Chickens, Chickens, Everywhere

Seeing that we live on the beach, we decided to get away for the weekend and head to the beach. Really! Since a few friends were in town from Brasilia, we decided to take advantage and head to Porto de Galinhas [Port of the Chickens], a relaxed beach town 70km south of Recife. After anxiously waiting all week for our getaway, we awoke on Saturday morning only to discover incredibly dark clouds and rain and heavy winds beating and swirling at the windows. Keeping our faith in the temporariness of storms here in Recife, we crossed our fingers and headed on our way. Fortunately, the saints of travel and weather were smiling upon us, and by the time we were installed in the pousada and ready for the day, the sun was shining brightly.

Porto de Galinhas earned its name during a rather dark period of Brazil's history. Throughout the slave trade, one of the dropping-off points for boats arriving from Africa was the beach where Porto de Galinhas now sits. Although the slave trade was officially abolished in 1888, boats with slaves continued to clandestinely arrive from Africa in the following years. When the sugarlords of Pernambuco heard that a shipment of “Chickens from Angola” had arrived, they knew what to expect. Even once the unofficial slave trade was finally abolished, the name stuck and the town came to be officially known as Porto de Galinhas.

As it turns out, the town has embraced their name and has managed to turn themselves into a charming beach town which has everything to do with chickens. A local artist started carving stylised chickens out of the bases and trunks of dead coconut trees and an industry was born. The carved chickens are all over town in a variety of different characters – tourist chickens, skateboarding chickens, famous-Brazilians chickens, merchickens [as opposed to mermaids], iron-pumping chickens, bikini-clad chickens, curler-clad chickens, bandit chickens, Japanese-chef chickens, well, you get the idea. Now, while it might seem that this would be quite tacky, somehow it seems to work. The chickens are all very charming, especially since many of them have a slightly surprised or astonished expressions. Here is a small selection of the chickens of Porto de Galinhas. As you can see, I had quite a lot of fun photographing “the locals”.

What Luck

The other morning, I had to take a flipchart, fan and transformer in to work. Although I knew that the flipchart could fit into a taxi [as I had somehow managed to get it back home from the store where I bought it], it is clearly not all taxis that can accommodate a flipchart and passengers. Flipchart, yes. Passengers, yes. Flipchart and passengers, difficult. Although not common, there are even two-door taxis in Brazil [it's a lot of fun having to clamber in behind the driver], which clearly would not do for the purpose. Hoping for at least a hatchback so that I could slink in under the easel, I carried my wares to the taxi stand on the corner only to discover that the first car in line was a stationwagon! What luck! What were the chances of that happening? Fairly uncommon for a taxi, it was exactly what I needed and I, along with the flipchart, arrived quickly and safely at work. Sometimes things just manage to work out!

Spilt Milk

Earlier this week at work, there was a rather obnoxious smell emanating from our little kitchen. Sniffing at the milk carton while the coffee brewed, I decided that the milk must have gone off. The most common source of milk in Brazil is UHT and it lasts forever, both on the shelf and once opened (quite a odd concept for those of us used to the fresh stuff)! The carton in question had been open for a while and I supposed that it had finally reached its best before date. Once disposed of though, the smell continued, and a more thorough search of the fridge led me to the discovery that the smell was emanating from a bag of cajú (cashew) fruits. Having never liked cashew fruits enough to have any in the house, I hadn't realised how strong a smell they have! Poor milk, it sacrificed itself for the cause, but I try not to cry about it!

The Art of Garbage

I was sure that we would find a cacao-pod telephone booth in Ilheus. Or even -- and this would be the ultimate in tackiness -- a head-of-Jorge-Amado phone booth. Seeing that almost everything in the town is named after him, I wouldn't have been surprised. But in fact, we did not find one fun phone booth in Ilheus. What we did find, however, were lots of fun garbage cans. Enjoy!

Felix, the Office Kitty

Now that everyone (read: Felix) is more or less settled into life in the Northeast, I can think back to my last few days in São Paulo and the effort that was [once again!] required to get Felix to Recife. Back in September when I first moved to Brazil, getting Felix into the plane and across an international border was an exercise in bureaucracy as well as emotion. Since the move to Recife was a domestic one, I assumed that transporting Felix would be a lot easier. Ha!

