Embassy Furniture Part II (a.k.a. Ceci n'est pas un oreiller)

Take a look at this -- can you honestly call it a pillow with a clear conscience? This "bed accessory" consists of a stiff piece of foam -- 10 cm high -- with tubular holes every couple of centimetres which go all the way through to the other side. A look at this accessory gives an indication of what I mean when I refer to the embassy furniture. How is one supposed to sleep with their head on a ten-centimetre piece of stiff foam? Now fortunately, I had two "normal" pillows waiting for me in my apartment so things weren't as tragic as all that. However, until my shipment arrives (more on that later), my poor guests have had to suffer their way through the nights. I found out later that one of my colleagues only had these pillows in her house and therefore had no choice but to use them on her bed.

The funny thing is that these pillows are not particularly cheap -- so it's not an issue of money. As I was perusing Tok & Stok for my lamps, I came across these pillows (thus confirming that even stores with cool stuff sometimes make mistakes) and I discovered that they cost approximately CAN$18 each. Normal pillows cost only two or three dollars more. Later discussions with colleagues here at the Consulate enlightened me to the fact that the Consulate administration was worried that the Canadian staff would appropriate (read: steal) any accessories that were too nice. Thus, the pillows. Well, have no fear. Not only will I not appropriate these pillows, very few of them will even get to leave their original packaging, thus remaining in pristine condition for the next user. They remain tucked away in a closet and I remain hopefully that my shipment and my pillows will arrive from Canada prior to the arrival of all my Christmas guests (keep your fingers crossed meninas!). Pictures of the dreaded lamps will follow soon once I develop my current roll of film. Perhaps the time has come to go digital!

Flawlessly Ironed Pyjamas

Five years ago when my friends and I were all starting our new jobs with the Canadian government, we were all looking forward to our first postings overseas. One of the topics that was grounds for great discussions was whether or not young Canadians overseas should have staff in their houses. At the time we were all more or less against it. None of us wanted to be in such a position of power over another person and we did not feel that such an employer-employee relationship was ethically right. However, as the discussion evolved, we changed our positions and decided that having staff wasn’t necessarily bad, but rather what was important was how you treated the person and the type of relationship that was established. In many cases, a particular housekeeper, nanny, cook, guard, gardener, poolboy (heehee) or driver has been serving with a Canadian family for years and years. Should a newly arriving Canadian decide that they did want any staff, that person would then suddenly find themselves without a job after many years of stable employment. In addition, in most countries were CIDA has postings, the cost of having someone work in your house is quite low compared to Canadian salaries. In some ways, it is important for us to be able to contribute to the local economy in this way.

Since I live alone and don’t create an awful lot of mess (in my many rooms!), I have no physical need for someone who comes in more than once a week. However, I have decided to welcome a cleaning lady who comes in once a week. A few weeks back I met with Hilda, a woman who has cleaned Canadian apartments for the past twelve years. She worked for my predecessor whose departure left a Tuesday gap in her schedule. Hilda and I met so that she could see the apartment and we could review what needed to be done. At the end of the meeting, I gave Hilda one of the extra keys to my house so that she could get in and out on her own. Now, in many respects, Brazil is still quite a class-based society. Most of the upper-class apartments in town have two entrances, the main – or social – entrance and the back – or service – entrance. Shockingly enough it is only recently that many condominium bylaws have stated that household staff cannot be relegated to only using the service entrance. Since I only have three keys to my apartment, two for the social door and one for the service door, I asked Hilda if I could give her the key to the main door. Without the key to the service door I wouldn’t be able to throw out my garbage or easily get to the gym that is in the building. I could see that she hesitated before accepting and that she was torn between deferring to my authority and suggesting that she would prefer to use the service entrance. She answered with the ubiquitous Brazilian phase “é você quem sabe”— it’s you who knows. The moment was a minor foray into the Brazilian psyche. Now it is me who is torn – should I make a copy of the service key for Hilda, or should I leave her with the social key?

In any case, one of the things at which Hilda is particularly adept is the ironing. She meticulously irons every single piece of clothing which gets washed (except maybe my socks and underwear -- although even here I am not convinced!), which means that all of a sudden I have very crisp pyjamas!

The Lonely Planet Hates São Paulo

I write this entry in response to Paul who commented a few entries back that following the blogs on caipirissima meant that he wouldn’t have to buy a Lonely Planet guide when he came to Brazil. Now, I am the first to admit that I have a whole shelf of LP guides. A quick look at them shows that they have served me well and it is clear that they have come in handy as I have traipsed around the world. However, the writers of the LP have their biases – and in Brazil, their bias is clearly towards Rio. Now I understand that Brazil is a big country and it is impossible to cover every little detail, but really, the facts say it all: LP’s 1998 Brazil edition has 52 pages on the city of Rio de Janeiro and another 30 dedicated to the rest of the state. In comparison, it has 15 pages on the city of São Paulo and another 8 for the rest of the state. In any case, it’s pretty easy to do the math! Fortunately the Fique and Fuja guides give me everything I need to know for life in São Paulo.

São Luis de Paraitinga

This past weekend I went to São Luis de Paraitinga, a small colonial town 170km northeast of São Paulo. It took a mere six and a half hours to get to door to door! Ah the fun of public transportation....

