I arrived in Rio de Janerio on Tuesday. I was stunned by the sheer physical beauty. Great monoliths of stone exploding out of the sea like fists and forearms exploding into our reality from other dimensions. I went to the Tourist Information Center on Friday and picked up a pamphlet detailing things of interest to the tourist. Rio is filled with all kinds of museums. I looked through the list and circled the ones I wanted to see. The Folk Art, the Modern Art, the Classical Art, the Native Indian Art,the Carmen Miranda, the Gunpowder, the Gemstone and the Museum of Life. Being a science teacher I am a great fan of science museums. San Francisco has one of the best, the Exploratorium. Its always fun to see how the other museums around the world stack up to it. The information book described the Museum of Life as a highly interactive museum that seeks to show the links between physics, biology, chemistry, and medicine. It sounded great, especially the interactive part.

I set our ambitiosly at 9 am armed with a map,an address and a sense of adventure. You never expect things to be easy in another country especially when you don't speak the language. The subway was easy enough to get on. The key was to get on the right train and to get off at the right stop. I went through the usual routine of asking what were probably ridiculous sounding questions that made the Brazilians think I was either drunk,crazy,stupid,a tourist, or some combination. Questions like ,"Excuse me. Where am I?" My stop was suppossed to be Triagem Station ( not a very confidence inspiring name). It turned out that I was at the very first station so all the trains went in only one direction. No wonder people looked at me strangly when I asked which train I should get on.

It seems as though no one knows the place you're looking for even if you're 100 feet from it. This doesn't stop them from telling you though, usually pointing in the wrong direction. I would ask three people and take the average. Of course there are times when someone gives you what you know are wrong directions. Then you are faced with the dilemna of ignoring their directions and possible insulting them or going in what you suspect is the wrong direction until they are out of sight and then turning around and backtracking. By the law of averages I generally zero in on my target, sweeping out wide circles that get smaller and smaller until I'm there.

After about an hour of walking around in the outskirts of an industrialized part of Rio I asked a cab driver where the Museum of Life was. He shook his head ( a bad sign) and pointed that way. I sighed and with my reserves of determination rapidly dwindling corrected my course and set off again. A woman came up and pointed. "Museum de Vida". I turned around and there in the distance like an improbale vision was an elegant grand mansion with two magnificient spires jutting up into the sky. The cab driver shrugged sheepishly and sped off. I was there n 10 minutes.

I thought it a little strange that there were guards with weapons at the gate. "Musea de Vida?" I offered. "Docment", the soldier barked. Now I was confused again. What kind of document was I supposed to have?

"Passport"

"Isso"(that's right).

Unfortunately I didn't have my passport with me. My heart sank. After all that work. It had taken me 2 hours to get there. I didn't want to turn back. I opened my wallet and looked through my cards. There was a student ID from City College in San Francisco. I gave it to the guard. He grunted , looked at it suspiciously, and dutifully wrote down my name and all the numbers on the card and handed it back to me.

I looked around for the castle. I couldn't see it from where I was because there were so many trees. I was a bit disoriented so I walked up to the next person I saw, another officer and asked ,"Onde fica O Musea De Vida?" He stared at me blankly. Was it my bad Portuguese? I asked again, "entinde?" He grunted and pointed to the left at a disturbingly high angle. One thing learned in Brazil when asking directions is to not watch their hands. You'd think that you could learn to sat "Where is ____?" in Portuguese and just watch where they point but the words don't always match the gestures. A man might motion to the left and say ,"to the right". Or he might say ,"straight ahead" and motion a curve. Its the words that count here. Unfortunately I don't always understand them.

So I went back to the law of averages. I was zigging and zagging all over this very large complex. I found the castle finally. It was an incredibly beautiful building. I went inside relieved to have achieved my goal. To my horror and disbelief the first person I asked didn't know anything about the Museum of Life. It must be a new person I thought or a visitor. I walked confidently into the office and asked about the entrance to the museum. The receptionist shook her head and said that there was no Museum of Life here. These were offices. I showed here the pamphlet from the Tourist Agency. She looked at it and shrugged. I went to another office and got the same reaction. We all carry around with us an inherent belief in reality. Reality says that ,"yes you are a person in the word. All of this is real. These people are not just figments of your dreams. Although we always assume these things and base our actions on them, actually the belief isn't that strong. It doesn't take much to destabilize that belief. Maybe I'm really in a zoo on Mars and they just are testing me. I started to get that funny feeling. Looking at the pamphlet that clearly stated the address and the hours. I checked again. No mistake.

