One Girl, One Cat, Six Bathrooms (a.k.a the Apartment)
Hello, my name is Karen and I have six bathrooms. There, I’ve said it. I have six bathrooms.
Once upon a time, the Canadian Consulate in São Paulo was on Avenida Paulista, São Paulo’s main drag, smack in the centre of the best part of town. The Canadian staff lived in a neighbourhood called Jardins which is one of the top neighbourhoods in Sao Paulo and was within walking distance from the Consulate (unheard of in Sao Paulo, a city which a mere 18 million call home). Jardims is where it’s at: great eating and cafés, shopping, people watching, shows, concerts, etc. It’s also relatively safe, even for walking at night, which is a nice change. Unfortunately, the Consulate outgrew its physical structure and had to move. The winning choice for the move was a building in Novo Brooklin, one of the city’s southern neighbourhoods. As a result, the Canadian Staff Quarters were also moved one by one to Campo Grande and Santo Amaro, two even more southerly neighbourhoods. The new apartments were deemed to be safer as there is pretty strict control as to who can get in and out. At the time of the move, violence was on the rise in Brazil and São Paulo and the Consulate was concerned about the safety of its employees. As it turned out, even though the new apartments themselves are pretty safe, the neighbourhood is another story. A few weeks after arriving in São Paulo two and a half years ago, my colleague Susan was confronted with a car-jacking and assassination right across the street from the new apartments (don’t worry mom, it was targeted).
One of the consequences of this southerly move is that the apartments are huge. Enormous, in fact. Which is how I ended up with six bathrooms. Each bedroom (four in total) has its own bathroom, then there is a "social bathroom" which is for guests and visitors and then there is the bathroom in the maid’s room. And that makes six. I also have a rather large eat-in kitchen, three (!) living rooms, a dining room, and the laundry room. The maid’s quarters are currently used as the designated ugly furniture storage, but more on that later. In all, the size of the apartment is a rather overwhelming thought when one considers the fact that close to 54 million Brazilians live on less than US$2 a day, 17 million of whom live on less than US$1 a day. A fact that I am confronted with each day, as I pass the city’s favelas (shanty towns) on the way to my fancy office tower each morning.
post scriptum: The sad fact is that the Consulate has recently realised the error of its ways and has moved most of the Canadians out of my neighbourhood and back to Jardins. However, they will not move me since I will only be in São Paulo until next April, after which I will move to Recife in the Northeast. Breaking a new lease after only six month is too expensive to be worth the money :-(
Once upon a time, the Canadian Consulate in São Paulo was on Avenida Paulista, São Paulo’s main drag, smack in the centre of the best part of town. The Canadian staff lived in a neighbourhood called Jardins which is one of the top neighbourhoods in Sao Paulo and was within walking distance from the Consulate (unheard of in Sao Paulo, a city which a mere 18 million call home). Jardims is where it’s at: great eating and cafés, shopping, people watching, shows, concerts, etc. It’s also relatively safe, even for walking at night, which is a nice change. Unfortunately, the Consulate outgrew its physical structure and had to move. The winning choice for the move was a building in Novo Brooklin, one of the city’s southern neighbourhoods. As a result, the Canadian Staff Quarters were also moved one by one to Campo Grande and Santo Amaro, two even more southerly neighbourhoods. The new apartments were deemed to be safer as there is pretty strict control as to who can get in and out. At the time of the move, violence was on the rise in Brazil and São Paulo and the Consulate was concerned about the safety of its employees. As it turned out, even though the new apartments themselves are pretty safe, the neighbourhood is another story. A few weeks after arriving in São Paulo two and a half years ago, my colleague Susan was confronted with a car-jacking and assassination right across the street from the new apartments (don’t worry mom, it was targeted).
One of the consequences of this southerly move is that the apartments are huge. Enormous, in fact. Which is how I ended up with six bathrooms. Each bedroom (four in total) has its own bathroom, then there is a "social bathroom" which is for guests and visitors and then there is the bathroom in the maid’s room. And that makes six. I also have a rather large eat-in kitchen, three (!) living rooms, a dining room, and the laundry room. The maid’s quarters are currently used as the designated ugly furniture storage, but more on that later. In all, the size of the apartment is a rather overwhelming thought when one considers the fact that close to 54 million Brazilians live on less than US$2 a day, 17 million of whom live on less than US$1 a day. A fact that I am confronted with each day, as I pass the city’s favelas (shanty towns) on the way to my fancy office tower each morning.
post scriptum: The sad fact is that the Consulate has recently realised the error of its ways and has moved most of the Canadians out of my neighbourhood and back to Jardins. However, they will not move me since I will only be in São Paulo until next April, after which I will move to Recife in the Northeast. Breaking a new lease after only six month is too expensive to be worth the money :-(
posted by Karen @ 2:11 p.m.
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