Becoming Brazilian

Why Not To Shop In Brazil

2011-06-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

International journeys starting in Brazil are exempt, thanks to some abnormally brilliant Brazilian law, the normal baggage restrictions of international airline travel. So, while economy passengers on all other global routes are only allowed two paltry 23 kilo bags, those flying from and to Brazil get to max out their two bags to 32 kilos a piece, without paying excess.

I customarily fill every last milligram of my allowance - and that of my kids - with the fruits of an obscene month-long European shopping spree. Usually a roof-box and trailer are required to get us to the airport with our 200 kilo load at the end of the holiday. I justify it as a means to save money, because I essentially buy the non-perishable goods required for entire year, from nappies and toothpaste to christmas and birthday presents, and avoid buying anything aside from groceries in Brazil. It's just too expensive to shop here, and I'm pretty sure I almost compensate for the cost of the flights.

If the price of goods wasn't enough, the exasperating purchasing process here is enough to dampen the appetite of even the most rabid shopaholic. First off, many Brazilian clothing stores follow the fifties' shop model, with many goods behind a counter manned with overly helpful assistants. You can't just browse the racks to find stuff yourself. Instead, you are obliged to be 'served' by a girl with a massive grin and a name that for some reason she thinks you need know, who will fetch what you request along with a collection of garments you wouldn't be seen dead in.

If you do decide to go ahead with a transaction, you must be prepared for the multi-hooped circus act that is checking out. It usually works like this: The assistant who has been serving you will issue you with a numbered ticket and ask you how you want to pay. (If you pay cash you will probably get a 5% discount). She will send you (without your goods) to the back of the store to the cashier, an invariably dour looking woman sitting behind a glass screen. Do not be surprised if this lady asks you for your vital statistics, such is the detail of personal information that is required even to buy a pair of socks. She will also ask you if you want to pay upfront (a vista) or in multiple interest-free installments (parçelado). Once you pay, she will duly stamp your ticket 'PAGO' and send you to another area of the shop to pick up your goods, which in the meantime have been bagged up. It's a frustrating, inefficient system that can mean 3 different queues, and requires 3 times more staff than necessary.

But for newcomers to Brazil, the frustration can set in long before you even set foot in the store. In order to shop you obviously need access to your money. Sound simple? Far from it. Opening a bank account is the first hurdle, and can take months while you wait for your official residency ID. But even with that first box ticked, you have two more hurdles: getting into the bank and operating the cash machine. You can take nothing for granted! When I first arrived in Sao Paulo, I tearfully aborted the first two attempts to get into the front door of the bank. I couldn't yet speak the language and was intimidated by the metal-detecting revolving door and the armed security guard shouting instructions at me from behind his bullet-proof screen. I just didn't understand what I was supposed to do (remove everything from my handbag and put them in a transparent container in the revolving door). It sounds pathetic, but I just turned around and fled!

And the cash machine amazes me every time to this day Withdrawing cash is akin to dancing the hokey kokey: You put your cash card in. You pull your cash card out. In, Out, In, Out and shake it all about. Do the hokey kokey and your turn around.......Seriously, I have to put the bank card into the machine and take it out again a total of three times just to withdraw a tenner. I have to punch my pin code in at least twice, and even that isn't straight forward - it's in a type of code whereby you press one button if the digit you want to input is a 1 or a 3, another if it's a 5 or a 7, another if it's a 9 or a 0 etc. (If you don't manage, you can always resort to using your cheque book, but I've lost count of the number of times my signature has not been deemed to match the one the bank has on file. )

Sigh....what a moaning Minnie post. I think it's because the annual holiday is so close I can almost touch it. Bring on that shopping spree.

Does My Kid Need Therapy?

2011-06-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

I was called into school today to have a meeting with the school psychologist to discuss Little Bear's behaviour. The tiniest little upset can set him off like a firework; screaming, shouting, kicking, hitting and spitting. It's a pretty regular performance at school, and she was curious to know if he did the same thing at home and, if so, how we handled it.

Six weeks ago I was not handling it. At all. I was in despair. He was throwing fits on a daily basis and i was trying every strategy known to modern and cave-dwelling parents alike. I tried ignoring the behaviour but that made him worse. I tried Time Outs but they don't bother him. I tried smacking him but that just led to escalating tit-for-tat physical conflict. I tried positive praise but that just enraged him. I spent nights researching Aspergers and child bipolar disorder trying to figure out what his problem was. I cried and felt like a terrible mother, not least because I found myself wondering if I still loved him. I just couldn't understand how a four year old with a loving, attentive family could be so unhappy. It was breaking my heart.

But about a month ago there was a shift. We decided to try a weekend without turning on the computer, so that we would be less distracted and more engaged with the kids. It was so much fun that it is now a firmly enforced family rule. Around the same time I also made a conscious decision to give Little Bear more 'colo', which is a wondeful Brazilian word that amounts to cuddling and holding someone like a baby. Guess what? In the last four weeks we haven't had a single episode of the same magnitude, at home at least. He's being utterly adorable and sweet and happy most of the time.

For me, it was case closed. But today the school psychologist was recommending we should take him for an evaluation with a child therapist to see if we can figure out what is bothering him. I have my own theories; jealousy of his younger sibling; anxiety about growing up (and even death) and a desire to go back to being a baby, all of which manifest themselves in massive attention-seeking fits replete with baby behaviour. See, I've got it all figured out myself. Why do I need to take him to someone else to corroborate my theory?

Truth is that we Brits are not very comfortable with therapy. I don't know a single British friend of mine that has ever been to a therapist, or taken their kid to one. The therapy culture of countries like the US and Brazil is a source of total bemusement to us. It's just not something that we do. And if we do, I suppose we don't talk about it. (Do you even get psychologists in British schools? You certainly didn't in my day). Of course I think that some people have some serious issues to figure out, but it seems like some people go to their therapist to indulge their precious egos for an hour, talking about how they feel about their broken nail or the boyfriend that just wasn't that into them. The Brits on the other hand like to figure things out by themselves. We're just not that dramatic or touchy-feely. Stiff upper lip, Dunkirk spirit and all that.

Whether or not I take Little Bear to the therapist remains to be seen. As for me, why would I pay to speak about myself for an hour when I can just spend an hour writing a blog post for free? Thanks for listening.

5 Things We Love To Hate About Brazilian Birthday Parties - And How To Get Over It

2011-06-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

Brigadeiros: Late Night, Anyone?

1) The Time of The Party:
You may as well just get used to the fact that ninety percent of the invitations you receive will be for parties that start when your kids are normally in the their pyjamas and end when you are normally in yours, and on a school night to boot. No use tut-tut-tutting. Brazilian kids go to bed late and there isn't any amount of head shaking and finger wagging that is going to change that. I get over it by simply not going to those parties. Believe me, going to a mere one in ten of them is more than an adult can handle without medication anyway.

2) The Sweeties:

As if trays of Briga-deiros, and the promise of cake aren't enough, a table full of sweets is in order. I take one look and hear that scary horror music from Psycho. It's a multi-coloured minefield of hysteria-inducing, teeth-rotting, choking hazards. The truth is that Brazilian sweets haven't undergone the same do-goody makeover as in the UK, with their enlightened natural colours and flavours. Here it's old school, like when we were four, but probably worse. Get over it by feeding your kids a truly self-righteously healthy meal before you arrive. Something with quinoa and spinach and salmon will do. Then, when they do go to the table, steer them towards a really big, hard lollipop that will keep them licking for the rest of the party while other kids scoff the rest. When you get home, scrub those milk teeth like Tinkerbell's life depended on it.

3) Health and Safety

This one's for Mr Becoming, who spent most of a party this weekend doing a safety assessment of the "Biggie Play" (those multi-tiered play areas invented by Ronald MacDonald) and the climbing wall (no helmets and lackadaisical monitoring). He was worried about falls and accidents. My concern didn't amount to more than a passing curiosity about how often the ball-pit balls were cleaned. I got over it by looking the other way and thinking pretty thoughts. There's nothing so bad in life that can't be made better by alcohol hand gel and a positive outlook.

4) Inappropriate Games

Killing Machines By Day. Bed Wetters By Night.

These party venues cater for a wide age range so it is inevitable that there are some things that are not for the smaller children. It is also inevitable that the father of the small child will allow said child to participate in these activities even though they know it will make the mother of said child apoplectic. Take, for example, the shooting of zombies in a violent and graphic video game. I'm still getting over this one actually and would just bury the memory if it weren't for the fact it was, in Little Bear's opinion, the best bit of the whole party and he won't stop talking about it. If total denial doesn't do the trick, the advice would be not to take Dads to birthday parties in the first place.

5) The Birthday Cake Ritual
The cake at a Brazilian Birthday Party is presented on a long table decorated with figurines that reflect the party's theme, in front of a decorated thematic banner. The theme is usually a Disney Princess or a Super Hero. These tables are an all-singing, all-dancing symbol of so much that is wrong with today's society; bad role models, commercialisation, yawn, yawn. Get over it by only going to Hello Kitty themed parties because it is impossible to feel angry at Hello Kitty. She's just too blooming cute.

British Queen's Birthday Celebration In Rio

2011-06-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

Went to one of those peculiar ex-pat events today that I love to hate but secretly adore for their weird comedy value. It was a tea-time celebration of the Queen's birthday hosted by the British Commonwealth Society of Rio de Janeiro, held in the hall at The British School.

Flat fluorescent lighting; Lots of old folks; The palest looking group of people I've ever seen in Rio; Patriotic balloons and union jacks; A vicar; A pianist; Cups of tea; Scones with jam and cream; Children in fancy dress (Little Dove won the prize in her Queen's Guard pyjamas); A faulty public address system; A raffle; Warm pro-seco; The National Anthem. You get the picture. It was like walking onto the set of a wartime sitcom.

It was the first time the BSC had held this event for families, in an attempt to attract a 'younger' membership. Here's a picture of the cake. Love the unintentionally cool 'you majesty'. They put the cake on the stage, where two seconds later a toddler dressed as Batman trod on it.

Four Year Old Prodigies - Better Believe It

2011-05-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

Aelita Andre - Four Year Old Prodigy (not mine!)

Did you see that video of the child prodigy abstract impressionist whose first solo exhibition is opening this week in New York? She is no more of an artist than the next kid, but what a lucky ducky to have such a cool studio space, an apparently limitless budget for acrylics and a collection of punky princess clothes that mommy lets her trash. Makes me feel a bit square for insisting my kids put on their plastic aprons, sit at the table and not spill their thimble-fulls of finger paint.

"Do not spill your thimble-full of finger paint!". Say that ten times, I dare you. With tongue-twisting skills like these, little wonder I birthed a prodigy of my own, of the existential philosopher variety.

Tonight's dinner time question was "What does it feel like to be dead?", but Little Bear's most common question is "Does that exist?". He's trying to figure out where the line is drawn between reality and fantasy, and asks this in relation to anything from monsters, angels, knights in armour, the Easter story, jellyfish and fairies to ghosts. These things have pretty straightforward answers - they either definitively do, definitively don't or nobody knows so you can just decide (and I'll let you decide which falls into which category). But things start to get complicated when he points to representations (or misrepresentations) of things in photographs, magazines, billboard ads, films, TV programs and illustrations. I find myself embarking on lengthy attempts to demystify the film industry ("That's an actor darling, pretending to be someone else, telling an imaginary story that was written by a writer, filmed by a cameraman" etc) or the advertising industry ("That's a photo of something real, photo-shopped by a graphic designer and made into something pretty unreal" etc), but my responses always fall short of his complete satisfaction.

We went to the Instituto Moreira Salles recently (our default rainy day in Rio routine) to see an exhibition of video portraits by Robert Wilson. We're talking high-res flat screens with what appear to be stills of celebrities, until you notice that parts of the picture change. Little Bear was completely entranced (so was I by the way, especially by the work featuring Brad Pitt in his underpants ) and of course he asked 'Do they really exist?". My explanation was that yes, it was a real person who really exists, and this was a video of them. When little bear wondered 'How do they eat?' I realised that he thought the people were actually stuck in a box up on the wall, behind a glass screen. And why not?

That's what is so genius about all four year old kids; their total ignorance. They haven't got a clue about what is likely to be real, what is clearly not, or any of the practical reasons why Brad Pitt wouldn't really be stuck in a box in the gallery. They don't know how things should or shouldn't be done, and no concept of any of the boundaries that separate their imaginations from the world around them. It must be magical living in a world where everything seems possible - including four year olds having their own gallery shows. Prodigies or not, they have a lot to teach us...not least that it's okay to for them to get paint all over their pretty clothes.

Things To Love About Cold Rainy Weather In Rio

2011-05-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

Break out the Cosby Knitwear..it's COLD!

16 degrees might be the temperature of a pleasant spring day in Aberdeen but here it is considered freeeeeeeezing. Coupled with the incessant rain, the cold front is enough to bring out a tropical variant of SAD in most people, but here I am to give you six reasons to enjoy the climate:

1) YOU HAVE AN EXCUSE NOT TO DO ANYTHING: In Brazil the rain is a perfectly valid excuse not to do anything or go anywhere. Apparently this extends to your place of work, especially if that happens to be my house. The first time I heard a maid play the rain card to explain an absence I was dumbfounded. Since, I have come to expect it. Sure enough on Friday morning as it rained cats, dogs and the full gamut of domestic pets, I got the no-show call from The Help. I've adapted pretty well to the rain excuse myself, and have used it this week to ditch yoga and spinning classes (pretty pathetic since the gym is about 20 metres from my front door) in favour of watching Barbie mermaid films.

2) IF YOU DO ANYTHING AT ALL, IT WILL BE AN ENHANCED EXPERIENCE: Given that most people will NOT be venturing far from home, anything you do decide to undertake will be all the more pleasant. When it rains, the illegal vendors who clog up the pavement with their pirate DVD and remote control stands stay away so you can actually navigate your pushchair from A to B without going mental. I took my kids to swimming class this week and they had semi-private classes since most other children had been kept at home lest they get wet and cold, and shopping at the Hortifruti in Catete was actually bearable because the fogeys who usually shuffle around the shop were all shivering under polyester blankets somewhere.

3) IT'S EASY TO MAKE FRIENDS: If you are new to Brazil and you want to meet other expats, put wellie boots on your kids and take them to the park to jump in the puddles. Without a shadow of a doubt, the only other children you meet will be other foreigners.

4) YOU GET TO COVER UP: All that chocolate left over from Easter and in the last few weeks I've acquired enough spare tyres to set up my own roadside borracharia. It's wonderful to be able to hide it all under sleeves and long layers, without the pressure of having a bikini body ready to break out at any moment. Liberate the body hair and revel in items of clothing salvaged from the 'cold clothes' box at the back of the wardrobe; garments that contain wool yes WOOL (mental note: remember to remind The Help how to hand wash and dry cashmere) and pashminas and socks wonderful socks.

5) YOU GET TO SEE SOME PRICELESS KNITWEAR: If the average Brit possesses one baggy-bottomed bikini and twenty jumpers, the Carioca has the inverse. The knitwear you see when it gets 'cold' here defies belief. Snuggly clothing, because it is rarely used, apparently lasts for generations, and is therefore excused the whims of fashion. You see people wearing patterns and colour combos that would make Bill Cosby proud.

6) IT MAKES YOU FEEL AT HOME: Don't we all love that chilled to the bone feeling that is rewarded by a nice toasted crumpet and a face-burning sit beside the open fire? This cold, wet streak makes me feel right at home. Most of all it reminds me why I'm glad I don't live there...

Facebook Saves Lives: In Defense of A Social Media Habit

2011-05-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

I have this dear friend. I was her bridesmaid and she was mine. Back at school she was an 'influencer'. She was intelligent, worldly wise and clued-up about music and pop culture. She introduced me to Paul Simon (see how cool?) and together we laid eyes on a CD player for the first time. At eleven she stated she would be a lawyer, and sure enough she became a total hot shot. Then she added being a super-mum of three under-threes to her CV. With all her achieving and reproducing, she let being plugged-in slide down her list of priorities. She simply didn't 'Facebook'.

I almost choked on my chocolate egg (is there no end to the Easter chocolate?) a few days ago when I saw her name pop up as a recommended Facebook friend. I quickly fired off an invite and rejoiced that I'd finally be able to keep in touch with her better. I got her (email) response today:

"I do NOT understand why people like Facebook. I just hooked up again to see someone’s photos and I just cannot believe the information people put on it. It is the end of privacy as we know it. AND surely no-one with a job has time for it. If you didn’t have full-time help, I’m sure you wouldn’t bother!!"