São Luis was founded in 1769 during the bandeirantes' push into the interior in their search for natives and precious stones and metals. The Paraiba valley was one of the captaincy of São Paulo’s more populated areas and São Luis de Paraitinga was established as a midway point between the towns of Taubaté, in the interior, and Ubatuba, a port town on the São Paulo coast. São Luis' real boom came during the coffee era when it was on the coffee’s transportation route to the sea. The town’s architecture is the typical Brazilian colonial style, with its one and two story houses painted in a wide variety of bright colours. The town itself is quite small and easy to visit in a couple of hours. Surrounding the town are many waterfalls and hikes which make for good day trips. There are also several whitewater rafting companies which offer day expeditions. I stayed in a very cute pousada (bed and breakfast) which I can recommend for anyone heading in this direction. I learned about São Luis from a Brazilian guidebook called Fuja (Escape), a book which offers over two thousand weekend trips up to 480km from São Paulo. The companion book is called Fique (Stay) and offers thousands of things to do in the city. Together these two books provide the complete package of places to go and things to do in and around the city. Which reminds me ....

São Paulo II

No wonder traffic here is a nightmare!

You can take the cat out of the one bedroom apartment, but you can’t take the one bedroom apartment out of the cat: a Felix Update

For all the Felix fans out there, here is an update on how the little guy is doing. I tried to let him write it himself, but it came out something like thhhhhhhhhhkwiuiiiiiiiiii777777777, which I didn’t think would make a lot of sense to the human readers out there. So I interpret!

Felix is adjusting to life in high society just fine. After his initial shock of spending hours and hours in a little box in a dark and turbulent cargo hold, he emerged victorious and immediately started to explore his new surroundings. Overall, he has quite a spread here – I think that the apartment is three or four times larger than our last one and Felix definitely takes advantage of the extra space. He loves running up and down the hallway as mush as he loves the balconies and the fact that he can go outside on his own and unsupervised. No kitty collar in Brazil necessary. The balcony also has several plants on it, so I think that Felix feels that he is in a small jungle. I should probably start to water the plants though, so that they don’t completely whither away (I’m thinking that I should only be allowed to invest in cacti).

One funny thing is the fact that even though Felix has all this extra space and access to the outdoors, he still pines for the hallway outside the apartment door (reminiscent of life in Ottawa for those who knew him). I don’t mind opening the door for him now and again, but I can’t help but think that the new apartment should be big enough for one girl and one cat.

São Paulo

This year is the city of São Paulo's 450th anniversary. For years São Paulo was a backwater of the Portuguese colony. Founded in 1554 by the Jesuits as a religious settlement, its distance from the sea (100 km) and climate – cold in the Brazilian winter (really!!) and muggy in the summer – meant that it did not attract the attention of Bahia, the Brazilian capital at the time. Although the geography offered a natural protection to the Jesuits and other inhabitants, the inhospitableness of the soil to the cultivation of sugar-cane (the cash-crop du jour) and the difficulty of transporting goods between São Paulo and the coast meant that by the 17th Century, São Paulo was still only a small village.

Despite the efforts of the Jesuits to protect the native population from the Brazilian slave trade, São Paulo became a base for southern Brazil's slave-trade as this was one of the few ways that the non-Jesuit inhabitants could see to produce riches given the other limitations of the settlement. Roving groups of bandeirantes, “explorers” who headed into the country’s interior to round up natives to sell as slaves, inadvertently opened up the Brazilian frontier. Towards the end of the 17th Century, the bandeirantes discovered gold in the state of Minas Gerais, an event which led to São Paulo being virtually abandoned by its male population.

It wasn't until the 19th Century that São Paulo got its kick-start to becoming one of the world’s eminent cities. In 1822, Brazil became independent from Portugal and São Paulo became a state capital. Five years later, for reasons unknown, the Brazilian Emperor (the reason why Brazil had an emperor at all, is a whole other story...) commissioned the opening of the country’s first Faculty of Law in São Paulo. The faculty attracted a new intelligentsia and São Paulo became one of the leaders in the struggle for the abolition of slavery and the declaration of the republic. Concurrently – starting in the 1830s – coffee started replacing sugar cane as the country’s principle crop and São Paulo was never the same. Coffee could not be grown in the northeastern part of the country, which had until then ruled the sugarcane industry. The land in the state of São Paulo, on the other hand, was perfect. By the late 19th Century, the almost complete takeover of coffee, the construction of numerous railway lines, and the influx of immigrants from Europe all contributed to São Paulo’s growth.

A hundred and thirty years ago, in 1876, São Paulo had 30,000 inhabitants. This number grew to 130,000 in 1895, 300,000 in 1905, 580,000 in 1920, 1.2 million in 1940, and 5.2 million in 1970. Today, approximately 18 million people call the city of São Paulo home. One in every ten Brazilians lives here, making São Paulo a cosmopolitan mix of almost everything Brazil has to offer.

Brazil is a Quirky Place

This article was written by the Associated Press. As my friend Larry says, you'd think that Brazilian legislators have more important issues to deal with. Perhaps is it s slow day in Brasilia!

Brazilian lawmakers want ban on human names for pets

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) -- A Brazilian legislator wants to make it illegal to give pets names that are common among people.

Federal congressman Reinaldo Santos e Silva proposed the law after psychologists suggested that some children may get depressed when they learn they share their first name with someone's pet, said Damarias Alves, a spokeswoman for Silva. "Names have importance," said Alves. The congressman "wants to challenge people's assumptions that it's acceptable to give animals human names," she said.

If the law is passed, pet stores and veterinary clinics would be required to display a sign noting the prohibition of human first names for pets. Brazilians who break the law would be subject to fines or community service.

Alves admitted the law's chances of passage were slim but said Silva hoped the bill would call attention to his other efforts to protect animals. "He's proposed many laws to protect wildlife in Brazil, but this is the only one that has ever gotten any attention," Alves said.