsp;with us till the end of our lives, even&nbsp;when we&nbsp;move far away from home.&nbsp;I was bound to find something familiar down here in the foggy mountains of Petrópolis. 
&nbsp;&nbsp; At last , I put on my ‘visitor´s badge’ and&nbsp;walk through the gates, thinking about just how&nbsp;educational my ‘Brazilian commutes’ always&nbsp;turn out to be.&nbsp;