Just then as luck would have it I saw a mailman go by. I showed him the Portuguese part of the pamphlet. He looked thoughtful for a second and then motioned for me to follow him. We set out on the now familiar sidewalks. I cautiously allowed my hopes to rise. After about 10 minutes we ended up at a ....trailer. The mailman left me and I doubtfully walked in. Inside there were a number of offices set up. I walked over to a worker and said "Museu de Vida?" The workers looked at each other and started speaking fast. Finally one of them came over to me and motioned for me to sit down. More people were called in. They had a conference. Finally a distinguished looking man came over and said in English,"Can I help you?" I smiled ,"Yes I want to go to the Museum of Life."

He looked puzzeled and asked," Who told you there was a Museum of Life?"

I produced the booklet from the tourist information office which described the museum, gave the address, and the hours Monday through Friday from 8 to 5. Since it was now Monday at 11 a.m. I felt fairly safe.

The man took the pamphlet and read it. "Wait a minute",he said and left the room. He came back with another group of people. I was getting more confused by the minute and started considering my options which included 1)running away as fast as possible and 2) trying to wake up. Finally the man came back. "Is there a museum here or not," I asked a bit testily.

"Let me explain", he said calmly. " There is a museum here but it isn't finished yet. We're still building it. Some of it will be finished next month and some of it will be finished next year. It will be completely finished next century. Who are you?"

"Well I'm a tourist," I said but then added," but I'm a science teacher."

"Oh" his eyes brightened a little. "Well we're surprised that the tourist office is telling people to come here."

"Do mean to say that I'm the first visitor here?"

"Thats right."he smiled. "You are the first visitor to the Museum of Life. If we had a book you could sign it but unfortunately we don't have a guestbook yet."

I didn't know whether to feel disappointed or honored.

"But," he continued "we will be happy to show you around the construction site."

Before I knew it, the man, who turned out to be the museum director and another man, the chief engineer, and I were out walking around half constructed buildings,concrete forms, mysterious spheres, and columns. The chief engineer held and armful of blueprints and started motioning this way and that.

"This part will deal with waves in nature and in living organisms. This pool will allow children to create their own wave machine. There will be bikes here. They will be attached to ropes. The children will have to pedal at the correct speed to find the resonant frequency and set the wave in motion."

On and on it went. As they were describing the exhibits one after another under the hot Rio sun it was almost as if they were appearing before us. They were really good exhibits. Everything was outside. " A train will take you from one exhibit area to the next. This area will show great moments in medical science. Here is the man making the models for it. This particular scene will show an alchemist in his laboratory. After about a half hour the two men turned me over to another woman who gave me a tour of the castle and the library. The castle had an interesting history. It had been the site of the first mass production of small pox and bubonic vaccines in Brazil. They had found it cheaper to build this entire complex than to import the vaccines. The production was no longer done here but much of the research and quality control was done on this site. That explained the security guards all over the place. When the government decided to open a state of the art science museum they chose this historic site.

When my guide finished showing me all the interesting features of the castle, including the stables where they had kept the horses that they grew the vaccine in, it was 2 1/2 hours later. My trip to the museum had been great although not exactly what I had expected. In a way it was typical of Brazil. Plans are made then easily discarded. In the end something completely different happens but everyone ends up happy and having a good time. Its a less structured , more chaotic way, and in some ways more exciting and spontaneous way of moving along.

I'll always remember my visit to the Museum of Life. One day next century perhaps in 2004 I'll return to Rio and visit the finished museum. I'll look at the exhibits that were only plans on a piece of paper but that came alive through the excitement and love of the creators. Maybe I'll find someone who will listen to me when I say,"You know, I was the very first visitor to the Museum of Life. But that's a long story".
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