Seeing that the flight was within national boundaries, I assumed [just to confirm the lesson that one should never assume....] that all I had to do was inform the airline that I would be travelling with a pet. Since my travel date kept moving, I ended up calling the travel agent on the Friday to book a ticket for the Monday or Tuesday. It was then that I discovered that i) the airline could not confirm a space for Felix until a minimum of 24 hours prior to the flight; and ii) I still had to go to the vet to get a certificate of good health and a pet travel authority. Hurriedly we surfed the net and found a vet fairly close to the Regent Park in São Paulo and I went in that very evening to get Felix's certificates. Hurray! At least this part was taken care of.

Fast-forward to Monday, the eve of my flight. The phone rings ten minutes before the end of the work day and I am informed that due to a few technicalities, I would have to cancel my flight for the next morning. Good thing I hadn't left the office early that day! I quickly called the travel agent and cancelled the flight letting him know that we would rebook as soon as we had an idea of the new travel date. I then headed back to the hotel for what I felt was now a well deserved drink with friends.

By the end of the week, we had a better idea that I would be able to leave early the following week. We called the travel agent to rebook the flight and found out that again, Felix's place on the plane could not be confirmed until the day before the flight and of course, since the five day validity on the health certificate had expired, we would have take Felix back to vet for a new exam. This is when we discovered that i) the original vet no longer had any of the proper forms; and ii) the vet literally around the corner from the Regent had to call in a specialist from the Department of Agriculture for the exam and this would take several days to arrange. Hurray! Well, fortunately, São Paulo has no shortage of vets, so we found another one and off went poor Felix for his second exam in a week. Fortunately he was again given a clean bill of health and once again we were ready for the move.

The day of the flight, as it was in Canada, I am not sure who was worse off – Felix or me! At least this time, the flight was only three hours as opposed to fifteen, so I (and Felix) had a much shorter period of suffering. Upon arrival in Recife, our first stop was the office since there was really no other choice for Felix this time as hotels do not accept pets and the apartment clearly wasn't in a state to accommodate a cat. Hence Felix became Felix, the Office Kitty. Felix lived at the office for a week and we managed to visit every day for at least at hour. I am sure that the security guards, the building manager, and the couple of service providers who were in and out of the office for those few days must think that we Canadians are crazy! I tried to assure them that the cat would not be a permanent fixture at the ofice. They didn't seem too worried! In any case, we managed to get the apartment ready enough for a cat, and Felix moved in a week later. The holes were still in the walls, but we managed to limit his access to them and the rest, as they say, is history!

The View from Above

Here's a picture of the view from my balcony on the 13th floor [13 clearly isn't an unlucky number in Brazil, although Brazilians count floors the same way as do Europeans, so really I am on the fourteenth floor....]. The beach outside can be two completely different places depending on the tide. During low tide, the waves break on the outside of the reefs that line the coast and the ocean becomes a peaceful, clear, and refreshing pool. Great for families and kids and for enjoying a nice soak. During high tide, however, the water is higher than the reefs and the waves break rather violently right at the shore. Two totally different experiences depending on your mood! In the eight weeks that we have been here, we have only made it to the beach twice -- once during low tide and the other during high tide. It's almost like it wasn't even the same place!

Car Mags

Well, it is official. I have bought my first car magazine ever. I picked up a copy of Auto Esporte a week or so ago in my attempt to finally buckle down and buy a car. Now, really, I should have bought my car back when I was in São Paulo. However, initially I was travelling quite bit and did not have time to research a car purchase. And even once things slowed to a more normal pace, I never really felt like car shopping after a long day at work. Ah well, such is life, live and learn. Now that I live rather centrally in a much smaller city, I do not really need a car during the week as I can easily walk to work in less than half an hour and can quickly hop a bus if I am running late. For the weekends, though, a car will offer the freedom to explore all that the region has to offer and will facilitate life quite a bit. At the moment, the front-runners for my car purchase are the Chevy Celta, the Chevy Corsa, the Peugeot 206, and the Honda Fit. They are all hatchbacks and are quite inconspicuous [desirable from a security perspective] - however, everyday I learn more details about each one -- price, resale price, cost of insurance, delivery delay, models stolen most often -- and I end up changing my mind every few minutes as to which model to buy. Let's hope that Auto Esporte helps out!