OUCH! I felt like I'd been punched by the angry, chocolate-egg-laying Easter hen looking for its stolen babies. Sad and Hurt. It wasn't the insinuation that Facebook was my distraction from filing my nails while a maid took care of my children and a husband polished his nose on the corporate grindstone that got me. I take her opinion personally because it is a total dismissal of one of the things I prize most. Being an expat mother raising young children in a country where I have no family members, in a city where I haven't known anyone longer than 18 months can be a lonely undertaking. It is difficult to keep friendships alive when you have been away for many years, but impossible to operate in life without them. I need my old friends so I need Facebook, and I need her to be one of my Facebook friends.

Of course I am making wonderful new friends, but I crave being with people who really know me and care about me, opportunities for which are few and far between. Every year more people have babies and fewer people visit. (The same friend only half jokingly promised she would come to visit when her children were at boarding school, in about 12 years time!) I hate that I don't know my friends' husbands better, that I have to think twice to remember their kids names, that I don't know what they thought of that TV program last night, what music they are listening to or what they are cooking for dinner. Facebook helps fill in these spaces, with an insight into the trivial day-to-day treasures of life that get overlooked when you meet friends or cousins for one afternoon a year, and the events of the past 12 months are reduced to significant events like job changes, new houses, new children.

To set the record straight I do work. Maybe not as much as I could, but I'm not totally idle. I also know plenty of successfully employed people that are very active on Facebook. As for the full-time help thing, I'll just say that time is like money - you use every penny that you have. If I have paid 'help', it is so I can get more done, and do it better, not to free up time for Facebook. Anyway, I think that Facebook saves me time in the long run. It allows me to know what's going on with the people I love all over the world, quickly and easily. All the hassle of attaching image files to cookie-cutter family emails is removed. I also belong to an amazing Facebook group of about 100 expat women who live in Rio. I can post anything related to living Brazil, especially concerning raising children, and get an answer within seconds from a handful of women that have gone through the same experience. In the absence of family and old friends, that type of virtual support network is precious indeed.

And just because Facebook friendships are so easy and convenient doesn't make them any less meaningful. Of course it's not as great as actally seeing people, but surely it's better than nothing. If anything I think Facebook has extended the love....renewing old friendships, nurturing new ones. But maybe for this friendship I might just have to go old school and pick up the telephone. Thank God for Skype...that's a whole other addiction.

Happy Mummy Day in Brazil

2011-05-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

Proud Bump

I bought a doll for Little Dove the other day, from a craft shop in Santa Theresa. Well, I think it was really more for me than for her. I haven't even shown it to her if the truth be known, even though I know she would adore it. What type of mother does that make me? Probably not one worthy of a commemorative day!

This doll was apparently created to educate under-privileged mothers about childbirth and breast-feeding, but I think we over-privileged ones can learn something too. When I'm losing my head at bath time, freaking out over the splashing, dunking and near-drowning, I can look at her calm expression - even while she births a baby - for inspiration.

Serenity. That's what I wish for you this mothers' day.

Here Comes Baby


If only we had poppers not nipples...

Passion Every Which Way: Good For Your Health

2011-05-05T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'm talking about passion of the fruit variety. Brazil's large maracujá are glossy yellow with a juicy orange pulp and are my current addiction. They have become a regular feature in my kitchen, taking up prime fruit-bowl real estate previously reserved for disappointing apples and pears, which I have finally given up on.

When buying passion fruits you want the ones with wrinkled skin which are ripe and sweet (in the sweetest way a very sour thing can be). They should also feel relatively heavy if they are juicy. I whizz them in the blender with water and pass through a sieve for a righteous-tasting drink. Add sugar if you want but I prefer it without. (If you add cachaça and ice you get a caiprinha de maracujá). But my absolute favourite way to eat them is in one of Brazil's finest and the World's easiest to make desserts - the classic Mousse de Maracujá. Whizz them in the blender again, this time with equal measure of cream and condensed milk and pass through a sieve before leaving in the fridge to set. Eat and die happy.

There is a conviction here in Brazil that the fruit has calming properties, and is therefore a great thing to give hyperactive kids in the evening. Mine adore the mousse but I'm sure all the sugar in the condenses milk negates the effect. I'm ok with that, since they're getting an alphabet load of vitamins, anti-oxidants and fibre. A bonus is that the seeds work naturally to combat intestinal parasites, which is great for my kids who play in dirty sandy playgrounds!

Apparently even consuming the skins of passion fruits can be beneficial as it limits the effects of glucose absorption, helps combat bad cholesterol and improves digestive function. You can cook it until it's soft and add it chopped to salads but that doesn't appeal to me much. I bought it today in a powdered format to add to smoothies and baked goods and will report back on how that tastes!

However good they may be, I read that you shouldn't exceed four maracujá fruits per day! Evidently too much of anything, especially passion, can be a bad thing.

What You Didn't Learn in Portuguese Class - Narco Slang

2011-05-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

Stumbled across this list yesterday, when I researched Rio's illicit crack trade, of drug related portuguese slang. It will come in handy for my undercover assignment reporting from behind the lines of the Comando Vermelho (one of Rio's infamous criminal organisations). Oh would that I were so genuinely journalistic...

Avião — (lit. plane) middleman
Baba — good money
Badaga — shoemaker's glue
Badagueiro — glue sniffer
Bagulho — joint
Banhista — (bather) someone who steals from a friend
Barato — high
Baseado, bagulho, bomba — pot
Bater pavão — steal
Bater um — (to beat one) to prepare the cocaine for snorting it
Bocada — (mouthful) — place to buy drugs
Bob Marley — marijuana
Boca-de-fumo — (mouth) point of sale of drugs
Bode — (goat) urge to sleep
Bodinha, bodinho — (little goat) girl, boy
Branco — (white) cocaine, faintness
Brecar — to dress well
Cagoete — snitch
Canaleta — (gutter) — vein
Caô — craziness or boaster
Chocolate — hashish
Crackeiro, craqueiro — a crack user
Dar o confere — to frisk someone while stealing
Dar o gogó — (give the Adam's apple) to catch by the throat
Dar uma luz — (give a light) transitory high
Derramar — (to pour) steal from the
boca-de-fumo Descuido — (carelessness) little theft
Docinho — (little candy) lysergic acid
Erva do diabo — (devil's weed) pot
Fazer um ganho — (to make a profit) to steal
Fino — (the thin one) pot cigarette
Fralda — (diaper) pot paper
Fritar pedra — (to fry stone) to smoke crack
Imbalista — passerby who nabs a mugger
Ir para Londres — (to go to London) to have sex
Lombra — high
Mardita — pot
Marica — (pansy) any object used to hold the grass
Matutos — (hillbillies) drug go-betweens in Rio
Malhada — cocaine mixed with talc or corn starch
Mela, merla — cocaine paste smoked in a pipe
Mesclado — crack and pot mix
Meter — to steal
Metranca — gun or machine gun
Mincha — metal bar to open cars
Mocó — place to sleep
Mula — (mule) person who carries drug in a bus or plane
Nóia — (from paranoia) drug high
Noiado — in a high
Palha — (straw) bad quality pot
Pedra — (stone) crack
Pico — (prick) injection in the vein
Pipar — to smoke a drug in a pipe
Poeira — (dust) cocaine
Plizzzzzz — mugging
Preto — (black) pot
Tuim — the almost instantaneous sensation provoked by crack
Tyson — (as in Mike Tyson) strong, knocking-down pot
Vapor — (steamboat) favela dweller who takes the drug to the consumer
Viajar — (to travel) to be intoxicated by a drug
Zoeira — high

Thanks Brazzil for the info.

Just Another Murder In Rio

2011-05-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

It's common to hear about people being murdered nearby. Last month a homeless guy was stabbed in the neck in Largo do Machado, a busy square I walk across with the kids at least twice a day. Last year during carnival a young girl who lived in a squat in Lapa was murdered on the Gloria end of the Aterro do Flamengo, her body dumped near modern art museum. That's where I jog.

Thankfully I didn't personally see either scene. Until now I have soothed myself with the conviction that as a middle class woman whose reality is far removed from that of a homeless addict or street kid, I'm not a likely murder candidate. I'm also neither a fraudster not exciting enough to inspire a crime of passion, so I feel pretty safe. These murders seem completely abstract. It doesn't mean I don't feel compassion for the victims -I think about that young girl every time I go for a run - but it's just that those sorts of things don't happen to people like me.

But then I hear about a 30 year old French guy who was murdered this weekend on rua Silveira Martins, just outside the clinic where I vaccinate my kids right here in Catete. Apparently a 56 year old deranged crack addict randomly stabbed the victim, who was taking an ironic fag break during a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Now that makes me freak. Crazies totally losing it just around the corner from my home killing Europeans in their thirties. Yikes. How am I supposed to protect myself and my children from that?

Researching Rio's crack problem makes for scary reading. The drug arrived here relatively late compared to Sao Paulo, allegedly because the city's drug lords decided it was so destructive that it would be bad for business in the long run. But it's here now. It's claimed that as many as 90% of Rio's homeless are crack addicts but that it's also an increasing vice of the 'respectable' classes. More than half of crack users who ask for help through the public health system are middle class youngster.

It seems that it's naive of me, then, to think in terms of us and them. The risks of living in Rio are not limited to the 'marginais'. The middle classes are just as much a part of this complicated equation. Whether they are crack addicts or, more likely, just enjoy a spliff once in a while, they are greasing the machine that destroys the lives of many people here in this city...it's just a shame that it takes a murder of 'someone like us' to make us realise that we all have blood on our hands.

Sunday Snap - Holy Guarana

2011-05-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

Spotted at the Feira de São Cristóvão, Jesus' own brand of Guaraná - so that was his secret! Guaraná is a perfumed, sweet fizzy drink made from the Guaraná plant, a natural stimulant which is indigenous to Brazil. The drink is hugely popular here, normally under the Antartica brand, but the Jesus brand is owned by soda Gods Coca Cola. Have a happy Sunday!

What No Beach? Phew for Playgrounds in Rio

2011-04-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

Little Bear Scoots the 'real roads' in Peter Pan Park

So, it's not beach season anymore here. Not because it isn't still hot and sunny here in Rio, but because my patience for sand in every nook and cranny of the house has been exasperated. We're back to weekend plan B - the parks and playgrounds routine. I thought I'd share our top three (or so).

Playgrounds in Rio are pretty underwhelming. Antiquated designs for metal, finger-chopping slides and roundabouts, the likes of which I haven't seen since my own childhood, are still the norm. There are no fences around the playgrounds or swings so you have to be aware at all times about where your kids are. That bouncy ground covering I've seen elsewhere also hasn't been adopted here so usually you have sand under the toys. It's a soft but grubby landing, and probably the reason we have to 'de-worm' our kids on a regular basis. Despite this, there are a few gems.

Our default stomping ground, because it's so close to home, is the leafy park behind the Palacio de Catete. It's a gorgeous, tranquil park with sculptures, fountains, lakes, a grotto and a playground in the shade of the tall, knotted-trunk figueira trees. We throw broken biscuits at the ducks and geese, watch the elegant white egrets catch fish, laugh at the little mico monkeys and play on the swings and climbing frames. Fenced on two sides by the park wall, the playground feels relatively 'safe'. There's a cafe by the art-house cinema that sells great pao de queijo and ice lollies. The only drawback is that you can't play with balls or ride bikes or go on the grass anywhere in the park.

If we are in the mood for bikes and scooters, we usually go to the Aterro de Flamengo, the most amazing park that runs the length of the beach from the domestic airport, past the Marina in Gloria to the beginning of the Botafogo bay. It deserves a post of its own so I won't dwell here, but we have another option for bikes which is also really fun: Parque Peter Pan is a tiny park that takes up a block of space in Copacabana where Rua Francisco Sá meets Raul Pompéia. It's been around since Mr Becoming was a lad and has real roads with road signs and traffic lights which makes little cyclists feel very grown up. It also has big stone castles and toadstool-shaped kiddie loos. Love it.

Finally there's the obvious one - the children's playground in the Jardim Botanico. It's to be avoided on sunny weekends when it is over-run with birthday parties, but during the week or on cloudy days it is magic. Surrounded by rain forest, you can sometimes see quite big monkeys playing in the trees outside the playground while the kids monkey around on their own toys in a safe, walled-off area. The snack bar is right beside the playground and there are, in typically hygienic Brazilian style, bathroom facilities that extend to a shower where you can clean your kids before you leave the park.

I should think that in a couple of weeks I'll be exasperated with pushing my kids on the swings and by then it really will be too cool for the beach...plan C is the indoor activities in Rio itinerary. Coming to a blog post near you soon.

The Joke That Wasn't: My Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

My Princess Bling

About six weeks ago, before I knew what time the ceremony would start, I started planning a Royal Wedding party. With my mother dispatched to the tourist shop at Windsor castle to pick up some commemorative memorabilia and union jack bunting, the wheels of the metaphorical horse-drawn carriage were put in motion. When it dawned on me (pun intented) that my party would have to start at 6am - due to the time-difference between London and Rio - I remained resolute. There was no turning back.

I realised pretty quickly that I was going to have to do some serious cramming to get my kids up to speed on the British monarchy, since it seemed likely that they would be the sole attendees. For the last week we have been cutting out pictures of royalty and weddings to make a huge wall-frieze, and dressing up in our crowns and tiaras. The realisation that queens, princes and princesses actually do definitively 'exist' (as opposed to superheroes, sea monsters, mermaids and God) was hugely exciting for Little Bear, who is now a staunch royalist with a cute crush on Princess Diana.

By Monday I accepted that my package of wedding kitsch was lost in the post and would never going to arrive, so I had to source my own. In downtown's Saara district I found heart-shaped balloons in red, white and blue as well as crowns and tiaras, and in Largo de Machado I found rip-off royal sapphire engagement rings for a bargain R$7. I even had a Blue Peter moment and hand-crafted a Union Jack cushion cover to lend the TV room a patriotic tone. The final seams were finished at midnight last night.

As I was setting up my 'party', I thought I was being ironic. It was all just a good laugh. An excuse for a cup of Earl Grey in the bone china set, a bacon sandwich and some bucks fizz, wearing my blue sapphire engagement ring and a tiara. Just me and the kids. But then just before heading to bed I blew up the heart shaped balloons, and they started systematically bursting in my face at point blank range. My eyes started watering copiously from the shock of the balloon-shrapnel whacking into them and wouldn't stop. After a while I began to wonder if I wasn't actually weeping for real, from the heart. How terribly un-British.

This morning, 6am, the doorbell. Hurrah! A British girlfriend actually came to my party! The kids were still in bed so we snuck into the decked-out TV room and completely lost ourselves in the proceedings. I was completely surprised at how moved I was at the whole thing and how hard it was to keep it together. There was no chance of a singalong to the hymns without a breakdown. I couldn't really put my finger on what I was feeling, but it appears that somewhere buried deep inside me there is something approaching patriotic sentiment! It is the first time I remember being genuinely proud and excited to be British, and sincerely sad not to be there.

In the end the only joke was that of the lost package, which was of course delivered at 6pm this evening! Seriously.

President Obama I Know How You Feel

2011-04-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

I am not Chinese. Neither genetically nor culturally the teeniest weeniest bit. I've been sewing a Union Jack tea-cosy today for goodness sake! And yet my Brazilian ID card insists that I'm from the People's Republic In China. It's for the same reason that Americans are getting their knickers in a twist about exactly where President Obama was born. The concept that place of birth dictates nationality is shared by Brazilians too. For me, who happened to be born in Hong Kong (which at the time was a British Territory) it's a totally bizarre concept.

For Brits, it's all about where your parents and your grandparents were born. With my father and paternal grandfather born outside of the UK (but still in British colonies), I get citizenship by the skin of my teeth. My own children got Brazilian passports automatically (since they were born here) and their British ones by descent, mostly due to the fact that my "Brazilian" husband was born to a British mum, in London. If my kids in turn have their children outside of the UK, I believe that my grand children might not get British passports, at least not down our 'line', since British citizenship by descent only stretches to one generation born abroad.

It makes me wonder what would happen to a baby if it were born in another country that does not grant automatic citizenship based on birth (Germany for instance) to British parents who, due to a random set of birth circumstances, can't pass on British nationality. Anyone know?

Turns out that understanding citizenship and nationality is so complex that speaking Chinese might have helped after all...

