The winter holidays are always a time to reflect and regenerate. This is my time to slow down and put things on hold for a while. I don’t know why I don’t read many books any more. I guess the telephone in my pocket has become a convenient, although less enriching substitute.  And even though I am constantly available to people through my “device”, I am not sure if the connections are any more substantive. I did not send out handmade holiday cards this year. I just did not make it a priority, but I don’t exactly know why. Again, I think the information overload that we are presented with every day may contribute to the lack of focus.  In any case, this blog is my poor substitute for personal cards. I wish everyone who reads this a wonderful happy holiday season and a joyous start of the 20’s.  May they be as roaring as the decade with the same name 100 years ago. 

I am in colorfully lighted Vilnius for a couple days. The Christmas tree in the Cathedral Square was voted “most beautiful” in Europe this year and it is lit up with a blue chess theme. I could see the sparkling tree from the airplane while flying here from Stockholm. Tonight, the fireworks will explode in the sky and bring in the new decade. In Vilnius, the lights seem flashier and more colorful than those of Stockholm. These two cities are sophisticated in different ways. Stockholm has the masculine fortitudinous architecture, with Lucia candles in the windows, and white lights adorning the sidewalks. Vilnius has the baroque facades in the Old Town, and the multicolor flashing Christmas trees, and more of a sense of change. I love both of these cities.

I got some cheap hockey ice skates this year. In Stockholm near our home, the Östermalms Idrottsplats has a huge ice rink, which is maintained beautifully and is cost-free for anyone to use. My nieces and I enjoyed improving our skating techniques, although when I tried skating backwards, I fell and hurt my knee. Now it is mostly better.  The best was the day after Christmas when the rink was sparkling smooth void of any people.

Moderna Museet, the Sunday after Christmas, was like a crowded subway station, but with a party-like atmosphere. This seemed the place to be, where friends bump into each other and unexpectedly reconnect. It is dark, but not terribly cold. At 8 degrees Celsius, Stockholm this winter is more or less the same temperature as San Francisco at night.  A big Christmas tree at home and lots of food and chocolate cookies make it the holidays.

I am a very fortunate person to have true homes in these vastly different cultures. The languages mix in my head, and I reorganize my wallets and telephones, but otherwise the transitions are quite seamless.  I don’t know what the next decade will bring: certainly more bright and dark times, but probably mostly a constant luminosity. Gott Nytt År! Laimingų Naujųjų Metų! Happy New Year! 

Brasília captured my heart. The architecture is imaginative. The boulevards are spacious. The nature is green and dynamic. But most impressive, all the people that I met are friendly, generous, and so extremely gracious. I was hosted by the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary Sciences at the University of Brasília for one week of lectures and meetings with the faculty and students. When I got there, I knew no one.  Now, I have many new friends.

My hosts showed me all the interesting tourist attractions. But for some reason, it seems that not many tourists visit Brasília.  I slept at the Hotel Nacional, where Queen Elizabeth stayed in 1968, and I had a view of the main esplanade from my 9^th floor window. The futuristic white cathedral and modern art museum were designed by the visionary architect Oscar Niemeyer. The whole city was envisioned by the beloved president Juscelino Kubitschek. I know that there are problems with the city; the traffic is heavy and it is confusing to drive. It seems that we go in circles a lot going from one boulevard to another in the same direction. They need better public transportation. And when it rains, which can happen a lot, the streets flood due to the lack of good drainage systems. But overall, there is a sense of space. There are wide open grassy fields, and the ever-present Lake Paranoá. There are tremendous vegan restaurants (more below), beautiful huge parks, and the nature of the Cerrado nearby. I had not read anything about Brasília. Now I feel I could write a book. 

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The airport is in the south part of this airplane shape city. Three cheerful and enthusiastic students picked me up. With all of the delight from my hosts, I felt eager to give as much of myself as possible.  Over the days, I delivered lectures about my research, plus malaria, Ebola, Bird flu, the origins of HIV, wildlife diseases and West Nile Virus.  My overarching theme for these veterinary students was how anthropogenic changes, such as deforestation and climate change, expose both humans and wildlife to new threatening pathogens. I lectured in the morning, and then in the afternoons, I was fed delicious food and then shuttled to all the important local attractions.

You enter the cathedral by descending down a long white ramp. Inside, the stained-glass windows silhouette flying angels. The acoustics of the architecture are interesting: when you whisper along the side of the rounded circular wall, another person can hear your voice many meters away.  The kids love to play with that sound phenomenon. Next, we moved to the nearby white, egg-shaped Museu Nacional da Republica  that was exhibiting photos from Berlin, plus modern native Brazilian totems. The architecture was more impressive than the art; again, with the rounded walls, and no apparent corners.  That day, the weather was hot, and this museum is one of the only buildings not surrounded by grass or water, but rather in a big open empty concrete square.  The city doesn’t reveal its problems. The homeless and poor are kept outside of Brasília proper, in the “satellite” cities.  The government of this place wants to present the beauty of the future, and not the true unpleasant realities of modern Brazilian life. The city is expensive, with high rents, so students and workers must commute from far way.  This is a pattern I see so often, in many of the world’s big cities; San Francisco, Delhi, Stockholm…

The botanical garden of Brasília is both manicured and wild. I discovered that I like a lemon grass-like tea- Capim Cidreira- that is harvested from the Cerrado. Mangos are plentiful as are delicious Baru nuts, and siriguela fruits. The Parque de Cidade is one of the largest urban parks in the world, and I wish I had had more time to exercise and jog alongside all the other runners. The exercisers in the park appear genuine, and not wearing fancy status outfits to highlight perfect bodies.  People of all colors and shapes were running at a pace that I could keep; I feel like I could easily fit in here. All I need is to speak some Portuguese.