Final Posts from the Pilgrimage

Here, at long last, are some more pictures from last weekend's pilgrimage to Ilhéus. Overall, Ilhéus is a great little town and we spent a very enjoyable two days there. It isn't a very big place and the historical centre is quite compact, so two full days is enough time to see the sites. One more day would have allowed us to visit a nearby ecological reserve which is home to the endangered lion-monkeys, but it will have to wait until next time. One unfortunate side effect of visiting Ilhéus on the weekend is that almost everything closes at 2pm on Saturday and remains closed on Sunday. Other than that, it was time well spent! In addition to me posing with Jorge's Hawaiian shirts and a cacao pod, here are some more pics from the pilgrimage. Poor Jorge, almost everything in town is named after him or the characters of his books -- from restaurants to orthodontist offices! No kidding. Seeing that Amado only passed away four years ago, I am certain that he was privy to all this!

Downtown Ilhéus - Ilhéus Harbour - Jorge Amado's Childhood Home, which looks bigger than it is - Vesuvio's, the main setting in Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon - São Sebastião Church

Cacao

 One of the things that we did while in Ilhéus was visit a cacao plantation or fazenda. According to the Lonely Planet, visitors to Ilhéus can “visit the small regional cacao museum [oops, now closed], the port, and with a bit of luck and effort, a fazenda.” Well, the gods of luck and effort must have been smiling upon us as we made our plans to visit the Yrere fazenda 11km outside of town.

The friendly owners of Yrere bought the land in the late 1980s when the Brazilian cacao industry was in serious crisis due to a plague-like sickness called the Vassoura da Bruxa – the Witch's Broom – which reduced the region's cacao production to a fraction of its usual output. As a result, the value of land crashed and many landowners sold the little they had left. The owners of Yrere bought their current holdings just as the market bottomed out. Originally, they simply wanted a home in the countryside, but ended up taking a liking to the cacao trees and are slowly nursing the plants back to health.

The two hours that we spent on the farm were filled with interesting information. First, of course, is the fact that chocolate is really a fruit! Back in Canada, I often told my pathfinders that chocolate was a vegetable, partly in seriousness, mostly in jest, to justify our copious use of chocolate chips in s'mores and banana boats while camping [since when do adults have to justify chocolate to kids??]. And now, just now, I have come to realise that chocolate is in fact a fruit! A large yellow pod-like fruit.

The cacao pods grow right from the truck and branches of the trees and are ready to harvest when they are a nice golden yellow with a few brown or rust-coloured specks on the outside. The fruit of the cacao is a white pulp-like substance which surrounds the dark seeds [top photo]. The pulp is pulled apart in easy, individual sections, each section surrounding one seed. The pulp can be used to make juice, ice cream, jam, or any other fruit-based product. For those familiar with tropical fruits, the pulp of the cacao reminded me of the graviola [soursop?].

As for chocolate, well, it comes from the seed of the fruit. In order to prepare the seed for chocolate production, the seeds must be fermented in the fruits' own pulp for three to five days. After fermentation, the seeds are spread out in the sun and roasted for another few days. Once roasted, the seeds are ready to be ground in cacao powder and turned into wonderful chocolate delicacies. We tried some the unground seeds. They were delicious – very much like a dark and bitter chocolate. No sugar added. Yum! Due to the production process, it is impossible to benefit from both the pulp and the seed of the cacao. Pods that are harvested for the pulp end up sacrificing the seeds and pods that are used for the seeds end up sacrificing the pulp. It's a tough decision!

And as if our visit to the fazenda wasn't enough, we ended up getting a ride back into town with a local literature professor who is an expert on Jorge Amado. He regaled us with tales the whole way back and even took us to a few sightseeing points in town which we hadn't yet seen. A perfect way to end our trip to the land of Amado.

Jorge and Me

A quick picture of Jorge and me exchanging some insightful and clever commentary. More stories from the pilgrimage to follow.