"They Say That..."

2011-04-26T17:09:00.000-07:00

I Say We All Lighten Up A Bit

If I had a Real for every time an expat in Brazil started a sentence with "They say that..." I’d be living in a penthouse in Alto Leblon.

Usually the words precede some health or safety recommendation and “They” refers to the experts from ‘developed’ nations on whatever topic is being discussed. For example: “They say that cot-bed bars should be so many centimeters apart” or “They say that you should wear SPF 60 at all times” or “They say you shouldn’t co-sleep with your child in case you smother it”.

Knowing what “They” have to say about everything is the curse of being an English speaker. More often than not the health and safety advice is completely at odds with reality in Brazil and only serves to turn you into a neurotic worrier and total bore who sees fault in everything.

“They” sent me a childcare newsletter the other day, recommending that the under-fives should not take swimming lessons. It makes both the children and their parents complacent around water, lulled into a false sense of security because the child can (or thinks it can) swim. If a young child does do a swimming class, they must have one-on-one adult supervision, wear a floaty, and never ever be submerged, even for a second. (The last point was laid on thick; something about death but I can't remember what exactly.)

Needless to say, my two and four year olds take swimming lessons here in Rio. Neither wears a floaty and both spend most of the forty minutes underwater.   Today there was one teacher for four toddlers and the lifeguard only had to jump in once! “They” would not have been impressed.

You would think that there would be global consensus on what is considered ‘safe’, but I’ve come to realize that health and safety concerns are completely cultural. Behaviour considered irresponsible or high-risk in one country is totally socially acceptable in another.

Take smoking while pregnant; I thought this was a universal no-no…until I made French girlfriends. Almost all of them smoke and most continue to do so while pregnant, and it seems to be perfectly accepted. (Accuse me of making sweeping generalizations if you dare, but take it from someone who has lunched with three pregnant French friends who asked the waiter if they could move to an outdoor table so they could light up.)

Here in Brazil you see many other things, in addition to the swimming lessons, that “They” would condemn: The habit of entire families in the countryside lounging on the roadside, not at the roadside, but on the tarmac itself, usually around blind corners, so cars have to swerve quickly to avoid them; the practice of undressing newborn babies so they can enjoy naked sunbathing sessions in the direct sunlight; the norm of putting young children in cars without car seats (this has only just become illegal but the law is still widely ignored).

And Brazil has its very own 'They' with a whole different set of things to opine about: “They say you will catch pneumonia if you walk on tiles barefoot” or “They say that fresh cows milk is too strong for children to drink” or “They say that you can’t birth a 4kg baby without a c-section”...

They also say that at some point you have to stop obsessing about what others decree we should and shouldn't do, trust in our own good sense and live a little.

Expats Living In Brazil: Some More Equal Than Others

2011-04-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

Yeah, but can they speak Portuguese?

There's a much larger international expatriate circle here in Rio than I ever expected, and it ever-increases along with the region's oil and gas industry, and upcoming events like The World Cup and Olympic Games.

Beyond the obvious (and many) different nationalities, foreign families in Rio fall into one of two sub-tribes depending on whether they have been sent here by their employer or chosen to live here off their own backs. The former (corporate expats) spend a few years in the city, and their entire existence is bankrolled by the company. The latter (local expats) are usually in a relationship with a native, live on the local economy, and may stick around for the rest of their lives. (That's me.)

Both tribes co-exist peacefully, but not completely without envy. The locals covet the fancy free perks of the corporate expats, who in turn wish they had the family network and Portuguese speaking abilities of friends married to Brazilians. The truth is that between the corporate and local expat, the experience of life in Rio can be different in many ways, from where they live to how they educate their children to name just two.

Education
The corporate expat will most likely send their child to an International school, let's say The British School, at huge expense to their company. In return for this investment their children will unlearn their English grammar, acquire an American accent (oh horror) and make friends with the spawn of Rio's A-listers (double horror). In contrast, locals will claim they would NEVER send their child to such a school, even if they could afford the R$17,000 per child enrollment fee. Dismayed that bonafide Brits that can actually speak, like, proper, don't get a discount, they will make do with a local Brazilian school where their children will reportedly not pay sufficient attention in English class, duh.

Living
The newly-arrived corporate expat will spend months and months in a service hotel while they search in vain for a flat. They won't be able to find ANYTHING that meets their requirements on their enormous allowance. When they do finally find the place, it will fall through a million times, and they will write facebook-status-update-essays bitching about Brazil's bureaucratic quirks. They will eventually install themselves in Leblon, probably with a sea view, in a to-die-for pad. In contrast, the local will live at the wrong end of town, in Flamengo or Laranjeiras (or, God Forbid, Niteroi) in diminutive flats with views of...other flats.

The list could go on, but I think you get the point. In the end though, there are probably more things that bind the international community than divide it. For instance, it is unanimously agreed that Brazil is overpriced, the service in Rio slow and the bras badly fitting, and nothing brings foreigners together more than a conversation about how many passports their children have, how many languages they can speak, and how many wonderfully interesting countries they have resided prior to Brazil.

Got it Maid

2011-03-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

Not entirely true; I like to cook...if someone else preps and clears up

This month I got my life back.   It's been in a state of suspended animation for ages, while I attend to visiting in-laws, end of year festivities, carnival, sick children and school holidays. The last in the line of things to stand between me and my ‘me time’ was my maid. She was hospitalized for a week and almost died. If it was painful for her, it was for me too, stuck at home doing chores instead of indulging my yoga, ballet and lunch habits. Thank God she came back.

I’ve come to rely heavily on this woman who is neither family nor friend, who I pay to be nice to my children, cook my food and sort my dirty laundry. The relationship between dona (me) and empregada (maid) is a tricky one, and by far the most difficult thing I’ve had to adapt to since I arrived in Brazil. For many Brazilians it’s taken for granted that you will have at least a cleaning lady, if not a full-time maid, nanny, cook and/or driver.   It’s not just the super rich either; I finally decided it was socially acceptable when my hairdresser told me my husband must be very mean if we don't have one.

Having another adult in your household who knows all your business takes some getting used to. You can’t hide anything from them. I found out about a friend's adulterous affair via a maid we shared. Another friend of mine was mortally embarrassed when her maid salvaged a pair of trousers that had been binned after an impatient bowel incident during stomach flu. The maid just scrubbed the crap off them and put them back in her closet without saying a thing. Just today, my maid asked me 'Dona Natasha, do you pick the skin on your feet?'. Bad habits have no hiding place.

In return, it's difficult not to get involved in the life of a woman who spends more time in my home than her own. Like most foreigners, I haven’t mastered the Brazilian art of distancing them from their staff that enables them to regard them as domestic appliances, to have no qualms about what they ask of them, how much they pay them or how happy they might be.   I was once warned by a friend never to engage a maid in a personal conversation, but I have a hard time with boundaries. And that’s how I end up knowing a lot, too much, about Lu.

She has absolutely no concept that there might be some things I don't want to know and I don’t know how to tell her to stop. Showing me photos of the house she’s building and her cute baby nephew is fine, but photos of her large body in a tiny bikini doing sexy poses is quite another. Then there’s the whole reason that she nearly died in hospital.   She already has a teenage son, but she doesn’t use contraception (again, did she really need to share that info?) so no surprises what happened. She had told me she thought she might be pregnant, but I was slightly taken aback when she informed me that she was going to see a woman after work to ‘resolve the problem’, hence the near death thing, of an infection, because it all went badly.

When she told me what she planned to do (and how), my first instinct was to slip her the extra R$300 it was going to cost to go to a clinic and have a real doctor perform the procedure on the sly.   A quick call to Mr B, who is a natural when it comes to boundaries, brought me to my senses. Paying for your maid to have an abortion doesn’t look too great if you end up in a court. And so I just wished her luck, gave her money for the 2 hour bus journey home and wished she would learn how to lie to me.

And so our life as intimate strangers goes on...

Spread The News Sunday: You Can Get Dengue Fever Too

2011-03-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

Aesdes aegypti Mosquito

Since it's Sunday I thought I'd spread some news, or at least some information that you should share with others because everyone should know. Today's sermon is about Dengue Fever since it seems that its season has arrived, with many reports in the news recently about high incidence of the disease in some areas of Rio state.

Dengue is a tropical disease mostly carried by one type of mosquito, the black and white striped Aedes aegypti mosquito. The symptoms are mostly flu-like, with high fevers, joint ache and rashes. Most people have relatively mild symptoms but it can get really nasty and be fatal, especially for children. Every individual - that means you too - has to take responsibility for ensuring they are doing their bit to combat the spread of the disease.

The mosquitoes breed in stagnant pools of water. If you live in a flat this might be around your potted plants or in empty containers on your terrace. In a garden there are a million different potential breeding pools. In my place I found two larvae in the tadpole tank this week. I used to cover it with a net to stop the mozzies getting in, but then one of the newly morphed frogs got tangled up in in and died. Anyway, I thought the remaining tadpole would enjoy some insect larvae for breakfast but in fact they got bigger by the day without being eaten so I eventually fished them out and killed them.`They look like little wiggly worms.

What you need to do is simple; get rid of those stagnant pools and puddles. The plates under potted plants should be scrubbed clean once a week, or you can put sand in them. Containers outside should be placed face down. If you see an obvious dengue threat on a neighbour's property, an abandoned pool or an uncovered water tank, you should report it to the authorities. You can find the number and other dengue information (in Portuguese) on the Rio Contra Dengue site.

Finally, protect yourself from bites. I don't think you need to tell you how, but let's just say a big Amen to Off Spray.

(Image Sanofi Pasteur 2006)

You know you have Brazilian kids when...

2011-03-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Kids at Museu da Republica, Catete

They know their way around dead cow: At four years old, Little Bear has hung out so much at traditional Brazilian barbecued meat restaurants (churrascarias) that he already knows the names for different cuts of beef. Yesterday he was requesting fraldinha (flank steak) while snubbing the noble picanha (rump) or fatty cupim (hump). Along the same lines, he also eats whole chicken hearts like only Brazilian children can.
They don't have vocabulary for winter garments: My children have pretty much no idea what gloves, scarves or woolly hats are, let alone winter jackets. As summer draws to an end here it's actually become cool enough to wear clothes again, and the other day Little Bear asked excitedly if he could put on some 'long shorts''. A year in Rio has robbed him of the words 'trousers' and 'jeans'
They actually ask to brush their teeth and wash their hands: You can't get a cleaner child than a Brazilian one. Kids in the playground barely get a chance to play between nose-wipes, hand washes and getting dirt dusted off them. This is a country where you commonly have four bathrooms in a two bedroom flat, everyone takes their toothbrush to work so they can brush after lunch, and many people shower at least twice a day. Well, my kids have picked up the clean bug from their dad. We have to brush their teeth approximately every five minutes and they are meticulous about hand washing after going to the loo. I shouldn't complain but it's just so very foreign.
They drink coffee and tea: I was shocked to hear about friends' children being offered milky coffee as a drink at their nursery. My kids aren't exposed to that, but they are offered mate, a caffeinated ice-tea drink, on a regular basis. I didn't think they liked it, but according to Little Dove's teacher, on Friday she drank litres of the stuff. As for Little Bear, this weekend he has decided that milky coffee is delicious and has been drinking all the dregs of Mr B's lattes.
They play at valet parking: If my children are playing at driving in a toy car, one drives up to the other, gets out, gives them the key and goes into an imaginary restaurant, allowing the other sibling to park the car. Spoilt brats I know, but it's just a reflection of the fact that here in Brazil - and especially in Sao Paulo - you get valet parking everywhere. When I was a kid, I would dress myself and my brother in rags and we would play 'paupers' by sitting in the corridor begging money from passing parents. Clearly my children have bigger aspirations.

I survived Rio's Carnaval Parade

2011-03-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

Just can't stop moving my feet..

Been there. Done that. Bought the feathers.

It was completely and utterly insane and I loved it. After two consecutive nights at the Sambodrome, I can't get the sound of drums and singing out of my head, and I do believe my feet keep breaking into something approaching samba steps. I think I've been brainwashed.

For those that don't know, the most famous of parades, held on the Sunday and Monday nights before Mardi Gras, sees the top twelve Rio samba schools compete to be crowned champions. The samba schools here are like football teams, with team colours, flags and passionate supporters. Every year they pick a theme for their parade, write a new song and create an hour long spectacle of floats and dancing girls (and guys and everything in-between) in crazy costumes doing choreography to the beats of the incredible bateria. The whole show lasts all night, from 9pm until around the 5am next day, so you can cut me some slack on the typos and spelling mistakes today - I'm totally dead, even though I only lasted four schools on Saturday and three last night.

On Sunday night I sat in an arquibancada, a large terrace of steep concrete steps, where you hustle for a space, and sit amongst thousands of other people. From up there you have a great view of the parade as a whole, although you don't see the details unless you take binoculars, and don't get great pictures unless you have a super zoom lens. (By 'details', by the way, I don't mean bare boobs. It used to be popular for bare breasted ladies to dance at carnival, but it has fallen out of fashion. I only counted two topless girls, and some nipple outfits.)

Salgueiro's un-topless girls

I sat next to a guy who hadn't missed a carnival parade in forty years, so he helped me understand how it all works. He pointed out the judging boxes, in front of which the schools do extra show-off stuff (so it's good to be near one of those). They are judged for their song, band, dancing, costumes, story-telling and a couple of other things that escape my foggy brain. He also showed me where to find the words to each of the songs so I could singalong. I had actually bought the Sambas de Enredo CD a few weeks ago, with the intention of learning the songs before the night, but forgot about it. By the end of the processions I pretty much had the chorus down anyway - after all, you hear the same song again and again for over an hour.

King Kong's Banana Girl

Last night was a different experience, in the camarote - private box - for one of the samba schools, Grande Rio, which was great because it allowed us to get closer to the action. As is standard for these areas, invitees are issued with a hideous, extra-large nylon t-shirt that features the school's theme illustration and sponsor logos. It is mandatory to wear these, so the big thing is to customize them to make them wearable. I seriously misjudged the effort most girls would put into this, and simply cut a hole out of one shoulder and cinched the waist at the back with a kilt pin. When I got there I was surrounded by silicone breasted sambistas in strapless dresses (which they call here tomara que caia - hope it falls!) and strappy halterneck numbers covered in sequins, gold brocade, jewels, rosettes and chains. Next time I'll know better...or will just stick to the "cheap" seats, which had a better vibe anyway, even if they didn't have a free bar and catering!

Some images of the event will never leave me: The opening choreography of Unidos da Tijuca was incredible; a group of ghastly characters dancing around taking off their heads, holding them under their arms and then putting them back on again. The school seemed to excel in the crowd-pleasing stunt, with incredible floats depicting the movies Avatar, Transformers and Jaws, the latter of which featured a swimming pool with a guy swimming that was then eaten alive by a mechanical shark.

Mocidade's Show Stoppers

Another school, Salgueiro, also chose a cinematographic scene and had a huge float of King Kong holding a nearly naked woman painted yellow like a banana. Well, she has to be seen to be believed. If I thought there was a lot of silicone implants around, well she won the prize hands down...or should I say bottom out. I can't get her rather grotesque image out of my head.

However, my absolutely favorite moment of the whole thing was the Mocidade float that featured only big chubby but very sexy dancers gyrating in their plain white undies. The irony brought tears to my eyes - in a parade all about out-doing the next with a killer body, fancy footwork, crazy costumes and high-tech gadgets, the most innovative, attention grabbing thing you can do is to show a bunch or normal looking people having a great time. I'm signing up for that float next year!

Favela. Chic?

2011-03-05T17:56:00.000-08:00

Rafael, our guide in the favela

I learned the word favela when I lived in Paris. One of our local haunts was Favela Chic, a Brazilian restaurant-come-night-club where we would get drunk on caipirinhas and then get up on the table and go crazy to Brazilian soul, funk, rock and samba. It would get so hot they would spray us all with soda water from the bar. A Brazilian friend of my husband's came to stay with us once and went there every single night. Sod the snooty Parisian bars and bistrots - he wanted some good Brazilian fun the likes of which, ironically, he didn't find in Brazil. Oh, those were the days....

Anyway, for those that don't know, Favela means 'slum' and there are a lot of them here in Rio. Since my Favela Chic days I have always felt that I was missing something living in my middle class appartment blocks with high ceilings and (almost) sea-views. I've always been desperate to experience 'real' Brazil. People just don't seem to dance on tables in Flamengo, so I've always just assumed that all the fun must be going on in the jumbled red brick ghettos into which Mr Becoming has always forbidden me to venture, for good reasons.

