HER NAME IS RIO

MANY

MANY YEARS AGO, I started getting emails intended for other Carmen Machados. One in Chicago, another in Arizona, and yet another in Florida. I’ve gotten endless reminders to update gym memberships; a photo of a daffy, grinning pit bull in a Santa Claus hat; and once, alarmingly, a discharge report from an ER in the Midwest. I also get emails in Portuguese for an unclear number of Brazilian Carmen Machados. Sometimes the emails appear to be about finance or real estate; sometimes, they’re from college students to their professor. I say “appear” because I am not Brazilian and don’t speak Portuguese. At first I tried using translation software to create a response—“I am not the Carmen Machado you’re looking for!”—but it didn’t seem to make a difference, so I gave up.

When I learned I was to go to Rio in two days on a spontaneous trip for AFAR’s Spin the Globe series (before the pandemic hit), I immediately emailed my kid brother, a seasoned international traveler. He suggested I check out Guaíra Falls near the border of Paraguay, and when I looked that up, I discovered that, according to the U.S. Department of State’s travel advisories, Americans were not supposed to travel within 100 miles of the Brazilian border with most countries. I also discovered that Brazil was in the middle of a yellow fever outbreak, and anyone visiting should get vaccinated. I drove two hours from Philadelphia into the next state to a travel clinic to get the vaccine that, apparently,