Pilgrimage

This weekend we are going on a pilgrimage, a literary pilgrimage that I have wanted to do for many years now. Our destination is a town called Ilhéus, located in the southern part of the state of Bahia and childhood home to acclaimed Brazilian writer Jorge Amado (1912-2001). The growth of Ilhéus was intimately linked to the cacao boom which hit Brazil at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century. The boom in cacao production, also know as Brazil's “white gold,” coincided with a sugar industry in crisis, suffering from a drop in world prices as well as the official end of the slave trade, the main source of labour in the sugar industry. The cacao boom produced mass migration to the cacao-producing areas and an ensuing lawlessness not dissimilar to the Gold Rush emerged. The “order” that was subsequently established was one characterised, not surprisingly, by a few wealthy landowners and many impoverished rural workers. By the beginning of the 20th Century, Ilhéus was the world's largest producer of cacao. It was into this scene that Jorge Amado was born and raised.

Although Amado was born in Itabuna, his family moved to Ilhéus when he was one and he lived there throughout his childhood. An author of dozens of books translated into fifty languages, Amado is an expert at portraying quirky Northeastern Brazilian personalities in his novels. Usually fantastical and often filled with social commentary, his books are classic Brazilian literature, akin to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's renown in Spanish-speaking America. Although the majority of Amado’s books are set in the state of Bahia, it is one of Amado's later and most famous works – Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon – which is actually set in Ilhéus. The story revolves around a poor disheveled girl from the interior who arrives in Ilhéus amid the cacao boom. Nacib, the local café owner and bartender, who unexpectedly lost his cook plucks Gabriela out of the mass of new migrants and puts her to work in the café. Of course, once scrubbed and clothed, Gabriela turns out to be a real beauty and charms them all. Nacib's café quickly becomes the most popular place in town and the magic ensues.

Stay tuned for more Posts from the Pilgrimage....

Yeah! We Have a Telephone

Another victory! After thirty-five days in Recife, we finally managed to get the home telephone line (mostly) installed. For some reason, which still defies me, this was no small accomplishment. After having been here for a week or so, I called the telephone company and requested a residential line. Now, the first complication was the fact that I requested that the line be registered under the office's name and not my own name. Rest assured, Canadian tax-payers, that we pay for our own phone service. However, our residential lines overseas often tend to be under the corporate name in order to make things easier for personnel changes. Considering the fact that one cannot request a phone line in Brazil without a CPF [personal registration number] and the fact that CPFs take months to acquire, it makes a lot more sense to have the residential lines under the corporate name, otherwise my eventual successor would have to wait for several months before being able to have a phone.

Now, my first attempt to request the line ended in extreme failure. Upon running a check of the office's CNPJ [the corporate equivalent of a CPF], I was told that the office had an outstanding bill to an undisclosed service provider, and that with this outstanding debt, the request could not even be saved in the computer. The outstanding bill was not with the telephone company and the company did not have any way of informing me as to the amount of the bill or the entity to which it was owed. Just that somewhere, somehow, Canada owed money to someone. A quick call to the embassy assured me that they would run a check of their bills and see if anything was outstanding. Who knows? It could have been a R$10 debt holding me up.

Leaving an appropriate amount of time for bill paying, I called back and requested the line again a week later. At this point, I discovered that the phone company could not install a residential line under a commercial name, meaning that I would have to pay quite a bit more in monthly fees for the line, as well as for any internet connection that I would eventually install. Not wanting to pay more that I had to, I decided to get the line in my own name. I gave all the necessary information to the attendant and she indicated that the company would call me within seven days to arrange the first (!) step of the installment of the line. Five days later, I called the company to see if they had an idea when the technician would be able to come to the apartment. The polite answer was that we were still in the seven day period and the company would call me when they were able to come. My polite response that we were coming into the weekend and I wondered how they would call me to inform me that they were coming when I didn't have a phone did not garner much sympathy. Of course, no technician arrived.

On Day Eight [hmmmm .... whatever happened to that seven day limit, I wonder?] I called the company and asked when the technician would be coming. A quick check on the file number indicated that they HAD CANCELLED MY REQUEST. Yes, cancelled. Gone. Finito. Terminado. Cancelado. Annulé. The whole shebang. No memories of my request. Now apparently the request was cancelled because of an irregularity in my CPF. Of course, it would have been nice if the phone company had informed me of this without me having to call them to figure out why they hadn't shown up at my house, but I digress .....