In general, favelas are dangerous places. Many of them are run by drug gangs and the normal rules of the city do not apply there. They are the cauldron in which horror stories brew. I watch the news. I've seen Cidade de Deus and Tropa de Elite. These media images - whether fictional or true - helped turn the "favela" into a big scary monster in my mind; but the truth is that they are where a huge percentage (I've seen estimates from 19% - 35%) of the city's population call home.

Anyway, after five years of living in Brazil, I visited a favela for the first time this week. I took the free, ten minute ride on the funicular railway to the top of Dona Marta (also confusingly called Santa Marta) in Botafogo. The favela was the first in the city to be 'pacified' and is home to the headquarters of the UPP, Rio's pacifying police force. As such, it's considered a safe place to visit and they have even erected a little tourist information booth at the bottom of the hill where you can pick up a map and arrange for a local guide to show you around.

Just Another Boringly Splendid View in Rio

There are a few points of interest in the community. Foremost is the incredible view that is just a short walk from the top station, of the entire Enseada de Botafogo. I know, yawn, yet another great view in Rio, but believe me, it's classic postcard stuff. The main reason I wanted to go up there, however, was to see the Michael Jackson area. The pop god filmed the video for 'They Don't Really Care About Us' there and in his honour they erected a pretty nasty bronze statue of him, and a mosaic wall that depicts him as he must have appeared on a Brazilian postage stamp. I'm such a fan. It rocked.

I can't deny, though, that the most fascinating part of the visit was walking down the warren of staircases and narrow alleys that lead back to the bottom of the hill. We were guided by Rafael, a kid who just appeared and, without comment or acknowledgment, appointed himself our guide. We passed hundreds of red brick and wooden homes piled on top of one another, from which sounds of daily novelas and chores emanated. Some homes seemed quite substantial. Others, balanced precariously on rotten wood stilts, defied belief. Doors left ajar offered split-second snapshots of normal life inside tiny but meticulously-kept homes, but the space between them and the concrete steps was deep with rubbish.

I also can't deny that I was absolutely terrified. Alley ways narrowed and darkened. We passed a group of male youths just hanging. My legs were shaking - mostly from staircase fatigue but also from fear. I was definitely struggling against the scary monster in my head and having doubts about our little guide...was he leading us to trouble? Of course it was just in my head. The 'threatening' youths were just having a drink at a little tiny bar hidden under a house, and acknowledged us with friendly grins as we went passed. Finally, the quality of light changed, and we emerged from the claustrophobic human warren into a square whose surrounding buildings have been painted in rainbow colours that make the place glow. I relaxed when I saw some UPP guys and we even sat and had a beer and watched life go by for a while.

It's hopefull to think how the quality of life for people in Dona Marta has improved since the favela was pacified and the community has been integrated into 'normal' city life, but going there opened my eyes to the poor conditions in which some people here live. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a non pacified community. Certainly, there is nothing 'chic' about it, and probably not that much dancing on tables either. I shall make do with shaking my booty on the table at home - I'm suddenly more appreciative of my high ceilings; at least I won't bump my head. Let's dance, MJ!


Love You Michael!

Sequins and feathers? Must be Carnival in Rio

2011-03-03T08:49:00.000-08:00

Rio Carnival Tickets Baby!

It's official. Carnaval is here.

I just picked up my tickets for Sunday's samba parade at the Sambodromo (Rio's purpose build samba parade stadium). I'm not entirely sure how much I'm looking forward to this 'once in a lifetime' experience. Basically you pay a fortune to stay up all night sitting on an uncomfortable concrete bench watching other people have fun. It better be worth it!

It's quite a business buying tickets to the event. In true Brazilian style, it's all very mysterious and difficult. You can't just call a booking office and buy a seat for the night you want, in the seat you want. Each type of seat is sold on different days. For the best of the "cheap" seats - open boxes with tables that line the route - you have to fax a request at a specific time and date way back in December. Obviously I missed that. Then, at 8am on January 15th (or thereabouts), the arena seats become available. I called the dedicated number for two solid hours before I got the message that all the seats had been sold out. Humph. In the end I bought tickets from an agency that tripled the price and tried sell me a t-shirt, a blow up cushion and a tour of the city. Smells like corruption to me.

Local Pet Shop's Rack of Canine Carnival Costumes

Anyway, even it I'm not, the rest of Rio is getting into a carnival mood. People have started wearing flowers and feathers in their hair. The pet shop has a window display of costumes for dogs. You can hear drums. On Wednesday night my spinning class instructor treated us to a blast of traditional samba and Ivete Sangalo numbers instead of the usual techno music. At one point one of my fellow spinnees leapt off her bike and exploded into a one-million-footsteps-an-hour samba frenzy around the room...she just couldn't resist it...high kicks and everything.

Tonight is my children's school 'bloco', a street party where everyone dresses up and follows a samba band around a neighbourhood, singing, dancing and getting their cellphones stolen. Little bear still doesn't know what he's going as. I thought we were all set as skeleton, but he was told this week at school that carnival was just for non-scary costumes so now he's considering between "happy things" like a soldier, pirate or batman. Little Dove will, of course. choose between pale pink princess, bright pink princess and white princess.

Feather Shop in Rio's Saara District

If I do finally get the urge to dress up, I've found the place to shop for DIY costumes. Yesterday I discovered the shops on Rua Buenos Aires that sell glitzy fabrics, beads, feathers, head-dresses, wigs, masks and all manner of other haberdasher's curiosities. Palàcio da Plumas (Feather Palace) is a warehouse-sized store where you can buy feathers in all sizes, shapes and colours by the kilo. The sequins and beads aisle of superstore Caçula is as long as the samba parade itself. It's all one big trannie strippers dream but the jury is still out on whether it is really mine. Verdict on Monday.

No Clothes Please I'm British

2011-01-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

Keeping Cool at Cachoeira da Queda

Too hot. Can't breathe. Can't move. Can't write. (Did you even miss me?)

Wish you lot in the Northern hemisphere would stop complaining about how cold you are up there. At least you can just keep adding thermal layers. Once we're naked, that's it. That's all we can do, and so that's exactly what we do do.

A few weeks ago I got into the habit of jumping straight out of bed in the morning and into a bikini. By day four, while untangling a cold, sandy, damp bikini from the bucket and spade in the previous day's beach bag, I realised I don't have enough beachwear for that habit. So, I just gave up on apparel altogether.

Mr Becoming has been having a fit at my constant state of undress, convinced there are men climbing trees in the park opposite with telescopes, looking in at me. He screams 'the shutters are wide open' and expects me to hit the floor. I suppress the urge to nonchalantly stride up to the window and strike a pose for the peeping toms. I try to respect his desire to protect my modesty, even though we both know I don't really have any to protect.

Anyway, the only thing that beats getting naked in this heat, is getting wet. (No, not like that. Way too hot for anything more than a toe-rub. Forget it!) I have a couple of friends with pools but they are currently about as warm and delicious as a urine sample. There's the sea, obviously, but my favorite way to really chill is to go up to the Parque de Tijuca and swim in one of the natural waterfalls in the forest.

We've been spending the mornings at Cahoeira da Queda, a waterfall surrounded by lush tropical forest. The water is wonderfully icy and can can even provoke a welcome case of goosebumps, and there is a stony shallow pool where the kids can chase butterflies and collect tadpoles. (We have adopted four at various stages of metamorphoses though we have no idea what they are...I'm just waiting to have a poisonous tree frog leap into my cereal bowl)

Finally, the most authentically Brazilian way to keep cool in this heat is to take a multiple cold showers a day. Mr Becoming often takes a shower when he gets up, when he goes to bed and at least once in between. Until I moved to Rio I was perplexed by this obsession with personal hygiene, but now I'm beginning to see where it comes from, and am beginning to adopt to the incessant showering habit myself. If nothing else, it's the one place cool enough to allow a toe-rub to get out of hand...

I'm Hearting 2011

2011-01-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

Back from paradise; Two weeks on a farm without internet connection, telephone or television. Nothing to do but eat, drink, sleep, sing, dance, watch good bad movies and commune with crazy, complex nature.

I find it noisy enough in the city, but it's nothing compared to the auditory assault of Brazil's countryside. At dusk, the surreal electrical screeching of the cicadas would start up and then, as that subsided into the blackness, the xylophonic tok tok tok of the frogs would take over, with such perfect rhythm that I could use it as a metronome to play the piano badly. After dinner, we made our own noises: the more talented musicians played the acoustic guitar and the cajon while the rest of us struggled to recall the lyrics for a single singalong song in English, Portuguese or Spanish. (oh, the things you can't do without the internet). All night, confused cockerels would doodle-doo. All day, bickering paraquets, buzzing insects, the canter of a horse pulling a cart, the cows moaning in the dairy. On top of this my children perpetually screaming, of delight or fury.

Every day we would bear witness to summer's maniacal melodrama of scorching and drenching and scorching. Skies perfect blue one minute were black with killer clouds the next. Barely a few heavy warning raindrops pa-plopped before hyperbolic downfalls would beat down upon the palm fronds, turn the pond into a thrashing, spitting cauldron and change the burnt pink earth into muddy streams. Then, with bi-polar perfection the clouds would dissolve and calm return, all forgiven by the smell of warm wet earth.

In response to all this the garden was perceptibly alive: Luminous new shoots burst from plants in real time; orchid buds popped open before my eyes; mangoes swelled with sticky juices and thudded to the floor in the hundreds. All the creatures too, were living their accelerated, purposeful lives. Worker ants hauling torn leaves, petals and dead beetles across mountain and valley to their queen. A mother bird feeding her screaming chicks. A fat caterpillar spinning its cocoon. Two male tortoises fucking in the vegetable patch. Calves being born in the field. It made me feel dizzy and still at the same time. Too much oxygen from all those trees or something. Gave me an appetite.

And we ate well. We eat and drink so well there. Milk fresh from the dairy warmed for breakfast. Resplendent bunches of pink lychees, unwrapped from the red papery wrappers that encase their slippy succulent fruit. Food alive with just-picked herbs, the mangoes, the bananas too plentiful to eat before they succumb to the flies, the home-made ice cream and yogurt and yum yum yum yum all the way home...

Only day 6...but so far 2011 is looking, sounding and tasting so good I could die fat, sticky and happy. Hope you have a good one too.

Cry Baby Christmas

2010-12-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

Brazilians are emotional people. If you watch the nightly news, the response to eight out of ten questions posed to eye witnesses on the street involves the words 'tanta emoção' (it's just so emotional). It's how Brazilians feel after a disaster, a miracle or a slice of pizza.

On Friday, Mr Becoming and his work colleagues had their Christmas day out, and what did all these big tough guys get together to do? Weep. Yes, they wept at the emotion of it all. At one point, each manager had a personal letter, written by one of their nearest and dearest, read aloud to the assembled team. The managers had to identify themselves from these letters, in which their wives and children waxed lyrical about how much they loved and couldn't live them. It turned into a sob-fest, as each person, identifying themselves from their eulogy, would well-up with tears. The person who was reading out the letters choked and passed the mike to his neighbour, hilariously blubbing "I might be in security, but I also have a degree in architecture" by means of an explanation. Even the interpreter, simultaneously translating the goings-on for the benefit of a few perplexed Canadians, had a breakdown.

Of course I had to compose a letter of my own for Mr Becoming. Since I didn't remotely understand what I was supposed to be doing, he ended up having with something more akin to a letter of complaint; that he didn't talk much, didn't trust anyone and worked too much. Oh well, at least I saved him of the indignity of crying in front of a crowd.

For my part, I might be more Brazilian than I think: I teared-up myself when I went to get the kids from school on Friday. School was breaking up for the long summer holidays. I'm not sure if I was emotional on the behalf of the kids, who were having to say goodbye to their beloved teachers, or on my own behalf, at the thought of actually having to parent my children for eight straight weeks. Either way; "tanta emoção".

They Wrapped Him In What?

2010-12-15T09:39:00.000-08:00

The Adoration of the Magi under our tree

They laid him in "strips of cloth" and laid him in a manger. Say what? Since when did baby J start wearing strips of cloth? What happened to the swaddling clothes?

I couldn't believe what I was hearing from the clergyman at the British Church the other night. It seems that since the last time I went to a Christmas church service, a really long time ago, someone has actually been paid to asses the relative merits of swaddling clothes versus strips of cloth and decided that the former were no longer a la mode.

Coming to think of it, I do seem to recall that as a child I had no idea what swaddling clothes were...but even still, I don't agree with the change. I've already adapted to a Christmas in the heat and a Christmas dinner table with no turkey or meat at all for that matter (veggie in-laws). Please don't let make me give up the swaddling clothes too. I mean strips of cloth just sounds so plain...oh...is that the point? 'Swaddling' is de riguer amongst even posh mums these days. Maybe they wanted to make it clear that the Virgin Mary is not one of those.

Oh well, whatever the point, we probably missed it when we gave our home-made baby Jesus a blue and gold baby wrap. He is the centre-piece of an entire nativity scene I made with Little Bear from recycled yogurt pots. In case you missed that, let me repeat: I hand crafted Mary, Joseph, three wise men, a shepherd and the Angel Gabriel from recycled organic yogurt pots. And ladies and gentlemen, they stand beneath a huge, genuine-article fir tree, the likes of which you don't usually see around this neck of the woods. While I'm at it let me add that I have already bought and wrapped all my gifts and that later today I will ice the brandy-soaked fruit cake I made back in October.

I may not have been to church for a while but I can tell you, this Christmas I have a big fat shiny halo. Peace and love to all mum-kind.

No Back Door Entry: Deal Breaker

2010-12-09T09:50:00.000-08:00

No Back Door Entry...but There's A Great City View

We thought Christmas was coming a little early this year, with the long-awaited sale of our flat in Sao Paulo looking like it was really going to go happen. But e-tidings received from the almost-buyers yesterday quashed our festive joy:

"We were at the apartment again over the weekend and identified a problem that we hadn't noticed upon our previous visits: the property does not have a service entrance. This seriously depreciates its value, since the circulation of maids, supermarket delivery men etc will pass through the living room. Besides this, just imagine when it comes to taking out the rubbish. Sorry for the inconvenience but we will not be proceeding with the purchase"

Just imagine, indeed. Oh well, I guess for Brazilians the whole back door entry thing really is a big deal, and not just figuratively.

It's true that our place is rare in this respect. The layout of most Brazilian city dwellings reflects a culture in which domestic chores like cooking, cleaning and shopping are performed by hired domestic staff. Usually, an out-dated kitchen, laundry facilities and a maid's bedroom and bathroom comprise a dedicated service area tucked at the recesses of the property, with it's own access. These are areas in which the owner barely ventures, let alone lingers. (FYI potential buyers, ours has all that except the apparently crucial door)

Aside from the fact that unused maid's rooms are great places to stack suitcases and junk, the architectural norms of Brazil are completely at odds with my lifestyle. I love cooking and hosting. In my dreams I have an open-plan kitchen (they call this a "cosinha Americana" here in Brazil, oh the irony) where friends drink cocktails and eat heart-shaped canapes while I effortlessly throw together prawn ceviche and home made profiteroles. In these dreams I suppose my guests would be witness to the demeaning task of - shock, horror - kitchen waste disposal. But isn't that the whole point of having made Mr Becoming lug a a 50 litre, chrome, Brabantia 'touch bin' back from a recent business trip?

The Shitstorm After The Storm

2010-12-07T17:17:00.000-08:00

Mud. For cooling the blood and clogging engines.

While half the world is buried under metres of snow, we are suffering from the intolerable heat and the associated tropical storms. In the last 48 hours, our bairro has been recuperating from a tremendous downfall on Sunday night that turned adjacent streets into waist-high, fast running mud torrents.

Oops; The steps down to the car park

Yesterday, the air was thick with the humming of massive hose trucks pumping water from flooded basements, underground garages and businesses. Banks and many shops were closed, workers mopping and clearing out sodden furniture and goods. Car owners hunched over their open bonnets with spanners, trying to figure out how to engineer some life back into the water-logged engines of drowned vehicles.

The hotel around the corner neglected to put up the storm barriers that stop water entering the car-park and in so doing, submerged around 50 cars. On the muddy pavement outside yesterday, stunned owners watched the water level drop imperceptibly slowly as they spoke to their insurers on their cellphones. Today their sorry cars were finally dragged out of the mire.

