MIXED RESULTS (read: FAILURE)

(if reading this post is as laborious as executing the day was, best skip to the next one)

Wednesday: I've taken to doing up schedules in order to fit all our hectic movements. Time in Rio moves at a different pace, maybe because we walk everywhere. YOu wake up and next thing you know it's 1am and you're going to bed.

Schedule looks like this:
8am: run
9am: brekky
10am: research + call: gay org, neri, andrea goldstein (OECD), Le Boy
3pm: sauna
8pm: Fernie DATE / Michelle INTERNET

Day looks like this:
8am: Fernie ridicules Michelle for not going for a run
9am: walk to bakery, devour several pastries
10am: it all comes a bit unstuck.

Fernando tells me I've really blown it by letting Andrea 'get away' (so true) and he takes over the role of re-finding him while I go about finding out what Andrea can talk about. Fernando has all the traits I lack: tenacity, assertiveness, insistence, shamelessness, and bluff. I can't bluff. I have all the traits that you'll find if you go to thesaurus.com, 'antonyms' for tenacity etc.

My research includes googling "What is the OECD?" (oh, come on, who actually really knows?), "Andrea Goldstein", "Andrea Goldstein, Slim", "Andrea Goldstein, emerging markets" and other inspired combinations.

Over the course of the day, Fernando's quest to pin Andrea (yes, we have taken to pronouncing it like a woman) has him calling: France cellphone (voicemail), conference organiser to find out where Andrea is staying in Rio, organiser's contact, organiser's contact again, organiser's contact calls back with hotel name, information for hotel number, hotel (from ambient setting of public phone right beside watering hole, very professional) hotel again to leave a message when phone rings out.

Fernando hangs up the phone looking pleased, announcing triumphantly, "We've got 'im."

Actually, we've got his hotel. If it happens to be one of those rare 5-star establishments with no security and only one guest staying, he's quite possibly right. We have got him.

The afternoon is peppered with references to 'what Andrea calls back' as we go to check on Fernando's annointed sauna.

It's another juxtaposition. Suddenly I am walking through the doors of a mysterious converted house, where a dykish-looking woman tells us the owner doesn't come in, they have to wait for her to call. Fernando does his insistent thing, and succeeds only in pissing her off. We leave our number and exit.

From here, we set up camp over the road to watch the rent boys arriving. This way, Fern says, we can choose the ones we want to interview tomorrow. When we are granted access. With our camera. And mini-disc recorder. And female genetalia. Did I mention one of his traits is optimism?

Something strange happens. It's compelling. Every few minutes a beautiful, pumped up macho boy walks up the street, looks over his shoulder ... and then slips through the door. They all make sure they are not being watched.

So, when one guy gives the street a really proper once-over, to discover me and Fern unabashedly staring back, enraptured, he keeps walking past the door.

MC: Not a rentboy then?
FD: Definitely a rent boy.
MC: Well, where's he gone then?
FD: He's hiding.
MC: Oh come on you can't be serious. Look, he's just buying a phonecard.
FD: Stalling. Trust me, it's a diversion.

The young stallion turns his aviators towards us and stares back. Then he walks to the phone booth, near where we are standing, and picks up the receiver, never taking his eyes off us.

MC: Come on, let's go. Honestly, we don't want to blow our chances by stalking the staff Fern. Let's come back tomorrow.
FD: No, we should talk to him.
MC: And say what?
FD: He probably thinks we're a couple looking for action. They find that exciting, because they have to do men all the time so when a woman comes up, that's good.

Too-ing and fro-ing continues. The phone rings, it's Marcelo Neri (poverty expert)'s assistant.

We turn, take the call, and turn back to find the Aviator Dude with his phone pointed squarely at us, taking photos. He looks quite sinister.

The hunter has become the hunted. Is this how he felt?

We retreat, for a cup of tea around the corner, and say 'hello' as we pass him. He looks a little startled.

I think we've blown our last chance. I head off to see a man about a poverty problem, and Fern goes on his date.