Later that day, the Consulate checked the status of my CPF and found that there was nothing wrong with it. Sigh. I called the company back to re-request the line and found that the “irregularity” was that the name I had given to the phone company did not match the name on my CPF, so they cancelled the request. Not that I mean to poke holes in this process, but is it not clear that Name Middlename Lastname is the same person as Name Lastname when all the other details line up – birthday, address, mother's full name, father's full name [oh yes, these are details that one has to give all the time in Brazil!]? I suppose I should have known that I had to give my whole name to the phone company, but the thought really hadn't crossed my mind at the time.

Okay ... so the line is reordered, and plead as I might, there is no way for us to get around the seven day wait for the technician. Thankfully the company calls on Day Four and indicates that they will come the next day, Day Five, at 2pm. Hurray! At this moment, I also learn that in addition to photocopies of all my documents, I need to provide a proof-of-address. Seeing that we have only been here a few weeks and haven't yet managed to hook up any services, a proof of address is actually a challenging thing to procure. However, miraculously [really, the only miraculous part of the story], the condominium association managed to provide a declaration in record time and the day was saved! And then we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. 2pm. 3pm. 4pm. 5pm. 6pm. 7pm. 8pm .... No technician. No phone. And of course, no explanation.

Three days later, on the newest Day Eight, the company called the office to inform me that they would be able to come the next day to install the line. Feeling a little bit feisty, I informed them that we could not wait around the house all day for people who never showed up and that, in fact, we would not be home the next day at all. I realise that this wasn't the best thing to say to a service provider that we actually do want to show up, but truly, there would be no one home on the morning of Day Nine and I was tired of waiting for people who never show up [this will become a recurring theme ....]. The company said that this was okay, since they didn't actually need access to the apartment, that everything would be done on the outside of the building and that we could leave our photocopied documents with the concierge. Hurray! Feistiness saves the day! Well .... 8am Tuesday morning, the doorbell rang and it was the technician. Double Hurray!! [and double exclamation marks!!]. By 10am, the technician had come and gone and we now had one functioning phone jack. I think that he felt sorry for us and installed the one jack. Normally in Brazil, the phone company installs the exterior lines and the client has to call a second service provider who then does all kind of funny things with wires inside the house to connect each individual phone jack. Quite odd, but we are not to complain since we now have a phone! Now I am glad that I was home, since in actual fact, the technician really did need access to the apartment. Yeah for eight in the morning!

Next stop ... internet access!! Hopefully the adventure level of procuring internet will be minimal, although I do know that we might have to wait yet another seven (?) days AND we still need that second technician to come in to hook up the phone jack in the office prior to the internet technician coming in .....

post scriptum: Now in all honesty, this was a rather frustrating exercise. However, every time that I thought that things couldn't get worse, I would think back to some Salvadoran friends that live in El Salvador's second largest city. These friends had no phone due to the fact that they were not home the day that the phone company passed through their neighbourhood giving out phone numbers and installing the lines. Try as they might, there was no way to obtain a phone line after this day. Being a small and friendly neighbourhood, my phoneless friends were able to use their neighbour's phone to make calls, and every time that the neighbour received a call for them, she would bang on the wall that separated their houses. All this in 1995-6. See ... things could be worse! We also just found out that it used to take six months to get a phone here in Brazil. Essentially the process was i) put your name on a list; and ii) wait until the phone company shows up to install the line. No wonder people here are thrilled with these new and improved seven-day service!

Phew! Long post!

Cashews Anyone?

