July 2016
News breaks about the Bastille Day massacre in Nice, in the south of France.
Innocent people, including children, are blown to pieces while celebrating Bastille Day at their annual firework display. Islamic State claims responsibility for the attack.
Our newspapers are filled with photos of blood-soaked revellers - well-dressed middle-class people, injured and seeking medical help, baby strollers upturned and broken, toys strewn on the ground, people grieving. A journalist describes the scene in graphic detail. His account is almost unbearable to read.
I attend a memorial event at which we observe a minute's silence for those lost in the violent tragedy.
The whole thing makes me feel terribly sad. What is the world coming to, when France is a dangerous place to visit? I've been to Nice, and I know the area where this atrocity was committed. I've been in France on Bastille day - twice - once in Paris, and once in Lyon, where we enjoyed the fireworks display from a crowded bridge, standing shoulder to shoulder with the local residents. I can easily imagine the scene before, and after, the event.
I console myself with the thought that these terrorists have (so far) not shown any interest in South America.
I set about making plans for our visit to Brazil. I book my husband's flight to São Paolo, where he will attend a conference before joining me in Rio. Once his arrangements are in place, I turn my attention to my own flights and accommodation. I will be flying straight to Rio, checking into a hotel to recover from jet lag, and relaxing for a couple of days, until Enéias arrives, and we can begin rehearsing for our show.
One wintry Saturday morning I go along to my Portuguese class to find we have a new student. Abby has recently returned from a six-month University exchange in Rio. I ask her how she found the security situation. She tells us how one day her taxi from the airport was held up at gunpoint. Her driver unlocked the doors and climbed out of the car - it's the opposite of the instinctive reaction to lock the doors. That will just make the bandits shoot you. "If they come for you, don't look at them; they are crazy and don't care. They just want to take your stuff; they are not really aiming to harm you".
Another student, Andrew, chimes in. He's seen an online video of gunfire on the highway in Brazil. People get out and lie on the ground while bullets whiz around them. They know what to do - it's like a drill.
Abby also recalls sitting in class while hearing the sound of gunfire from the favela adjoining her University. And another day, when she and her boyfriend visited a beautiful lake, they saw some people there being robbed. On another occasion, they witnessed some drug lords threatening a debtor.
Now I am really scared. I will have several people coming to Rio separately, and I need them all to arrive alive and in one piece. I'll be flying straight to Rio, my husband is coming via São Paolo, Enéias flying in from Jaraguá, and also our percussionist who will arrive a couple of days later.
Andrew adds, helpfully, that Rio is not on the list of the world's thirty most dangerous cities.
Andrew and Abby suggest that the domestic airport is safer than the international one. But do I really want to make an extra stop and change flights?
Next month, thousands of tourists will flood into Rio for the Olympic games. Inevitably, there will be robberies and muggings. Criminals will smell opportunity. Already there has been a report of an television crew being attached on Copacabana Beach (that beach is the worst, says Abby).
Our show is in Copacabana, so that's where we will be staying.
I suppose most people will be all right. But that's not much comfort if it's you or your friends or loved ones who are caught in the crossfire. For a moment I permit myself to think about the potential horror, as if the worrying will confer some sort of protection.
I'm hoping that by October, things will have calmed down, and Rio will again be the Marvellous City that I visited last year.
And these days, it seems, anything can happen wherever you are.
On the news we see reports of a wedding in Turkey that is ruined when a twelve year old boy turns suicide-bomber.
Our newspaper lists little-known laws in Dubai that visitors commonly breach, which can lead to imprisonment.
One night, coming home from a show at La Boheme and entering a roundabout, we narrowly avoid a smash with an oncoming car. I take a deep breath and try not to imagine the screech, the scrunch, the mess of shredded, twisted metal, the smoke and flames, our mangled selves and my Brazilian dream broken forever.
News breaks about the Bastille Day massacre in Nice, in the south of France.
Innocent people, including children, are blown to pieces while celebrating Bastille Day at their annual firework display. Islamic State claims responsibility for the attack.
Our newspapers are filled with photos of blood-soaked revellers - well-dressed middle-class people, injured and seeking medical help, baby strollers upturned and broken, toys strewn on the ground, people grieving. A journalist describes the scene in graphic detail. His account is almost unbearable to read.
I attend a memorial event at which we observe a minute's silence for those lost in the violent tragedy.
The whole thing makes me feel terribly sad. What is the world coming to, when France is a dangerous place to visit? I've been to Nice, and I know the area where this atrocity was committed. I've been in France on Bastille day - twice - once in Paris, and once in Lyon, where we enjoyed the fireworks display from a crowded bridge, standing shoulder to shoulder with the local residents. I can easily imagine the scene before, and after, the event.
I console myself with the thought that these terrorists have (so far) not shown any interest in South America.
I set about making plans for our visit to Brazil. I book my husband's flight to São Paolo, where he will attend a conference before joining me in Rio. Once his arrangements are in place, I turn my attention to my own flights and accommodation. I will be flying straight to Rio, checking into a hotel to recover from jet lag, and relaxing for a couple of days, until Enéias arrives, and we can begin rehearsing for our show.
One wintry Saturday morning I go along to my Portuguese class to find we have a new student. Abby has recently returned from a six-month University exchange in Rio. I ask her how she found the security situation. She tells us how one day her taxi from the airport was held up at gunpoint. Her driver unlocked the doors and climbed out of the car - it's the opposite of the instinctive reaction to lock the doors. That will just make the bandits shoot you. "If they come for you, don't look at them; they are crazy and don't care. They just want to take your stuff; they are not really aiming to harm you".
Another student, Andrew, chimes in. He's seen an online video of gunfire on the highway in Brazil. People get out and lie on the ground while bullets whiz around them. They know what to do - it's like a drill.
Abby also recalls sitting in class while hearing the sound of gunfire from the favela adjoining her University. And another day, when she and her boyfriend visited a beautiful lake, they saw some people there being robbed. On another occasion, they witnessed some drug lords threatening a debtor.
Now I am really scared. I will have several people coming to Rio separately, and I need them all to arrive alive and in one piece. I'll be flying straight to Rio, my husband is coming via São Paolo, Enéias flying in from Jaraguá, and also our percussionist who will arrive a couple of days later.
Andrew adds, helpfully, that Rio is not on the list of the world's thirty most dangerous cities.
Andrew and Abby suggest that the domestic airport is safer than the international one. But do I really want to make an extra stop and change flights?
Next month, thousands of tourists will flood into Rio for the Olympic games. Inevitably, there will be robberies and muggings. Criminals will smell opportunity. Already there has been a report of an television crew being attached on Copacabana Beach (that beach is the worst, says Abby).
Our show is in Copacabana, so that's where we will be staying.
I suppose most people will be all right. But that's not much comfort if it's you or your friends or loved ones who are caught in the crossfire. For a moment I permit myself to think about the potential horror, as if the worrying will confer some sort of protection.
I'm hoping that by October, things will have calmed down, and Rio will again be the Marvellous City that I visited last year.
And these days, it seems, anything can happen wherever you are.
On the news we see reports of a wedding in Turkey that is ruined when a twelve year old boy turns suicide-bomber.
Our newspaper lists little-known laws in Dubai that visitors commonly breach, which can lead to imprisonment.
One night, coming home from a show at La Boheme and entering a roundabout, we narrowly avoid a smash with an oncoming car. I take a deep breath and try not to imagine the screech, the scrunch, the mess of shredded, twisted metal, the smoke and flames, our mangled selves and my Brazilian dream broken forever.
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