Icapui

In a crazy, jumbled, spontaneous Brazilian-like fashion I found myself in Icapui this weekend. Icapui is a beach town about 3 hours south of Fortaleza and the last stop on the east coast of Ceará where I am doing research. Right as the weekend was about to commence, my big weekend of actually starting my own research here, several things happened. First, in organizing my research and my first visit to my first study site, I was informed that it was rather dangerous to go there. And by rather dangerous I mean I would have to have a police escort. So with visions of Ricky Ricardo in a speedo as my escort, I began to try to organize. However, as with trying to organize anything in Brazil, I was met with bureaucracy that slowed the process down. I would have to write a formal request asking the Nature Police (Policia Florestral) for an escort to these areas, specifying dates and times, with no guarantee that they would get back to me. Ugh, another logistical nightmare on my hands. Then came several scary stories of scary things happening to people that were accompanied by the Nature Police in these areas. Let’s just say the police ran running for the hills when it came time to stop sun-bathing and start law-enforcing. But thankfully, (thankfully?), I got a call from the professor, saying that although my permit had been submitted I wasn’t allowed to start until it was approved. This was news to me, as I had been advised differently from her several weeks before. Alas, this should not be a shock. Brazilian bureaucracy gives one a headache worse than a migraine. But it did mean that I would not be conducting field research this weekend and hence I would not be requiring Ricky Ricardo speedo and all to accompany me. (side note: I have since decided not to go to these two most dangerous research sites because they require a police escort and although at times I complain, I do enjoy living my life—so mom you can rest easy danger associated with research is not in my near future)

However as all this was unfolding late on a Thursday afternoon, I was also following up on a lead that there was someone in the Aquaculture Department at the University Of Ceará that was raising seahorses. I called, well ok not me, Carol- think the new Gabi if you’ve been following the blog, aka potentially my new research assistant) she called to see if this seahorse aquaculture guy (Koba, short for Kobayashi) had any interest in talking to me. He did AND he also invited me down to his beach house in Icapui for the weekend! Now I wasn’t sure if it was so I could do research down there; if I was going to be helping him do research, or if we were just going to get to know one another and see how we could work together.

It turned out to be the latter but I spent the weekend at his gorgeous home, hidden amongst the sand dunes with a spectacular view from my hammock in his home. He also invited another girl, a brazilian, who had just finished her doctorate and had recently returned to Brazil from a year of traveling to come along. This girl and I became good friends and spent one day walking 14 km along the beach, seeing some fantastic views and colors of the sand and ocean. It was amazing to see how many houses were hidden in amongst the sand dunes.

Koba turned out to be an excellent source of information for learning about how to do research in different beach towns in Ceará. I got to know some local fishermen who will help me with research when I head down to Icapui in July and Koba offered for me to stay at his house too! It was an interesting weekend filled with beautiful vistas, new friends and new details of how to go about my research here in Ceará. Not the weekend I had hoped for (actually starting research), but a great one none-the-less!