Did you know that the cashew is actually a fruit? I learned this the first time that I came to Brazil and it still amazes me. Related to the mango and apparently poison ivy, the cashew is a reddish / yellowish bell-shaped fruit which is native to northeastern Brazil. In fact, it was introduced to Indian / Asian cuisine by Portuguese sailors who brought cashew trees to Asia from Brazil in the sixteenth century. The cashew fruit is rarely eaten raw but is often used to make fresh juice. Personally, I do not really like the juice – perhaps it is an acquired taste – as I find it too bitter for my liking. But that doesn't lessen its popularity here in Recife [maybe all the added sugar makes it more bearable!]. The cashew's seed – what we know to be the nut – differs from the seeds of other fruits as it grows on the outside of the fruit as opposed a seed's more usual location on the inside. The nut is encased in two layers of shell between which lies a strong and corrosive substance often used to make varnish, insecticide, and even paint. True story!

The Making of Good Memories

One of the great things about Brazil is the food – something that I am sure can be easily gleaned from my blog – and some of the best meals that I have ever eaten have been since I moved here nine months ago. Back in December, I made reference to the restaurant Banana da Terra in Parati, where I ordered, and was thoroughly enchanted by, the cheese and banana-stuffed calamari in a coconut and tomato sauce. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water and gets me thinking as to whether or not I will ever be back in Parati and able to order the dish again.

Banana da Terra is part of a network of restaurants here in Brazil called the Associação de Restaurantes da Boa Lembrança – or the Association of Restaurants of Good Memories. Each Boa Lembrança restaurant [there are approximately seventy throughout the country] has a signature dish which, if you order it, comes with a painted ceramic plate which commemorates the dish. The signature dishes change on an annual basis and many people manage to make quite a hobby of frequenting the member restaurants and collecting the plates.



Now, in the past few months, I have been to several Boa Lembrança restaurants in different parts of the country and have remarked that, indeed, the food is always excellent and well worth the visit. However, I have also noticed that the Boa Lembrança signature dish is not always the better of the dishes ordered. In Parati, this was clearly the case as the banana-stuffed squid was far superior to the second [signature] dish that we ordered. Back in São Paulo, I went to the Empório Ravoli, another Association member, and although I ordered the signature dish of partridge-stuffed ravioli with a cassis sauce [which sounds quite good on paper], my colleague's tomato and cod-based pasta was far superior. After this second meal, I was beginning to get the impression that while it was worth visiting the member restaurants, it wasn't necessarily the case for the signature dish itself.

Here in Recife, there are several member restaurants in town, and I am keen to continue the experiment in order to see whether or not my hypothesis is true. Therefore, yesterday afternoon, in the name of science, we headed out to the Oficina do Sabor – the Flavour Workshop – in Olinda [a historical town, 7km north of Recife] to test out the wares. Now, off the bat, I have to say that the Oficina do Sabor is a absolutely charming restaurant located in a historical colonial house. Its main seating area is a covered terrace which overlooks Olinda and in the distance, Recife and in its annual survey of Recife's gastronomy, Brazil's Veja magazine named Oficina's chef Recife's chef of the year.

Right away my eye was drawn to the signature dish – shrimp in a mango and passion fruit sauce cooked with coconut milk and accompanied by a rice side dish. Was there any way that this could not be the best dish in the house? Well, after perusing the menu we came to our multi-fold dilemma. First, the rest of the dishes looked amazing as well. Second, we also wanted to try one of the shrimp-cooked-in-a-pumpkin dishes for which the Oficina is famous; and third, all the other dishes except for three pasta dishes, which clearly are not the specialty of the house, are designed for two to three people, making ordering a bit challenging when the signature dish is only intended for one and we were not quite hungry enough to eat for three. In the end, we decided to go with the shrimp with passion fruit sauce cooked in a pumpkin accompanied by a calamari risotto [pictured above]. And what a dish it was! Not quite as stunning as the calamari and banana dish [clearly I am smitten], but a true winner nonetheless. Of course the scientific experiment is still incomplete and this must be corrected. So I am sure that in the next little while, we will head back to Olinda to try out the shrimp with the passion fruit and mango sauce, no pumpkin. Seeing that there are a few more member restaurants in town, it would probably also be wise to enlarge the test-case circle. You know, for scientific accuracy and all. Stay tuned for the results of this important survey.