A couple more highlights of the week.  1: A performance of Armandinho Mecado at the Clube do Choro.  I had never heard of him, but this is a famous Brazilian virtuoso guitarist. His technique was unbelievable, and he played some traditional Brazilian samba, plus also some creative improvisations, like one on Ravel’s Bolero. By the end of the evening, people were dancing like wild dolls in the aisles as he walked among them with his little white electric guitar. The backup players, two acoustic guitarists, one ukulele and the percussionist, were laughing in awe while accompanying his wild improvisations.

2: The next morning, with not quite enough sleep, we took a day long trip to Pirenópolis. The veterinary students, and residents don’t get much time to hang out together outside of work, so they all said that my visit facilitated more fun time. We all went in a big van to see and swim in the waterfalls. Incredible. Then when we got to the town, a huge Amazonian-like rainstorm deluge pushed us into a restaurant for a late lunch. I got to walk around a little bit, getting somewhat drenched. The old church that burned in 2002 is now renovated. The small streets are full of souvenir shops for the relaxed tourists who come through after their swims in nature. This was my last day, and a few hours later I would be on a plane back to the USA.  What I have learned is that science and sharing ideas can spark new friendships. Also that graciousness and generosity spawn a desire for reciprocity. This trip was unforgettable. 

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Vegan Brasília

In my suitcase, I had packed some packaged vegan Indian Tasty Bites meals, just in case there would be no vegan options in Brasília.  I never used them.  There are seemingly more vegan restaurants in Brasília than in most other cities I know.  Here are some of the places that I recommend. 

Villa Vegana: This should be a destination vegan restaurant.  I happened to be here on Thanksgiving day, and it was memorable. I persuaded my friends to come back again the next day.  It is an all you can eat buffet set in a quiet corner of Brasília. The owners grow their own vegetables, so everything is super fresh. I can’t say what dishes were my favorite, but the feijoada (stewed Brazilian beans) was excellent, as was the lasagna and salads and there were small elegant starters. Dessert was a coconut tapioca.  This was all for about $12. Yum. 

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Casa Graviola: Even though this place does serve meat options, the emphasis is on the freshness and creativity of presentation.  I ate here twice: once the root vegetable gnocchi with pesto, and another time the veggie burger.  Service is excellent, and it is a light and spacious quiet restaurant with a garden in the back. 

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Canelle Veggie and Co: This outdoor patio cafe is a nice place for snacks and desserts.  All vegan, and the cheesecake is light and fluffy.  We also had some traditional veganized snacks.  The service was a little slow, but it seems that you don’t have to rush in Brasília anyway.

Oya Cozinha Vegana: The menu features the foods of the goddesses. I loved this place too, with foods inspired from Bahia. I had a lentil parmigiana, and it was creative and delicious. You can choose one main dish with different sides.  This place seems just out of California, but with a Brazilian twist. 

Every restaurant appears to have vegan options. I could live in Brasília.

Thousands of scientists and policy makers get together every year for the annual meeting of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. The meeting focuses on human health in the tropical regions of the world. Malaria is the celebrity here, and the largest number of sessions in the largest rooms present the latest research and successes for this still killer disease. The Gaylord National Resort and Conference Center is humungous, and somewhat like Disneyland. There are expensive restaurants and big Christmas trees. It isn’t in the city, but removed to a difficult to access part of Maryland; no subways or buses.  Only Ubers. I study bird malaria, so there is not much going on here in my specific field. I attend this meeting to learn about the latest developments that confirm my claim that we can learn a lot about human malaria by studying the disease in birds. There is a lot we can learn about the transmission of diseases by studying them in natural systems. It is hard to study how deforestation and global climate change affect the disease dynamics of malaria in humans, because many of them have drugs and bed nets and doctors. I noticed that there was very little about the disease ecology of malaria, or the other diseases at this meeting. Tropical medicine is now moving more and more into genomics and big data. There has been huge progress in understanding the pathogens, and many areas of the world have been successful in lessening the burden of disease, but still the underlying ecology is somehow lacking.

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I love seeing scientists from all over the planet, and in this meeting, the African scientists are well represented. What bothers me is that this conference costs millions of dollars. The rooms at the conference hotel are about $300/night. I believe in the importance of networking, but it is simply too expensive. Most of this could be done over the internet, and the meeting could be held someplace much cheaper. Why Washington DC, and not someplace in Africa or South America?  I know it is the ASTMH, so the United States are the hosts, but we all live globally these days.  At least it could be a couple days shorter and in a cheaper US city. I stayed in Alexandria, across the bridge, to save some dollars. I visited the National Geographic Society headquarters, and also had a brief visit at the National Portrait Gallery. I gave my presentation on the last day of the conference; Sunday morning at 8:15 am, so not a huge audience, but still I generated some interest in our work. The National Museum of African American History and Culture was new to me, and I got to visit with my cousin, who happens to be African American. We didn’t have a lot of time to read everything, but the museum is beautifully done. The bottom floor exhibits the history of the slave trade and their tragic experiences. The exhibits are well done, but for me, I would have liked to see information about the African traditions that most assuredly persisted for a while, but were quickly lost. It must have been difficult for the curators to impress the museum-goers of the horrific conditions, but still make it tolerable. The museum is important and timely, and I also learned to enjoy the music of Chuck Brown and the Go-Go tradition in Washington DC. A visit to Washington always widens my perspectives.