24 hours later, cars emerge

Above us, technicians from the cable companies fixed broken lines. Beneath the streets, surreptitious electrical fires started, causing a plume of unidentifiable smoke to emerge from a manhole this morning. Fire engines, fire men and everything, to the joy of Little Bear.

We could revel in all the excitement because we were unaffected by it. Our car was parked a long way away. Oblivious to the unfolding drama, on Sunday night we were lulled into a delicious unconscious sleep by the falling rain...and dreamed of snow drifts and an improbable white christmas

Remembering A Natural Birth In Brazil As Little Dove Turns Two

2010-11-28T17:16:00.000-08:00

I've been busy baking

Meeting my future husband and giving birth to my first born were great days, but 29th November 2008, the birth of my daughter, was the most brilliant in my life. She turns two tomorrow and it's got me all nostalgic for the day she arrived...

2 weeks overdue, barely able to move, and doomed to an induction if baby didn't get a move on, I finally started contractions at 5.30am. By the time I arrived at the hospital I was 10cms dilated and by 7.45am, barely two hours after it all kicked off, I was holding a perfect, piggie-pink newborn in my hands.

My Little Dove, at 4.4kgs (9.7lbs), was not so little by anyone's standards, but in Brazil she was considered a freaky-monster big baby. Added to which, she came out the 'normal' way without any drugs. In the world of Brazilian private hospitals this elevated me into some sort of divinity. Nurses who had nothing to do with me were dropping in just to take a look at the girl who had birthed baby 'fenomeno' the crazy way.

You see, middle and upper class Brazil is a c-section culture. I'm not entirely sure why.   Maybe they are terrified. Maybe it's because Brazilians are climbing social ladders and natural birth is considered unsophisticated and ill befitting a refined individual. Or maybe it's about Brazil's cult of the body-beautiful; Who would want to damage their nether regions when they can get an invisible bikini-line c-section and a mini tummy tuck at the same time? Could it really be true that doctors encourage it because they don't want to be inconvenienced by babies arriving at weekends, in the middle of the night or on national holidays?

Whatever the case, everyone from parents to grandparents to nurses and doctors perpetuate this belief that a woman probably shouldn't, couldn't or wouldn't want to birth a baby vaginally, let alone without medication. When mothers in Brazil go for their first prenatal appointment at 8 weeks, they generally schedule a date for their c-section some 30 weeks later.   The Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo, where I delivered, has a c-section rate of 80%. Of the 20% that have vaginal births, 99% of those have epidurals.....That makes me one of a very teeny weeny minority to birth the way I did. Very rare indeed.

So rare, in fact, that I honestly don't think that the nurses on my shift had seen a natural birth in a very long time, if ever. Certainly, they had no understanding of why I would want to do such a thing, or what my needs might be. When I announced that I would not be strapping on any monitors, inserting an IV or having an epidural (there are no other medical pain relief options given here), they started to visibly twitch. They then started asking me a long list of questions regarding my medical history and looked offended when I gave them the 'talk to the hand not to my face' gesture. They so rarely see women who are feeling (and trying to manage) painful contractions, and kept urging me to get on the bed to lie down...which is where they are used to seeing (and managing) their mothers.

With my son, I had accepted an epidural from a handsome anesthetist at 9cm dilation (no such thing as too late here) and couldn't feel a thing during his lengthy forceps 'extraction'. This time, I was determined and well prepared, having read every book ever published in English or French about natural childbirth (tellingly, I never came across one in Portuguese).   I was coaching myself in my head..open, breathe, relax, block out the voices, do what you feel, etc. Finally, I got the tell-tale 'I need a crap'' feeling that anyone familiar with natural births will recognize as the baby's arrival. I duly told the nurses what I was feeling and..well, they didn't crack the code. They helped me get to the bathroom and then, when I started screaming that the baby's head was coming out (into the toilet bowl) they all started screaming too!

It was mass hysteria and my doctor had to shout at them all to get a grip and help me onto the bed. (Yeah, he had limits...I had to have the baby on the bed...although I did manage to avoid the stirrups). I had also made it very clear to my doctor that this time, no one was to 'help' me by violently forcing down on my belly as I pushed. I've heard of this happening to loads of people here, but it seems to be a uniquely Brazilian practice. I didn't have to worry this time because she shot out like a Champagne cork after 2 pushes, and that was that, the best day in my life and it wasn't even breakfast time...

Happy Birthday my gorgeous big girl.

All Eyes On The Screen...And It's Not For Footie

2010-11-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

Rio Watches

This afternoon the whole of Rio has been glued to the TV as the local news networks air real time footage showing hundreds of armed drug-gang members fleeing through an area of jungle known as 'inferno verde' (green hell) from the favela (slum) of Vila Cruzeiro, which had been occupied by the police and military troops, to neighbouring favela, Complexo de Alemão.

The footage was shot from TV helicopters with mega zoom lens cameras. They can't fly too near, because the gangs probably have anti-aircraft weapons. It's scary stuff, but to viewers at home (or on the street) it seemed like it would be a piece of cake for the police to take 'em all out, being that we could all see where they were. Some were shot, but the truth on the ground, according to the chief of police in a press conference tonight, is much more complicated than it looks from the safety of the couch

Bus Burning (image Globo News)

The latest spate of violence started on Monday with what appeared to be coordinated attacks around the city, including some quite close to where we live. Cars burning, buses burning, assaults on vehicles and shootings; It is all a response to the on-going pacification strategy in Rio, which pushes drug gangs out of the communities and then places permanent pacification police units (UPP) within them. Once in place, the city invests in the infrastructure of the favela, improving access etc, and thus begins the process of reintegrating the area into the city. Every pacified favela is essentially one less place for the bandidos to hide. Up to now most of the pacified favelas have been relatively small areas in the Zona Sul...but as the program expands, the criminals are beginning to feel the pressure.

The chief of police explained tonight that rival factions are even having to unite forces in order to help each other in the 'war' against the joined forces of the civil, military and federal police. He hopefully suggested that this was an essential 'suicide' for at least one of the factions, doubting that after years of violent rivalry they would be able to keep the peace between them.

It must be terrifying to be an inhabitant of Complexo de Alemao tonight. On the TV we could see people, including children, waving white sheets and t-shirts out of their windows towards the cameras in a gesture of peace, as the terrorists marched passed their homes.

The whole city is with them. The general mood is one of determination to do something about this problem once and for all. Brazil is having a real 'moment'; spirits are high and these criminal factions are not part of the shared dreams of the future. An encouraging sign is the record number of anonymous denunciations that are being made on Rio's equivalent to the Crime Watch helpline...with more calls today than in the service's 15 year history.

The city has it's eyes on the ball....let's just hope we don't drop it this time.

Just call me Carmen Miranda

2010-11-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to remedy my samba spacticity in time for carnival next year, when I hope to parade semi-naked in full-on, sequined, Carmen Miranda garb at the Sambodromo, I signed up for some beginners' samba classes. My formal initiation at Jimmy Oliveira's studio was on Monday night.

I've hardly been in a heel higher than a Havaiana's since I moved to Brazil five years ago, so the first surprise of the evening, before I had even left home, was that I managed to find a pair of red heels at the back of my wardrobe that hadn't succumbed to the Brazilian mofo monster. Perfect!

Legs and Lotharios. Beginners' Samba Class in Catete.

The second surprise, when I arrived at the studio, is that Samba, or at least the type taught in studios, turns out to be couples' dance. I was a bit taken aback when I realised I was going to be pressing myself up against an unknown gentleman's body. I'm not averse to that by the way, it's just that, well, if this class had been in Leblon maybe my classmates would have been models or actors, but this is Catete - Halloween costumes are not necessary around here. Plus, it was about forty degrees in the room...drip, drip, drip.

After we had practiced the footwork individually, I was partnered with one of the assistant teachers, a nice young guy whose name I've forgotten. I held his hand a little too desperately and whispered to him "It's my first time". He replied "don't worry, trust me" and duly popped my ballroom dancing cherry. We proceeded to have a few lovers' tiffs of the "Stop trying to lead. Me man. Me in charge" variety, but once I relaxed and stopped thinking too much about my feet, it all fell more or less into place.

It's incredibly easy actually, at least for the woman. The technique is keep your legs straight, your bottom sticking out (I should've been wearing my bum pants) and to channel your inner puppet on a string. The guy really is in charge: With his hand on your back he controls the direction of your body and with his leg between yours he controls your legs. For someone whose husband is the other side of the earth, it's not a bad substitute. My dance partner, with a couple of crushed toes, might not have felt the same.

Looking for people to join me in the samba parade by the way...any takers?

Life's a Beach!

2010-11-09T14:35:00.000-08:00

View of Rio's Sugar Loaf and Christ Statue from Praia do Imbui, Niteroi

"É a minha praia" literally means "it's my beach". Figuratively, it means "that's just my cup of tea" which says something about the importance of tea and beaches to Anglo and Brazilian cultures respectively. Anyway, language lesson over...

You know when you are roasting something in a hot oven, and you open the door and stick your head in too far by mistake and totally sear your eyeballs? That's pretty much what the arrival of summer is like in Rio. It hasn't happened yet, but that oven door is ajar and about to swing open any second.

At the weekend, for the first time this year, I had to put the air conditioning on in the TV room, which reminded me that our ancient air conditioning units are making a terrible noise and costing a fortune. God, why didn't you grant me the wisdom to do something about that during the cold months? Now I've almost left it too late - apparently by early December all fans and air conditioning units in the city have sold out.

Anyway, the good news is that beach season has come around again, and this year I've got the routine down. In an uncharacteristically anal-retentive moment, I cleared out a whole cupboard of random junk, dedicated it to beach paraphernalia and stuck a beach checklist on the inside of the door.   No more running this way and that for suncream, sunhats and snorkels. Now I just take huge bag, throw it all in and I'm ready in ten seconds.

The only tricky thing is deciding which beach to go to...
"Which beach shall we go to darling?"
"Oh I don't know. Life is so shitty."
"Let's have a cuppa shall we, while we decide"

There are all sorts of factors that influence this decision. Of course, safety-conscious Mr Becoming is all about the water quality. He usually consults the environmental agency's map with its colour-coded classifications and their weekly water-quality bulletin. INEA also offers general words of wisdom including "Don't swim in the sea 24 hours after rain because all the shit is flushed out of the city into the sea." (Bodes well for the rainy season then) and " Don't bathe on any beaches with rivers or canals" (That's Leblon and Ipanema out then) and "Don't swim when the water is black" (I think I could figure that one out for myself, but it rules out our local ~~sewer~~ beach, Flamengo, which is within the polluted bay.).

If we stay on the city beaches, we usually end up on Praia Vermelha, with its demerara sand and view of the Sugar-Loaf, or Leme, because they have little paddling pools filled with 'fresh' water for the kids (although last time the fresh water smelled like something had freshly died in it.). More often than not, though, we do the very un-done thing and head across the bridge to Niteroi, the neighbouring city that Carioca's scornfully say only has one thing going for it - the view (of Rio).

Mr Becoming did a hostile environment training at a military base over there (killing chickens with his bare hands and stuff. He might be safe but oh he's deadly!) and he managed to wangle a pass to a great Ocean-side beach, Imbui, within the fort complex. The coastline in Brazil belongs to the Navy, which means that there isn't really any such thing as a private beach here, but to get to this one you have to go past a million armed soldiers at various checkpoints. I'd love to see someone try and assert their public access rights.

This beach is worth the 30 minute drive past the docks, over the bay and through the centre of Niteroi. A beautiful curl of fine white sand surrounded by forest and huge rocks that protect the shallow waters and make it the perfect place for young kids. There are usually only a few other families on the beach, and the view across the mouth of the bay, of the backside of the Sugar-Loaf and the Corcovado is breathtaking. It's very simple. There are no vendors of half-melted ice-lollies or jewelry or sarongs or fizzy drinks, no-one renting out chairs or parasols, just us and our buckets and spades, the sun, the sand and the open sea.   To me it is the absolute definition of "minha praia" and absolutely my cup of tea.

'Extra' Long Line at the Supermarket

2010-10-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

There's was this really ghetto Sendas supermarket at Largo de Machado until yesterday. It always had an overpowering stench of drains, moronic staff and lengthy delays at check out, but it was so cheap it was sometimes worth the pain.

Today I was thrilled to notice that it had re-invented itself overnight into another budget chain, Extra. Assuming the supermarket couldn't get any worse I went in to check it out. No sewage smell, so that's an improvement. Staff? Well they've got those girls wearing Rollerblades and hot-pants with walkie-talkies. They may or may not be moronic, but at least they look cute.

As for the check-out, well just take a look at the video. I'd prefer to smell manure than stand in this line any day.

Love thy Crazy Neighbour

2010-10-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

I've had a bit of a blog block in the last week or so, but it turns out that sometimes you don't need to look much further than your front door for inspiration...

When I open mine, I see an exact mirror image across the hallway, except that the door has ten key holes. Ten? Even with all the security issues in Rio, ten locks is really playing it safe. I can hear my neighbour each time she leaves her apartment, her key chain clanking and jingling as she methodically locks each one with a separate key.

Because she is perpetually either locking or unlocking her door, I almost only ever see her from the back. A thick-set, fifty-something body; doughy white flesh spilling out of too-flirty florals; jet hair pulled to the nape of her neck. I've see her face sometimes, but because she almost always wears opaque black shades, she never makes eye contact, let alone polite conversation.

She's generally referred to as the madwoman on the second floor, or The Countess. The 'sane' inhabitants trade information about her in the lift, after discussing the Feng Shui energy channel that flows through the master bathrooms of the building. (Seriously, apparently it does.)

Anyway, there are lots of rumours about The Countess. Apparently as wealthy as she is crazy, she owned and recently sold a whole block of real estate in Copacabana, in which the notoriously seedy 'Help' nightclub used to operate. Despite the alleged riches, she has no electricity in her noble appartment, and so watches television from the threadbare couch in the lobby with the doorman, which he tolerates because of her inflated tipping habits. As if having no lights wasn't bad enough, she has lined all the windows of her property with bin liners so that even during the day she is in total pitch black.

Apparently the flat lay abandoned for some time while she was institutionalised in another city. Nurses, unaware of her identity, thought she was delusional when she kept telling them she lived in a flat on the beach in Rio de Janeiro. Finally, she was found by a son who confirmed that the delusion was true, and she was brought back home.

I'm completely fascinated by this woman. I lie awake at night refining the details on my imaginary baratacam (cockroach camera), that would slip under the door and crawl around the rooms to reveal what goes on in there. What is she hoarding that is so precious it demands such peculiar security and environmental precautions? Is she some sort of a Vampire? Has she killed a man?

Despite her best efforts to slip out of a barely opened front door, I have managed to catch a few glimpses inside her apartment. The first time, I discerned that the whole place was packed solid with shadowy shapes, which I took for rubbish. Another time I saw the door ajar and someone with a flashlight looking around at this 'rubbish'. It turned out to be antique furniture and decorative objects, stacked up like in a warehouse. But I'm sure there's more to it than that.

It's Halloween this weekend: Maybe I'll send the kids across the landing to trick or treat. Then again, maybe not. I'm too scared to knock.

Nossa Senhora makes the Children's Day

2010-10-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

That's her on the back of the fire truck

Today was a national holiday in Brazil, in celebration of the country's patron saint, Nossa Senhora de Aparecida.

I've been curious about her since I arrived in Brazil. As far as saints go, she's got a pretty distinctive look, with her dark skin, her embellished, tent-like blue cloak and her golden crown. Coming to think of it, she's the only Saint I can name, apart from St George, whose dragon is a bit of a giveaway.

The story began with some fisherman in Guaratinguetá who were fishing for a feast held in honour of a visiting dignatory. They weren't having much luck, being that it wasn't fishing season, so they prayed for help. Lo and behold, their next haul netted a broken figurine of Jesus' mum, and after that they caught a whopping amount of fish.

These days the area around her first miracle has evolved into her namesake city and pilgrimage destination, Aparecida. I've passed the gigantic basilica there many times and have always been curious to stop there to pick up some Catholic kitsch, but we're always in a hurry. On her special day, October 12th, about 35,000 pilgrims attend mass there, inside what is the largest shrine in the world. You can watch all the jubilation and devotion live on the dedicated TV Aparecida. It looks like quite a party, if you're into crying, crowds, concerts, confetti and communion.