Yeah, We Have Gas

Victory! A mere twenty-nine days after arriving in Recife we finally have managed to procure a gas tank and connect it to our stove. The implications of this are enormous considering the fact that I have not lived in a fully-functioning apartment since May 13th and have been eating most meals out for the past eight weeks. While it might seem like fun to eat out for two months straight, I can attest to the fact that even this can get tedious. Although the situation did allow me to try lots of restuarants in São Paulo prior to leaving as well as to discover Recife's culinary offers upon arrival, it will be nice to settle down to a nice plate of homecooked food -- whatever it may be! Of course, the question remains: do I still remember how to use the stove?

G & Sweet T

I think that it is no secret that Brazilians have a fondness for sweets. It seems that this tendency towards sweets and sugar is even more pronounced in the Northeast, which has historically been the sugar-producing region of the county. Needless to say, it is pretty hard to resist all the wonderful looking desserts which surround us everyday. Of course, if we had a functioning stove, we wouldn’t have to eat out most days and would have some of the temptation removed, but I digress....

Recently we have discovered that it is impossible to buy any kind of commercial juice without sugar already added. Even orange juice. In São Paulo [yes, where the streets are paved in gold], there were a few brands of OJ which didn’t have any sugar added. No such luck here. Upon questioning, a clerk at the grocery store indicated that the only juice without sugar was a soy-based orange-flavoured drink sweetened with artificial sweetener! Fortunately, this dilemma has a positive solution called Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice, hence our rediscovery of the 25-watt juicer.

The other day, when we were out shopping for the Canada Day Party That Wasn’t, we decided to buy some tonic water in case someone wanted to have a Gin & Tonic. There were two brands available, Schweppes and Antartica. Strong believers in supporting local industry, we decided to go with the Antartica. Once home, Mark whipped up and Gin & Tonic for himself. After a sip or two, he wondered whether or not the tonic water had been sweetened. A quick check of the ingredients showed that indeed, sugar was the second ingredient! Now we will have to check the Schweppes to see if it has also been altered for the Brazilian palette!

Moving In!

Here are a few pictures of the fun we had moving in. The only piece of furniture that didn't fit in the elevator was this sofa!

Step 1: Wrapping and Securing the Sofa
Step 2: A Long Way Up
Step 3: Arrival!

Watts That You Say?

One of the fun things about moving between cities in Brazil is that there is no national standard for electricity. Some might say that there are no standards at all, but I am sure that somewhere, on some shelf, in someone's office, some standards do exist. But between cities, there is no rhyme or reason as to electrical standards. São Paulo is 110 volts all the way; Recife is 220; and just to make things even more fun, Brasilia is a mixture of 110 and 220. Of course, 120 and 127 are also common finds.

Prior to leaving São Paulo, I checked with the Consulate to see which appliances I should or should not be taking with me to Recife. The advice was that all large appliances which are constantly working, or require large volumes of power, should be left behind, while all small appliances which could easily be plugged into a transformer should accompany me since it would be cheaper to buy transformers than it would to buy all new appliances. And so we did.

Well, as we slowly settled into the new apartment in Recife, we decided that it was time to start putting some of our small appliances to use, notably the coffee maker, the sound system and a table fan [boy, can it get hot here!]. Off to the hardware store we went, only to discover that transformers a) range from a potency of 30 watts to 1500 watts; and b) aren't actually all that cheap. Having no idea about our actual wattage needs, we checked a few in-store appliances for comparison and eventually ended up buying two transformers; one for up to 200 watts and the other for 1020. Back at home we were amazed to discover our wattage needs:

10. Juicer: 25 watts
9. 5-CD Sound System: 77 watts
8. Table Fan: 80 watts
7. Sewing Machine: 80 watts + 15 watts for the light
6. Blender: 350 watts
5. Cuisinart & Blender combination: 500 watts
4. 2-Slice Toaster: 800 watts
3. Coffee Maker: 1000 watts
2. Vacuum Cleaner: 1300 watts

... and our number one wattage need – clocking in at 1350 watts – was none other that the ...

1. Walita Iron

Who knew that the iron was even more powerful than the vacuum cleaner? And that the coffee maker was as powerful as the juicer, the sound system, the sewing machine, the blender and six table fans combined?

