A Wee Update from the Land of Insane Fieldwork Logistics

So, updates are still slow in coming. There are two reasons for that:

1) I'm trying to pull together the mind-boggling logistics of my fieldwork. See that map on the right of the page showing "where is Corin?" Look closely... Yes, those piddly little blobs of white are European nations swimming in the vast sea of territory that makes up Brazil. My fieldwork will take me through more than 10% of this enormous country -- an area about 6.5 times larger than England. Or, for those of us from more reasonably sized countries, it's an area about twice as big as California, equal to the Four Corner States (without Arizona, since we'd rather like to ignore them for a while anyway), or just under twice the size of the Yukon. Now that you've got some inkling of how much ground I need to cover in 3 months, imagine doing it all by bus. And voila! I'll count up my total mileage at the end of the trip, but I can tell you right now that I'm looking at about four 10 (or more)-hour bus trips.

2) Leo has asked that I be strategic about my updates. The recent activity of trolls on my blog has made Leo nervous about me announcing my geographic coordinates to The Interwebs. He thinks that if someone can be so utterly barmy as to assume that total strangers crave their uneducated and unsolicited opinions -- as much as 9 times in a row -- they are probably not the world's most stable individuals. I agree with much of Leo's logic, but I told him that trolls can't be bothered to come off of their high horses ("Ew. The masses.") or out of their parents' basement ("Augh! Sunlight!"). He shouldn't worry, I told him, but it seems that Leo is rather fond of me (and I of him), so I won't be updating about where I am so much as where I've been, which means that you'll all be waiting at least another week before I'm on the move again and can therefore post an update.

So, for your reading pleasure in the meantime: a fabulous blog by Cheryl at Us, After America on exile and the unsavory privileges we retain (even as we lose our rights).