As it happens, the 12th October in Brazil is also Dia das Crianças, children's day. As if every day in Brazil isn't children's day, on this particular one you have to give your kids presents and be especially nice and patient, even when your four year old has taken to roaring like a lion when he doesn't get his own way.

The favorite moment of everyone's day in our household was when these two celebrations converged. We were just about to disappear down the metro station steps when a group of police motorbikes, sirens and lights a-go-go, cruised down Rua do Catete. They were the advance party for a fire truck carrying an effigy of Nossa Senhora de Aparecida, presumably to a church somewhere else in Rio. She in turn was followed by a cavalcade of over 500 motorbikes and motor-trikes of every possible description.

As the procession passed by in a cacophony of cheering, tooting and flag-waving, Catholic bystanders crossed themselves respectfully. Even I felt surprisingly moved, with pre-tear prickles in my eyes. As for my son, I though he would end himself with joy. Sirens, Police motorbikes, fire trucks and an army of friendly bikers! Nossa Senhora, you are clearly a mother who knows a thing or two about little boys.

Playing it Safe in Brazil

2010-10-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

If you live in Brazil, you’ve had this conversation: It starts with someone recounting something that happened to them, a friend, or a friend’s friend that weekend. Something like a gold necklace yanked off by a passing cyclist, a wallet swiped by a beach vendor. Then it descends into frenzied, horror-story one-upmanship that leaves new arrivals wondering if they’ve made the right decision.

I am as guilty of this as anybody: My current portfolio of pant-wetting anecdotes includes one about a friend caught in her car on a Rio highway during a gang shoot-out. Gangsters ran between cars, smashing windscreens and firing into the air while she hid behind the seat reading storybooks to her toddler. There’s also the one about my friend who stopped his car to give directions in Itaim, whereupon a guy jumped in and held a gun-barrel against his forehead until he handed over his wedding ring.

The story-telling is part scaremongering, part therapy. We do it for the same reason that we look at road accidents; to confront our fear and accept the inevitable truth, that one day we may be the protagonists of our own drama. We have to prepare ourselves for the worst and hope for the best. But there are things besides crossing fingers we can do to avoid trouble.

I am married to the most security-conscious person on Earth, a security expert whose career is founded on his being an inscrutable, levelheaded person who can spot a risk a mile away but would never take one; who would never make a careless mistake like leaving a front door unlocked or a passport lying about; who is programmed to trust nobody but who people trust implicitly. Yeah, so he’s so not rock and roll…but I like him.

I interviewed him for a magazine article last month and thought I'd share the transcript with you. His advice has kept me safe up until now, maybe it can help you too.

Babe, can I interview you about security in Brazil?
Providing you don’t mention my name.

Seriously? Can’t I even tell people what you do?
No

What are you scared of?
I’m a discreet person. I value my privacy.

How on earth did you end up with me? I only ever dreamed of being famous….I bet you didn’t even tell me your real name!
Marrying you was probably the riskiest thing I ever did. If I tell you the truth I will have to kill you.

Okay be serious; are we irresponsible to raise kids here? Is it too dangerous?
No, of course not. Danger is relative. It’s safer here than Kabul, more dangerous than Monaco.

Very helpful! Could you try and be a bit more specific?
Well, I reckon that if you put every country side by side, Brazil would be a bit worse than average. Sao Paulo is safer than Mexico City and with a different type of crime than places like Johannesburg where there are many rapes and violent crimes.

Square of chocolate?
Hand it over.

So, what are the biggest dangers here?
In Sao Paulo and Rio, we’re talking about street crime. The problem is the perpetrators are armed and don’t have much to lose. In Rio you have drug gangs with territorial control, and police no-go areas. But for your average expat, crimes of opportunity like mugging, car-jacking and express kidnap are the biggest threats.

Talk about kidnap
Kidnap for ransom is now very rare in Brazil. More common are express kidnaps, when they capture a random person, steal what they have on them and drive them around cash-points to max out their cards before releasing them. There’s also virtual kidnap, when someone makes you believe, via telephone, that your relative has been kidnapped and will be harmed unless you make an immediate deposit to a bank account. Meanwhile, said relative is fine, shopping or at the cinema.

Does anyone really fall for that? I get those reverse-charge calls all the time
It seems unlikely, but intelligent people can be duped. Even the Brazilian Vice President fell for this a few months ago.

How can people avoid becoming a victim?
Be aware. Awareness costs nothing. I see people invest R$50,000 to bullet proof their cars, but then they drive with their windows open, or with the doors unlocked. Pointless.

When driving, you should always know where you are going and plan your route, which you never do.

I do. Just because I once took a four-hour detour via the airport on what should have been a twenty-minute journey in Rio. I still can’t believe how mad you were at me.

Don’t remind me. You were an idiot. Those roads are dangerous. I was worried about you.

Also, when you stop at traffic lights, you shouldn’t fiddle with your radio or talk on the phone; look around, use your mirrors, and always keep enough room between you and vehicles in front when you stop, so that you have room to evade trouble.

On the street, stay alert and keep a low profile. Do not walk around using your cell-phone or talking loudly in English. Don’t wear expensive jewelry.

Is that why all the jewelry you’ve ever given me is made of wood or seeds or plastic – for my safety?

Diamonds cause wars…where was I?

Be sensible. I wouldn’t sit on the terrace of a restaurant with my laptop, except perhaps in a shopping mall. Don’t believe anywhere is completely safe, even chic neighborhoods. Some places are less dangerous than others. That’s it.

What about at home?

In an apartment you have an extra layer of security – the doorman. But the main problem is that despite equipment like cameras and security gates, he is often badly paid, untrained and could easily let someone in.

With a house on the street you have the advantage of having complete control of who comes in and out, but you need to invest in perimeter and electronic security, and ensure your maid is trustworthy and well trained.

Tell maids not to reveal or confirm anything on the phone, and only let authorized people in. Also, know who you are hiring. Pay for background checks and check references. It’s easy, yet people don’t do it.

What do you do if something happens?
Comply and stay calm,

Do you call the police? Are they going to do anything? I don’t even know the number!
Yes you call the police. Dial 190.

Are things improving?
Sao Paulo got much better in recent years, but is worsening again. Rio is progressing but has a long way to go. In general, Brazil is improving slowly.

Are you scared of anything?
You leaving me!

Very funny.
People shouldn’t be ruled by fear. Just be aware. It’s like avoiding sugary, fatty foods – something you can easily do which may or may not prolong your life.

Another square of chocolate?
I’ll risk it

My Name is Natasha and I am a Sugarholic

2010-10-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted for a while because last week I got sucked into a swirling, treacle-black hole of kids' birthday parties and road trips that threw me out the other side older, fatter and definitely not wiser.

It started last Wednesday. I threw a Hot Wheels (a.k.a. "Ho-Chi-Weos") party for my now-four-year-old and his classmates at school. Brazilian mums delegate sugary edibles, including the cake and ubiquitous trays of brigadeiros and beijinhos, to the local bakery. I decided to cater myself, producing a very British spread of chocolate-crispies, egg-sandwiches, cheese-straws, jelly, popcorn and a home-sculpted race-track cake.

More fool me!

Four year old children, as it turns out, are not interested in broadening their cultural horizons and experimenting new forms of party food! For three whole days we breakfasted, lunched and dinnered on 'very hard brigadeiros' (how the children referred to my chocolate crispies) and dejected cheese-straws, by which time it was time to throw birthday party take-two, in Sao Paulo, for friends. More leftover cake; More leftover crispies; Each bite bringing me one sugar-rush closer to popping the button on my jeans. I just couldn't stop myself.

By Sunday morning my binge was in full swing. We met friends in Frutaria Sao Paulo and I indulged in the sugar addict's hair of the dog: ice cream for breakfast. The breakfast buffet included not one but two flavours. Amora (a type of blackberry/mulberry) and avocado. Yes, you heard me right, avocado ice cream for breakfast. In Brazil that's how you eat avocado; sweet (but for breakfast? That was news for me.)

At the point at which I went to lick my bowl, I recognized that I had definitely fallen off a wagon somewhere, and have since been scrambling to get back on. Four days ago I quit sugar, cold turkey and took up exercizing like a mofo. Today's calorie burning activity was skating along the Flamengo beachfront.

Even without sugar, life here is sweet indeed.

Sweets for my Sweets

2010-09-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

I'm a pretty big advocate of bribing children with sweets. Mine will do just about anything for a lollipop, but I'm not so sure I approve of Catholic Saints following the same strategy! Today was apparently Saint Cosme and Saint Damiao's day and my children were thrilled to receive not one but five paper bags full of sweets from strangers on the ten minute walk to school, in accordance with Brazilian tradition.

They were accompanied by Luiza today, but I checked the booty when I got home and found a thoroughly Brazilian stash of goodies. Twirly meringues (suspiros), shaggy white coconut sweets (cocada), heart-shaped pumpkin and sweet-potato sweets (doces de abobora e de batata doce), peanutty squares and brilliantly named 'pe de moleque' which means 'rascal's feet', presumably because the nut pieces stuck into toffee look like really dirty feet. Finally, slack handfuls of fruit chews and lollies. The kids think they have died and gone to heaven.

Funnily enough, my nearly-four year old did ask me this morning what happened to people when they died. I told him no-one really knew, because once you're dead you can't tell anyone. Some people, I explained, think they will go to heaven where there are loads of sweets and toys. They also believe that if you are naughty you will go to a hot place with lots of fire. Other people think that you will be born again as someone else's baby, or an animal.

He was excited by the potential for fire engines in hell, but finally decided to back being reborn as a bee who didn't sting people. Dear Cosme and Damiao, it's going to take more than five bags of sweets to win this one over!

Who can Toucan? I can!

2010-09-26T15:55:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day! Not only did my husband finally come back from an eternal business trip, but we spent another morning with the kids at the magical jardim botanico.

It's like being in an oxygenated fairy tale; exploring leafy tunnels, hiding in the folds of massive tree trunks, swinging on branches, hopping along stepping-stones and braving rickety bridges, dad leading the way. He knows all its secrets, having played there as a child.

Then there's the animals, especially when we take the path through the Floresta da Tijuca, Rio's green lung and the world's largest urban forest. Usually we spot the little tiny micos, monkeys with delicate old man faces. Last time we were there I nervously (and probably foolishly) let a larger, sharp-toothed macaco prego eat a tangerine out of my hand. But today was a Toucan day..

I've been trying to get a decent photo of a Toucan for a while. Every so often you spot a bright yellow flash in the tree, or an odd-shaped flying silhouette. But then they disappear behind the leaves and it's impossible to shoot them. Today though, a very handsome chap swooped off his high branch, landed right infront of me, and worked the camera for five minutes, bright blue eyes glaring right into the lens. Thank you!

I was so busy being a photographer that I forgot about being a mum. By the time I looked up everyone had disappeared to the playground and I had a moment of stillness all to myself, just me, the trees and the Toucan. After 10 days alone with the kids that's precious indeed!

I Vote For Cartwheels and Puppies

2010-09-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

Since writing my initial dummies guide to Brazil's Presidential candidates, I have become totally addicted to the TV ads for the state and federal deputies who will also be elected on the October 3rd. Once the free hour of political propaganda comes on after the news, I just cannot turn away. It's like watching a plane falling out of the sky, but funnier.

Since each party has many candidates, each gets a teeny weeny slice of airtime: Lucky ones have ten seconds to sell themselves but some only have two. That's two seconds to say their name, their voting number and to convince the population that they are the best person for the job. Two seconds. That's some elevator pitch.

Of course, it's almost impossible to say anything sensible in two or five or even ten seconds, so most don't even try. Instead, they employ a whole range of desperation tactics in an attempt to be memorable:

The ones who lack imagination just talk like a blender on high speed, trying to cram everything in so fast that the mandatory subtitles across the bottom of the screen are just blur. It's totally futile trying to follow unless you have some slow-mo playback mode on your TV.

This being Brazil, the musical approach is also a biggie: If the candidate can sing his or her name and number, preferably samba-style, they're onto a winner. Actually, this is a massive trend also for the the prospective governers and presidents too. There's a few genius composers out there that must specilize in creating these annoyingly catchy jingles and songs that I've had stuck in my head all week.

Then there are also some key words: If the Rio candidates can mention the 'baixada fluminense' (the greater Rio 'burbs) then I guess they count on receiving the popular vote. I think that one of the candidates just said 'capoeira'. Yeah cool, he gets my vote because I'm a capoierista, but what on earth does he stand for? Cartwheels?

The prize for most ridiculous vote-whoring tactic goes to the couple (and I'm not sure who was actually the candidate) who were holding a kitten and puppy. Aaaaahhhh...everybody loves a kitten or a puppy. How can they not win?

Finally, the candidate who encapsulates the ridiculousness of the whole thing is one that in all seriousness looks set to receive more votes than any other in Brazil for deputado federal; Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva. An actor whose well-known persona is Tiririca, a clown, he appears in character, appealing for votes with the line 'Do you know what a deputado federal does? Me neither. Vote for me and let's find out"

Democracy can be scary!

Babies, Bumps and Queue-Jumps

2010-09-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

It's about time I got me another baby. Not because I adore the sticky lickle munchkins, but because I need a legit way to barge queues.

In Brazil, if you are pregnant or with a small child, you do not have to wait in line. Not for anything, anywhere, ever. At the post-office, the supermarket or passing through customs, checking-in, checking-out or cashing a cheque. You can simply waltz straight to the front of the line, or, in many places, to the dedicated express desk exclusively for priority citizens.

And it's not like this is just some kind of unwritten rule in a chivalrous society. This is a fully blown "priority law" that is posted on sign-posts everywhere, and which also applies to the elderly, the sick and the handicapped. Accordingly, for the past four years, I have pretty much skipped to the front of every line I have encountered.

It takes some getting used to. I didn't dare skip any queues until I was visibly pregnant with my first born, even although it's during those first few invisible weeks when you really need the 'get out of here without throwing-up' card. But once I'd done it a few times I became quite confident. So confident, in fact, that over the past few years I have had quite a few near fist-fights while asserting my legal rights.

With my second baby I started jumping to the front right from the start of the pregnancy, and more than a few times I was challenged by check-out girls. One told me I had to be 5 months pregnant to get priority, which is simply not true. Another told me I needed to carry proof of pregnancy. Really? She wants me to hand over a positive pee-stick with a credit card? There is also a general belief that people have to be on their own to benefit from the priority pass, which is also not the case. (I'm talking about the legal standpoint not the ethical one!)

But the real altercations occur within the blessed ranks of priority citizens themselves. You see, the law doesn't make it very clear who gets priority if there is an old woman, a pregnant woman and a handicapped woman in the same line;

"Hey I"m dying"

"Out of my way, my waters just broke"

"Can't you see, I have no legs?"

Once, swear to god, I was hit by an old lady during one of these type of ridiculous arguments, and I was holding a 2 month old infant. Of course I think the living dead are the clear winners in the priority stakes, but I also think that whoever is skipping the queue should at least proffer a vaguely apologetic smile at the other people waiting. On this particular occasion I was waiting to change the baby's nappy in an aircraft loo when a Brazilian granny pushed past, head down to avoid eye contact, and slammed the door in my face. When she came out and I commented on her rudeness, she started screaming and hitting me. Goes to show that you can legislate, but you can't force good manners on anyone.

Anyway, my Little Dove is almost two, going on sixteen, and I definitely can't consider her a 'crianca de colo' ('lap baby') anymore. Suddenly she's lost her value as an expediator of tedious chores like the post-office, bank and federal police. But I love the sticky lickle munchkin anyway.

Dummies Guide to the Brazilian Presidential Candidates

2010-08-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is Brazil's answer to Lady Di, without the nice dresses and eye liner. She was labelled the 'people's princess' while he enjoys the title 'pai do povo' (people's dad) and, like her, he has a massive following in his home country and cult status internationally.

Jose Serra hanging out in the juice bar in Catete

In a few weeks though, after two consecutive terms, Lula's eight year reign as Brazil's head of state and government comes to an end...and someone has to fill his big empty shoes. The voting on October 3rd will also appoint hundreds of other governmental positions which I can't even begin to understand. (I told you this was the dummies guide!).

Suffice it to say, campaigns are a go-go, embellishing every possible thing with the smiling, Sunday-best faces of their candidates, along with their number. In my ten second wait to cross the Rua do Catete for a mango juice today, at least 3 campaign cars drove by, blaring out samba from massive box-speakers unbalancing on their roof. I then had to dodge rampant flag-wavers and flyer-hander-outers before ducking into the juice bar.