After spending more than a week running around the apartment, moving the transformers from one room to another, from one appliance to another, and considering the fact that we couldn't listen to music if we wanted to sew, or turn the fan on while listening to music, we decided that maybe we could splurge and buy a few extra transformers. Well, back at the hardware store, the choice wattages were missing! They had lots available in the 30-40 watt range as well as in the 1020+ range. Nothing in the 100-200 range caught our eyes. So no more transformers for us! However, after thinking about it, we decided that in order to make our lives easier and to avoid possible accidents of forgetfulness, we should strike out and buy a new iron. Gasp! Yes! Well, considering that a 1500 watt transformer is actually more expensive than a new iron, it all seemed to make sense. Plus, it's one less transformer to lug around from room to room. Spiffy ironed clothes to follow soon!

It's Frevo-fontastic

Here's a picture of me at the local frevo-phone. Brazilians have a great sense of humour and one their trademarks are regionally significant phone booths. This phone booth -- phone booths in Brazil are called orelhão [literally "the big ear" in Portuguese] -- is a frevo umbrella, frevo being a popular dance in Pernambuco (the state) and Recife (the city) which involves a colourful umbrella as an integral part of the dance's steps.

Happy Canada Day – Part II (a.k.a Beer or Pretzels anyone?)

Well, it is the morning after Canada Day, and as we suspected, none of the email invitations arrived at their destinations. How sad. In fact, by 4:30pm, I already suspected this to be the case. I ran into one of the invitees by chance and inquired whether or not he had received the invitation. The answer was negative. Then there was some email correspondence from a work contact who made no mention of the invitation. Suspecting that something had happened to the email, I imagined that we would be on our own for the evening. Once home, which by now was mostly tidied [this in itself, is quite a positive outcome], we decided to halt the preparations for the festivities. In the end, we celebrated Canada Day watching the classic Canadian show Due South and nibbling on some of the party fare. Another positive, we are now totally stocked up for the next event, the invitations for which will definitely not be sent in bcc!

Happy Canada Day (a.k.a the party that may or may not be)

Happy Birthday Canada! The one day a year when Canadians get to shed their humble shells and get all decked out in red and white, drink beer, fire up the barbeque and hang out with friends on the patio / at the cottage / at the park / or at the nearest beach. Six years ago, at the end of my first year living in Ottawa, I went to my first Canada Day on Parliament Hill. Needless to say, I was more than a little bit overwhelmed with all the red and white and shouting and waving. As a good Montrealer, I was a little more used to the blue and white then the red and white! Ah Canada Day, the one day when Canadians are given permission to be nationalistic and proud!

As this is the first time that there is an “official” Canadian in Recife, I thought that we should hold a small, but dedicated, Canada Day party. Now, although we have been here for a whole three weeks, I do have to say that the apartment is clearly not ready to host a party. We have managed to plug up several of the holes in the walls and install the light fixtures. We even managed to fit the stove into its rightful location this morning [we still don’t have a gas tank, but this is besides the point…]. But … the toilets don’t all function even when the building does have water [today isn’t a have-water day] and we haven’t yet managed to scrap all the mould off the dishes and furniture. Never to be foiled, we decided that there is nothing like a little pressure and sent out an invitation to a rather motley crew of contacts [having only been here a few weeks, the invitation list was rather eclectic to say the least].

Last night, when I got home from work, I found out the Mark, who is here visiting for several weeks, had been to the mall and checked his email. When I enquired whether or not he had received the invitation, he indicated that no, in fact there had been no email from me in his inbox. No email! What did this mean? Did this mean that none of the emails had gotten through? I had sent them in bcc and copied myself. The copy to me had bounced back, but as far as I was aware, the remainder had made their may through. It was a mystery. And now, of course, we had no idea if the invitation had even been received. What were we to do? Having neither a phone, nor anyone else’s phone number, the best we could do was prepare for the party and wait and see. How sad! So this morning we trotted off to the grocery store and loaded up on food and drinks. We have set a frenetic cleaning pace and will wait and see. So far, no email responses, except from one person to whom the invitation was sent individually. As an aside, the one person who did actually receive the email is return to Recife from a business trip at 10pm this evening and wondered if it would be too late to come to the party. What to say? What to say?

Stay tuned for the outcome of Canada Day: The party that may or may not have been!

p.s. Thanks ms.mac for the happy wishes!