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Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Adventures of Settling In

It’s hard to believe that I’ve already been in Recife for three weeks. Why is it then that there are still huge holes in my walls where the air conditioners are supposed to go [… not so much fun when the pouring rain is blowing into the apartment…] and I still don’t have a home or cell phone? Well, the challenges around filling the holes are only the tip of the iceberg that is the adventure of setting up shop here in the steamy Northeast! I have lots of blog entries floating around in my head – including the Consulesa versus the Mould; Felix, the Office Kitty; Twenty Easy Steps to Purchasing Home Appliances; and Forró For All – which will make their way shortly onto caipirissima. Stay tuned as I finally start settling into rhythms of Recife and writing to tell the tale.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Olá de Recife

Hello from Recife! It's been a whirlwind past two weeks trying to fit in the last of São Paulo combined with the first of Recife. Our trio arrived in the steamy capital of Pernambuco last Tuesday, not without our fair share of adventure, and have been busy receiving all kinds of shipments (office, home) and getting more quotes on home and office appliances than you can shake a stick at. I think that I have looked at close to a hundred different fridge-stoves-microwaves-washers-airconditioners-etc. Definitely enough to suit a lifetime!

Normal blogging to resume soon ....

Friday, June 03, 2005

New Neighbours

Residents of the Coliseu favela in Vila Olimpia [a São Paulo neighbourhood] call the wall that separates them from their new neighbour the Berlin Wall. Behind the wall, Daslu is on the verge of opening a 20,000 square metre ultra-chic shopping centre which will carry the world’s most expensive designer brands [these are already available in São Paulo, just not in such a singularly large space]. Slated to open this week, only patrons with a VIP card will be granted entrance to the store. Meanwhile, the entire community of Coliseu could combine a month’s wages – estimated to be R$10,725 [US$4400] – to buy two pairs of Dolce & Gabbana jeans at the store – at a price of R$4,920 [US$2028] each. In order to buy a pair of Chanel tennis shoes, a Coliseu resident interviewed by Jornal do Terra, would have to work for close to fifteen months. With a monthly income of R$140 [US$60], the R$2060 [US$850] shoes aren’t at the top of her to-buy list.

Sorry Catch-22

The yowbook choice for May was Joseph Heller's Catch 22. A few days before yowbooks was supposed to convene, emails started circulating the as-of-late silent listserve to confirm / enquire about people's availability. One by one, the yowbookers started replying that they i) hadn't yet bought the book; ii) hadn't yet gotten past page x; and iii) coincidentally were not free on the chosen evening. My move to Recife, scheduled for the same day as the meeting was a perfect excuse [I still haven't moved, but that is a story for another time ....]. Eventually Bookclubber Larry made an executive decision and cancelled the meeting. Thank goodness! It isn't often that I truly cannot get through a book, and maybe I didn't give Catch-22 the chance that it deserved, but I just could not imagine reading all 467 pages of this "American Classic". My main issues being the slow torturous pace combined with a writing style that does not mix well with me.

There is an unwritten rule that bookclub members are not allowed to diss a book online before the meeting. We are such a fragile bunch, that we worry that unkind words towards a book would discourage the fence-sitters from buckling down and finishing the book. So when the emails were circulating, I tried my hardest to stick to the facts and not offer unsolicited opinion on the book. But now that the meeting has been cancelled, I can say that Catch-22 was not one of our better picks. If anyone has read it, let me know what you thought. I would be willing to give it another chance if there were enough positive public opinion.

Our next read is Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

After the Fire

Life is slowing returning to normal in the favela located at the foot of the Consulate. On April 17th, a fire caused by faulty wiring [considering the fact that whole neighbourhoods illegally tap into electrical lines, this isn't very shocking] roared through the community, destroying 150 homes and displacing 600 to 700 people. A month later, children are playing on the piles of rubble, clotheslines have been set up, and people are reconstructing their homes. I imagine that in another couple of months, the area will be completely reconstructed and there will be no evidence of the fire, except for the fact that the houses will all start several metres higher than they used to due to all the rubble.

Now That’s a Pineapple

The word for pineapple in Portuguese is abacaxi, although aside from meaning a wonderfully delicious juicy tropical fruit, the word abacaxi can also be used to mean a Really Big Mess, derived from the fact that peeling a pineapple requires much talent and can create said Really Big Mess. Of course, the flipside of attempting to peel a pineapple is often the resulting delicious fruit in which you get to indulge. Yum!

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

There Almost was Such a Thing as a Free Ride

There is a serious crisis going on in Brazil these days; a crisis which I like to call the Small Change Crisis. The shortage of small bills is so mindboggling that it is not uncommon for a vendor to run around to find change if you buy something worth R$1 (one real = US$0.40) with a R$2 (two reais = US$0.80) bill. Now, I can understand a vendor having to run for change if you pay for a very small item with a R$50, but to not even have R$1 in change is pretty extreme. Small change is like gold here. My advice? If you get it, hold on to it! Don’t spend it unnecessarily and get rid of your R$50s as soon as you can!

This afternoon, when I was taking the bus home, the cobrador [the cobrador is a man or woman who sits 1/3 of the way down the bus at a turnstyle and collects each passenger’s fare, thus leaving the bus driver to actually drive the bus] did not have R$3 in change for me. Not being able to pay, I had to stay in the front or “non-paying” side of the turnstyle. As more and more people got on and went through the turnstyle using their electronic passes or in a few cases, exact change, the paying side became increasing full and I no longer wanted to cram my way through it regardless of the cobrador’s newfound ability to provide change.

For a brief moment, the idea of getting off at my stop using the front door and without paying crossed my mind. How easy it would have been. There were so many people crammed in by now, that I couldn't imagine that he would have even noticed, and in any case, he was the one who didn’t let me pay in the first place. Of course, my conscience kicked in and in a moment of rider fluidity, I managed to pay the guy and ask if I could get off from the front instead of squishing my way through to the back. The woman who was squished up next to me was very relieved to hear me ask if I could get off from the front. With a broken arm in a sling, I am not sure she would have survived the struggle to get to the back door intact!