Anyway, tonight I actually watched the entire political broadcast programming that came on after the Globo News. This probably says more about the crap that was on Net than any real enthusiasm for getting informed, but it does enable me to give you a quick synopsis of the main Presidential candidates and their messages.

DILMA ROUSSEF (PT / Working Party)

She's Lula's bitch and she's currently rocking the polls with a 20 point lead. She looks like she might become Brazil's first woman president, a fact that her advocates are pushing big-time, because really it doesn't seem like there is much else to talk about. Her popularity is mostly due to the fact that she's the next best thing to Lula himself. Worryingly, she has recently been very ill with lymphatic cancer although doctors last week assured us she was fully cured.

Her campaign message is 'Brazil has changed...let's keep it changing", with an emphasis on all the wonderful things, like the 'family grant' that the PT has achieved in the last 8 years. Not much is said about her specific role on any of these achievements (and in fact she was criticized for over using the 'we' verb conjugation in the recent presidential web debate), but I guess as Mines and Energy Minister and then Chief of Staff under Lula, she must have done something

JOSE SERRA (PSDP / Social Democrat)

In sharp contrast to Dilma's underwhelming experience, (Herman Munster lookalike) Serra has been Secretary of State, Congressman, Senator, Minister of Planning and Minister of Health, Mayor of Sao Paolo and Governor of Sao Paulo State. Nonetheless, he has not Lula, and is lagging in second place according to the polls.

(Before I went on holiday I actually saw Jose Serra at the same juice bar on Rua do Catete. At the time I had no idea who he was, but figured by the crowd of paparrazzi following him that he was worth snapping a picture of)

Anyway, his is a hard sell to a population so enamoured with their incumbent leader. His main propaganda message is continuity. He promises to keep things that are working, even if they are PT initiatives, fix things that aren't working, and accelerate the things that are moving too slowly. The rest of his ad tells us all about the wonderful things he has done in his career like building hospitals, pushing through generic drug approval and everything short of walking on water.

MARINA SILVA (PV / Green Party)

She was illiterate as a child and started her professional life as a domestic servant, so she's come a long way. She is a well respected environmental advocate and was the Environmental Minister under Lula until her resignation in 2008. In 2009 she switched parties to the Green Party.

Her main campaign message is improving education, but she's currently coming a distant third in the polls.

Bring it on...

Adaptation

2010-08-11T07:03:00.000-07:00

I am into my second consecutive week of tension headaches, thanks to what is known in Brazil as 'adaptation': the ritual of staying at nursery school alongside your little ones until they are fully ready to give you their permission to go, which, according to the school psychologist, might be tomorrow, next week, or when they turn eighteen. Fabulous.

Yes, I am waiting patiently for my 20 month old daughter to make the gestures that mean "it's ok mummy, I do not blame you for abandoning me, you can go and get a manicure now".

She is doing pretty well actually. I have graduated from sitting within easy cuddle distance at all times, cross-legged on the hard floor or scrunched up into diminutive nursery furniture, to sitting for hours on the uncomfortable sofa beside the water-cooler. Hours and hours of death by screeching, squealing and back-ache, during which I ponder the Brazilian approach to children, education and discipline.

That's a fat enough topic to write a dissertation on, but I'll just stick to the question of who's in charge: I don't generally subscribe to the parenting philosophy that requires I ask my children permission for anything. They do as I ask, not the other way around. Demand feeding? Nope. Since day one it's my way or the highway. For example, if I want them to get off the swing in the playground, I tell them it is time to get down from the swing, NOW!

In Brazil however, it's the opposite. Let them eat whenever, whatever . They want to be rocked to sleep in your arms in the late afternoon even if it means they then won't sleep until ten that night? Laissez faire. And when it's time to stop hogging the swing? Mummy puts on her sweet pleading voice, asks queridinha if she wouldn't rather be on the slide instead, and waits for nodding acquiecence. If the child doesn't want? The child doesn't do.

I guess the same attitude translates into the school environment too, hence the whole 'permission to leave' thing . Certainly, I remember the December after my son started his nursery in Sao Paulo how absolutely horrified I was at the Christmas party to see Father Christmas trampled to within an inch of his life by unruly tiddlers; two, three and four year olds surged onto the stage like teen rockers; shouting, clambering and stamping to get on the old man's lap. Teachers looked on helpless, not one of them with the gall to restore order. My God, if that had been my school, Christmas would have been cancelled and we would have all been on sock-sorting and table-setting duty for the rest of our lives.

Of course I could send my children to The British School and pay royally for a more academic, disciplined approach akin to what I myself experienced. But on second thoughts...maybe not. Is it really that bad letting the children call the shots? I remember my grandmother's "why say no when you can say yes" parenting advice. I'm not sure I agree, but there is certainly something lovely in the Brazilian reverence for small children; their infinite patience and nurturing love.

Case in point: Yesterday, a few hours into the school day, my daughter became upset about something and was finally brought to me by her teacher for a quick cuddle. She had been crying, her eyes all wet and her nose all runny. As she leaned towards me with her arms outstretched, a foot long string of teary snot dripped from her nose. I instinctively recoiled with a loud screech. Her teacher however, deftly twirled her wrist to wind the snot around her forearm, as though it was her greatest pleasure.

Yes, I'm sure my daughter will adapt fine to a place where she will be loved to bits and allowed to do pretty much whatever she likes. I may just have to re-adapt to her!

Home Is Where The Mango Is

2010-08-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

My body arrived in Brazil 48 hours ago but my spirit is still lost in transit somewhere, last seen browsing the duty free shops in Heathrow's Terminal five. I'm still floating around in a jet-lagged, sleep-deprived fog. This morning, I think I made waffles for breakfast in my sleep for a child that had been up since 4.30am. Tonight, I'm ready for bed and it's barely 7pm.

So, when people keep asking me how it feels to be back in Brazil after six weeks, what can I say? I feel nothing? On one hand I should be sadder at leaving things behind; On the other I should be happier about coming 'home'. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. Certainly, when I started thinking about all the things I would miss, I realised that there was something of equal measure that I could be thankful for...

For instance, I'll miss British berries: juicy, fragrant, summer-sweet strawberries: raspberries as luscious as a big fat French kiss, that you can stick your tongue right inside and roll around until they burst.

But I will have passion fruits and mangoes.

I will miss English roses: the cumulus clouds of white and pink blossoms that flood over stone garden walls, into which I like to stick my entire face to inhale their heavenly sweetness.

But I will have orchids.

I will miss the dairy aisle: the food-porn pleasures of thick-set Greek yogurt, crème fraîche, yellow Cornish clotted cream and French cheeses that deliciously ooze and stink.

But I will have a lower risk of heart attack.

I will miss the distinctly middle class shopping experience: gentrified shopping streets with tearooms and coffee houses: shops that sell stuff that falls comfortably between expensive designer and made-in-China rubbish.

But someone will pack my bag for me at the supermarket and carry it all the way home.

I will miss Sunday barbeques in the garden that stretch on into the late-lit evening, enjoying charred, fat-to-bursting pork sausages.

But I can enjoy the best filet steak in the world, as often as I like.

I will miss baked beans but give thanks for black ones: Indian food but will learn to cook Moqueca: The Thames Path but will run on the Aterro: friends but I will make new ones: family but I have my children and husband.

I will miss home, but my home is here: And my spirit just walked through the front door, without any baggage.

Differences in the small things. Number One. (Literally)

2010-07-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, the most striking cultural differences reveal themselves in the most mundane moments of daily life, those things you take for granted, like going for a pee or paying at the supermarket.

Every year when I arrive in the UK for the holidays, my "I've arrived" moment always occurs in the loo. I never fail to be surprised by the goose-down cushiness of the toilet paper in British homes. When I lived in London I never once gave thanks for the preferential wipe my nether-regions enjoyed, with their mulit-ply, decoratively embossed papers. They get nothing of that sort in Brazil, just (and excuse the pun) bog-standard one-ply stuff.

I can't say I have ever noticed the difference, and in fact the flimsy Brazilian paper is a God-send in my book, and not just for the environment: In fact, it lets me get away with repeatedly committing a grave bathroom felony. You see, in the UK you can flush fancy paper down the loo with carefree disdain, but in Brazil it is a mortal sin to drop paper into the toilet bowl once you are done. I don't really know why...something to do with antiquated plumbing systems or septic tanks or something? Most public loos have unmissably huge signs in each cubicle reminding you not to. Instead, you put it in a convenient little bin provided. Or, in my case, you don't.

It's just that after thirty five years of dropping the soiled paper into the water, I just can't break the habit. I have to admit that sometimes, even if I do remember what I'm supposed to do, I consciously choose to forget. It's something to do with my not wanting to believe that, or admit to myself that, I live in a place that is incapable of dealing with such a basic waste product. I usually have a pang of guilt at my misdemeanour just when I'm about to flush. For a milli-second my hand hovers above the flush button as I consider the practicalities of fishing the stuff out, but of course I never do. Instead, I scarper out, head hung low, imagining a tide of sewage from a blocked-up toilet chasing at my heels like my bad conscience.

It would be a stretch to claim any intellectual insight from this observation could redeem the banality of this post, but it is interesting to think about how, in "sophisticated" countries, people can be convinced that they really, really need something that they really, really don't, like puppy-soft paper that wipes their arses clean, but which cleans out the rainforest in the process.

In Brazil there are actually other options for washing the low-hanging fruits besides the paper. Bidets are commonplace, as are mini shower-heads mounted on a long, flexible hose attachment beside the loo. It took me years to figure what to do with those without spraying the entire bathroom but now I've got it down...now that's sophisticated...and that's Brazilian.

Thoughts from Elsewhere

2010-06-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to remember the terminology, from my art-class days, for when you draw something by looking at the shapes of the things around it, rather than looking at lines of the subject itself.

That I have the time to dwell on such banalities can only mean one thing: I'm on holiday.

I once spent July in Sao Paulo by accident. No one had thought to tell me that it was possible to get so miserably cold in a tropical city that you needed to get dressed under the duvet. None of my friends warned me they would be 'wintering' (or is it 'summering'? I never can get used to calling June, July and August 'winter') in Europe with their families, and that I would have to endure endless solitary weeks in one of the worlds most populous cities.

Anyway, even though I now live in Rio, which has a gorgeous winter climate, I have, since that first cold July, fallen into the routine of spending July and August "back home".

And so here I am.

So far, being back home has meant lugging me, my children and too many suitcases between the homes of various relations and friends in the UK, the country of my official, passport-proven nationality. It has meant subjecting my children to endless family gatherings at which they look blankly at the second-or-third-or-once-twice-removed cousin (and who the hell can figure that out?) to whom they are being introduced and with whom they will dutifully play with for an hour but then totally forget until they meet again at an identical get-together next year. It has meant perfecting the art of yogic breathing to remain zen in the middle of a tug-of-war between grandparents, great-grandparents and friends over our too-little time. It has meant a lot of talking without a lot of listening. But it all means a lot.

I see these friends and family year in, year out. Nothing much changes. They get married or divorced. Newborns become children and we all just get a little bit older, but they are always there. We sit in the same parks, the same gardens and eat the same strawberries and talk about the same people and the same memories. Over time some people move away, out of range, and I stop seeing them, and it's like another thread breaking in the worn fabric that binds me to this country.

Anyway, I digress from the point of this post: When I return to England, specifically London, on my annual break from Brazil, I am always amazed at how amazed I am by it. I marvel at things that I never appreciated or even noticed when I actually lived there. I didn't think that I'd be able to write anything in my Brazil blog while I was on holiday outside of Brazil, but then I realized that all these things that I was noticing about England were actually inverse observations about Brazil.

Negative Space.

That's the term I was trying to remember. It came to me on a run along the Thames path, somewhere between Hammersmith and Barnes Railway bridges. And so, to keep my blogging brain a-ticking while I'm away, I'm going to fill in all the negative space with observations from abroad that in some way define part of my experience "back home" in my real home, in Brazil.

Senhora, Your Baby Is Freezing To Death

2010-06-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

In Brazil it is very common for total strangers to advise you that your child is dying of discomfort, hunger, or some other woeful act of motherly negligence. And top on the list of the Brazilian busy-body's preoccupations is whether or not your child is cold.

Most conversations of this kind start with lavish praise for your infant: "What a cutie", "The most beautiful thing in the world", "Is it your first?". You nod and smile with pride. Then, "He needs socks on!"

Usually, it isn't malicious. It derives from a very sincere adoration and concern that Brazilians have for children. (In what other country could you take a toddler to a smart restaurant for dinner and let him wander the floor chatting to all the other diners without generating a single bad vibe?)

Sometimes however, it oversteps the mark. On one 18 degree day, a man informed me that the supermarket vegetable aisle was not the place for my poor cold baby. (Said baby was fully clothed, socks aside, and gurgling.) I politely replied 'I think he's OK' and inched the pushchair closer to the overpriced imported grapes. At this point the man started screaming at me in disgust. He had been a pediatrician for 20 years and apparently had never witnessed such irresponsible parenting.

My stock reply in such situation is "In Scotland, where I come from, this temperature would be mid-summer", for in all cold-related arguments I claim to come from Scotland. Gives me the upper hand, don't you agree?

I remember going to Portobello beach in Edinburgh as a schoolgirl, and having to dig a massive trough for us all to lie in so that our goosebumps wouldn't get windburn. I also remember we ate a lot of ice cream. My Scottish grandmother had a freezer-full of the stuff, and famously boasted that she had never knowingly turned one down in her life. All those Scottish Italian ice-cream families, with successful businesses despite the cold climate.

In my opinion, there is no circumstance which disqualifies a day from the ice-cream or lolly-consuming calendar. Here in Brazil, you do not eat ice cream, let alone go out to the park, if it rains. You certainly do not eat ice cream if you have a cold for you will surely catch pneumonia and probably die. You don't give your children iced drinks or let them hang around the house naked or let them swim in months without 'r' in the name, all for the same reason. I have witnessed more cross-cultural couples bickering over these matters than anything else.

It's winter here at the moment, around 23-degrees in the afternoon. People here are donning their novelty jumpers and gloves. My children are still going to the beach to play in the sand, drinking apple juice on the rocks and watching TV in their birthday suits. (No matter how hard I try, my 3 year old Little Bear will not keep his clothes on).

The weekend before last I let them swim in a pool. Admittedly, they were in wetsuits, but still, it was cold.

On the Monday, Little Bear got a temperature. By Tuesday it was really high. He didn't go to school for the whole week. On Saturday he was diagnosed at the hospital with bronchial pneumonia, and I'm wondering if maybe the Brazilians know something after all.

He didn't eat for 5 days, the poor little mite. Finally, today he got his appetite back, and what did he want? An Ice Lolly. And did he get it? Of course he did. Just don't tell anyone.

The Flu in Brazil

2010-06-05T03:46:00.000-07:00

The Flu. Or is it just a bad cold? A friend told me yesterday that the scientific difference is whether or not you would be arsed to bend over and pick up a fifty quid note on the floor...If you could, you don't have the flu.

At any rate, the whole week has been punctuated with temperature-telling, medication measuring, coughing, sniffing, and the tiresome ritual of getting all wrapped up in blankets because we're freezing, only to unwrap our sweaty selves again five minutes later.

Of course there's nothing else that makes you miss 'home' more than being ill. We all yearn for our mothers to come and make it all better with familiar remedies: Vicks rubbed into our chests, Olbas oil on our pillow and syrupy spoonfuls of Benylin. Then there are the comforting, homely recovery foods like boiled eggs with Marmite soldiers and Heinz baked beans on toast.

The first time you are sick here you have to totally relearn all these rituals. You may be able to find approximations of Lemsips, Strepsils and Benylin but how can you replace your mother or Marmite or Baked Beans?

As it turns out I had a comfort food breakthrough this week. For the first time in 5 years I actually craved Brazilian-style black beans on rice: A warm, soft, sloppy, aromatic bowl of solace that more than made up for a lack of British beans.

I even made concessions to Brazilian medication and bought some Propolis extract. Propolis is a natural antibiotic produced and used by bees to protect their hives. Brazilians swear by it as a first line of defense against absolutely any ailment from minor cuts to major bruises. I got as far as buying it. I didn't yet use it but I can feel my throat starting to burn so I'll pop some drops before I head to bed.

I might even go so far as to say that the only thing on my list that can't be replaced is Marmite, because I do have a maternal stand-in: Eloiza. It is she who makes the delicious rice and beans, who takes my children out to play so I can rest supine on the sofa all afternoon, gives me suitably sympathetic looks and offers me hot tea with garlic, lemon and honey (which I decline). Of course I have to pay her to play this role, but she does it beautifully.

She would pick any stray fifty note off the floor, wash it and iron it before I even noticed it was there. How sick does that make me?

Tell Me My Bum Looks Big In This

2010-05-31T17:27:00.001-07:00

When it comes to turning heads in Brazil, well, I just don't. I've come to accept that I'm built upside down for the aesthetic ideal here. I'm all boobs and no bum. When it comes to junk in the trunk, I'm carrying a leaf of paper in a laptop bag. But here, the bigger the bunda, the better.

It took me a while to get used to this idea. For years I though every woman in the world wanted a bottom as flat as Avenida Atlantica. But then there was the whole J-Lo-Beyonce-Shakira thing, and I married a Brazilian, and my eyes were opened to entire populations that valued just the opposite: Big, round, Sugar-Loaves.

Suddenly, I had a whole new hang-up: It really is impossible to rock the Brazilian bikini look without a decent pair of peaches to wedge the bottoms between. As for an authentic samba wobble, just forget it! My cheeks are just too apologetic, too shapeless, too still.

So, acquiring a Brazil-worthy bum has become my personal holy grail. I suppose my lack-lustre European genes aren't doing me any favours in this department. Am I allowed to admit I assume that the Brazilian big bottom thing is due to the sizeable percentage of the population with African origins?

I'm just not Brazilian enough (yet), and frankly too much of a pussy, to have my cheeks pumped full of my own fat, known as the "Brazilian Butt Lift", one of the most popular plastic surgeries here. But I am uncovering less radical ways of faking it:

First technique: Walk like a Brazilian. Here, even women who aren't blessed with the national curves just arch their back, throw their shoulders back, their ribs forwards and, of course, their arse out behind them. It kind of works, except that you have to be OK with the potbelly it gives you. Quite a compromise, and not for me.

Second technique: One thousand repeats per day of the on-all-fours-pissing-dog move with ankle weights up to your crotch. I have seen this in the gym. It's incredible. Some Brazilian women could lift a house with their glutes. For some the workouts work. On me it's just manly. No thank you.

My most recent attempt to get the perfect derriere was a series of ten structural integration, a.k.a. 'Rolfing', sessions. Rolfing entails intense manhandling of ones connective tissues, with a view to returning all your bodily bits to the position where they function most efficiently. My friend, the Rolfer, promised this would effectively give me a more Brazilian bottom. With iron fingers and pool-cue elbows she corrected the angle of my pelvis, the curve of my sacrum and set free my pinched-together sitting bones. At the end of it I think I did discern a slight shape in my jeans...or did I?

Finally, I've resorted to the bum pants (pictured). Yes, here in Brazil, you can buy knickers with soft, foam-moulded, padded, bum cheeks. You can buy them in the underwear stores in the commercial districts like Saara in Rio and Vinte-Cinco de Marco in Sao Paulo, hidden away discreetly so as not to detract form all the frilly dental-floss stuff. Admittedly, they look really, really bad when you're just in your undies, but under a pair of jeans they are the bomb, if a little sweaty!

None of this helps with the bikini issue. Perhaps I should concentrate instead on getting a smaller waist to create an optical illusion. Perhaps, I should do exactly as you are thinking, and get a life.

Futebol Fever

2010-05-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

I am married to the only Brazilian man in the history of the whole entire planet who isn't the least bit interested in either playing, watching, talking or reading about football. From my point of view, well, maybe there is a God after all. However, I can't help feeling that we might be short-changing our children of some essential part of their cultural education.

The awkward questions have already started: "What am I mummy?", "Well, let's see Darling", I reply, thinking that I know he's at an alternative school but surely they wait until they can do their ABCs before grappling with existentialist philosophy. "You are three. You are a lover of mashed potatoes. You are...", "Am I Botafogense like Luka?", "No you certainly are not!".

The family is traditionally Flamengista, which means we should supposedly support Flamengo, the ones with the black and red striped "goal clothes" or "ball outfits'" as my clueless son says.

He desperately wants some of his own. Last week, the whole school was asked to come to school in their team strips to celebrate the visit of two trophies from important Brazilian championships - the Guanabara and Rio Cups won by Botafogo and Regatas respectively. There was much fanfare including TV Globo cameras and reporters. My poor son was there in his OshKosh shorts and signature blue polo, thrilled to bits that the Piston Cup was at school. (For those that don't have small boys, that's the name of the trophy from his favourite Disney Cars movie)

When it comes to the World Cup though, you can't help but get sucked in, and the excitement is already kicking off. The bright green, yellow and blue bunting has just gone up on the street beside our building, the first step in an elaborate street decorating ritual for World Cup street parties. The shops are beginning to sell noise making paraphernalia and silly hats, and companies are already informing staff of official World Cup skiving policies.

For my husband that means on days that Brazil is playing a match he can either arrive after the match (if it's in the morning) or go home an hour before it starts (if it is in the afternoon). Suddenly, he's interested in football after all.

Yesterday even I relented and bought my children Brazil football t-shirts, barely resisting the urge to throw a patriotic g-strings bikini for myself into the shopping basket. My son is delighted! (husband not so!)

Ironically, I just saw that Luka's mum (remember, the Botafogense kid from school) wrote one of her hilarious blog posts this weekend (see Rachel's Rants): Luka walked the Botafogo team onto the pitch on Sunday. For that family too, there is a God!

Last Night's Gun Fight

2010-05-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

There is one Brazilian skill I am still waiting to acquire: The ability to differentiate the sounds of fire-works, gun-fire, grenades and any other explosive boom.

When I first arrived in Sao Paulo, I thought that all loud bangs were a shoot-out in some unseen favela. I would throw a worried glance at my husband, repressing the uncool urge to hit the floor, and nervously ask "guns or fireworks?". He would always reassure me, "fireworks". My husband, as a true Carioca, has the skill.

Apparently I would just know when I heard the real thing. It was like a pop. Unmistakable.

So last night around half past midnight I was stooping over my daughter's cot, stroking her hair to soothe her back to sleep. She was almost gone, when I heard it. Bang. Boom. Bang Bang. Boom. The whole room seemed to shake, and the windows seemed like they might shatter. My heart stopped. This was it. Unmistakable.

By the sounds of things there was a shoot-out taking place right in front of the building, or on the Aterro, or maybe it was coming from the favela on the hill behind us? I wasn't about to stick my head out of the window to find out, so I grabbed my daughter and ran to our room which is away from the front of the building.

My husband had leapt out of bed. He was standing in the bathroom, listening at the window. I asked him to grab our sleeping 3 year old and bring him into our bedroom too. So we all snuggled safely together in our king-sized life-raft as the battle of Culodden raged on outside for 15 minutes.

I can't deny that I was shit scared. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins, and worst scenario thoughts about my children sleeping in the front room were racing through my mind, My precious darlings. I felt quite sick, and a overcome by a wave of compassion for the people in the world who have to live with that type of fear on a nightly basis, in battle zones, or even in other parts of Rio.

It was over soon. Everyone went back to sleep. And today was a normal day.

Around lunchtime I got a chance to Google "shoot-out last night in Rio" to find out what the drama was all about. And guess what? FRIGGING FIREWORKS! At one in the morning? According to an article on the front page of O Globo, it was an event in Botafogo sponsored by TAM airlines.

Apparently we were not the only ones who had been petrified. Half of the Zona Sul (South Zone) had been sheltering under the bed covers, from Urca to Botafogo to Flamengo. Even people in Niteroi and Copacabana had heard the booms. It was mass bourgeois panic.

So, it turns out that not everyone in Brazil CAN tell the difference between gunfire and fireworks after all, not least my husband. Tonight he tells me he knew all along. Yeah right!

I am still a shoot-out virgin then, but that's okay. I know my time will come and will be really, really special. In the meantime I shall continue to quake in my boots each time a firecracker goes off.

Below I have translated some of the comments that followed the online version of the article in O Globo, because I thought they were very revealing...My favourite is Glow's. Poetic.

Residents Of Rio's Zona Sul Recount Their Fear During Dead-Of-The-Night Firework Display

MSAB
14/05/2010 - 14h 27m
Great to know how much TAM respects others! It sounded like there were cannons being shot in the Guanabara Bay. A company that acts like TAM in this case MUST be fined, charged, held accountable.

Roberta Ferreira rodrigues
14/05/2010 - 14h 27m
I'm a resident of copacabana and I just discovered the origin of those noises. From where I live you couldn't see it was firewords. I thought it was a shoot-out with heavy artillery because the noises were so deafening

Guilherme Torre
14/05/2010 - 14h 27m
I had finally got to sleep when I woke up with a jump and took my wife to the sitting-room, where there isn't a window looking onto the hill. I live in Catete and until now I really thought that they were gunfire and bombs. The baby in the apartment upstairs wouldn't stop crying, all this at 1 in the morning.

Voice_of_Reason
14/05/2010 - 14h 26m
Seems like the people of Rio have never seen fireworks! I was asleep when I heard them. Right away I knew it was fireworks. I even went to the balcony to watch. I agree that the time was a bit irregular and that it breaks the 'law of silence' but to think that it was a bombardment...that's pushing the limits!

deavec
14/05/2010 - 14h 14m
The people or Rio are scared a lot

If you are from Rio you know that to hear fireworks, makes you nervous, the first thing that crosses your mind is the worst,

I haven't lived in Rio for 4 years now and I tell you that I'm always scared like that when I hear fireworks

Luiza Villela
14/05/2010 - 14h 01m
Thiago Rodrigues da Silva, who says that in the Zona Sul we aren't woken up with shots and granades? Sure less frequently, but shoot-outs happen here to. This 1am firework display is absurd, not becuase it happened in the Zona Sul, but 'cos it's totally inappropriate in any zone! I live in Flamengo and I thought at first that it was grenades, the windows of my building were trembling! And see I live a long way from Urca, but close to praça São Salvador

Thomaz Turbano
14/05/2010 - 13h 52m

thiago rodrigues da silva
14/05/2010 - 13h 45m

If you live in a shit hole, O Globo can't help you
I bet you would love to be a drip here in the Zona Sul..if you could
As long as you can't, be 'macho' out of the Zona Sul

thiago rodrigues da silva
14/05/2010 - 13h 45m
Wet drips from the Zona Sul.

In the Zona Norte we wake at dawn with the noise of shots and grenades

Every so often O Globo publishes the complaints of these drips who feel superior. There can't be an event on the bay because of traffic jams, can't have fireworks. Front page for this???? The Editor must live in the Zona Sul.

alex bento
14/05/2010 - 13h 23m
I invite you all the spend the weekend in the Zona Sul, near the funk parties with their shots until the morning

Sérgio Barros
14/05/2010 - 12h 55m

FredericoCarioca,
It's fine that you are pissed off at having such a shit life, but it was indeed a scary thing.
I was reading in bed when suddenly the building shook. I live in Botafogo near where they had the fireworks. I thought it was a bombardment, that Argentina was invading Brazil, whatever.
But I ran to the window and saw the lovely firework display for more than 15 minutes.

Fernando_Nit
14/05/2010 - 12h 53m
OK guys, even I agree that panic is a going a bit far. But to be woken at 1 am on a weekday morning with explosions is not cool. Think of the old people and the children. THIS IS AN ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME! DISTURBANCE OF THE PEACE AND THE GUILTY NEED TO BE SEVERELY PUNISHED, in the same way that the funk parties and disrespectful churches should be.

FK
14/05/2010 - 12h 52m
FredericoCarioca,
Stop being a dick
Just because you live in a shit hole you want everyone else to too?
Fight for your rights and try and improve your life, not worsen the life of others.
Have a nice day!

Glow
14/05/2010 - 12h 47m

THIS IS NOT VERY USUAL IN THE ZONA SUL, BUT HERE IN THE ZONE IT IS

IN THE ZONE, REGION OF SANTA TERESA, IT'S THE NORM

FOR ST JORGE, ST JOSE, A GOAL FROM FLAMENGO, A DRUG DEALER'S PARTY, THE BIRTHDAY OF A DRUG DEALER'S SON, AND SO FORTH

IT'S BEAUTIFUL, IT SHOULD BECOME A TOURIST DESTINATION

HERE IN THE ZONE IS THE BEST PLACE IN RIO. WE DON"T HAVE SUCH PATHETIC THINGS AS PAVED ROADS, NO

HERE IT'S A REAL HOLE, WALLS FALLING DOWN, EVEN LOOKS LIKE THE COUNTRY SIDE, BUT ITS THE ZONE

FredericoCarioca
14/05/2010 - 12h 45m
WITH ALL DUE REPECT, POINTLESS ARTICLE....THESE RESIDENTS ARE USED TO THE GOOD LIFE. AND THEY GET SCARED BY FIREWORDS? WHO CAN'T DIFFERENTIATE THE NOISE OF FIREWORKS, BOMBS AND GRENADES??? BE SERIOUS....THIS IS JUST ABOUT PEOPLE WITH MONEY WHO DON'T TAKE THE EITHER THE REBOUCAS OR SANTA BARBARA TUNNELS TO THE ZONA NORTE!

rpl2
14/05/2010 - 12h 45m
A 15 minute firework display at almost 1 in the morning was, for sure, inConvenient, but another 500 people would go so far as to say that it induced panic and fear. There are people who are spooked by their own shadow.

vitor fernandes
14/05/2010 - 12h 43m
OH BE SERIOUS...YOU CAN TELL THE DIFFERNCE BETWEEN REAL BOMBS AND FIREWORKS...DRIPS IN THE ZS (Zona Sul)...ONLY AGREE INSOFAR AS WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A THURSDAY NIGHT AND PEOPLE WORK ON FRIDAY...BUT COMPLAINING ABOUT FIREWORKS IS COMPLETELY WET

Rafler 14/05/2010 - 12h 43m
I agree that a firework display at that time, in the middle of a normal work week, is inconvenient and absurd. but let's be reasonable, It's becoming ridiculous this talk of 'it seemed like grenades', 'they were bombarding the area', 'we had to find shelter'. Even paranoia has to have its limits.

Pee Wall Scrubbed

2010-05-12T11:14:00.001-07:00

There's this stone wall I know well. Located at the entrance to Aterro in Flamengo, it's just the right height for stretching hamstrings after a run along the beach. Only thing is, it stinks of pee. On the odd day that it doesn't, it is still a prime example of urban skank, covered in ugly tags, straggled stray cats, empty cans and food containers. I stretch there anyway.

Today my wall had a crowd. At its center, a group of young guys dressed in their Sunday best. Over crisply creased chinos, button-up shirts and polished leather loafers, they wore full-on Hazmat garb - lab goggles, masks, gloves and bright blue aprons. Some held scrubbing brushes, others yellow atomizers or high-pressure hoses. They stood at a distance from the wall (to save their shoes) while they forcefully scrubbed and sprayed at it.

They had an entourage: Prefeitura employees in their distinctive orange jump suits; men in suits giving instructions; members of the local residents association. It turns out the young guys were convicted vandals and taggers who, unable to pay a fine, had been sentenced to community service cleaning walls. A church had something to do with it too (hence the ridiculous dress code) but I'm not sure what. In any case, it seems that with the World Cup and the Olympics on the horizon, Rio's council is trying to get a head start with the clean-up effort.

My wall will get a layer of varnish to help it repel future tags. Yay to that! The anger I feel when I see vandalism just makes me realise how much I love this city. The lack of respect some people here have for their environment can be outstanding.

Interestingly, this whole scene was taking place less than 100 metres from an underpass which was graffitied last weekend. Rio law, however, makes a clear distinction between taggers ("bad") and graffiti artists ("good"), and I totally agree...

Stay tuned for a graffiti safari.

You say tomato, I say...Caqui?

2010-05-06T05:01:00.000-07:00

My children were pretty disgusted when I gave them what appeared to be a chopped tomato as their after-supper treat. It was, in fact, a Caqui, and an exemplary one at that. It had been specially selected for me by the disbelieving stall owner at the feira when I told him I'd never eaten one.

I was instructed not to put my dense, shiny, red orb in the fridge under any circumstances, and to eat it 24 hours later, when he deemed it would be perfect. And so there I was, alone at the table, my children long since having excused themselves without bestowing upon theirs a single exploratory lick.

Inside, the fruit looked like a tomato without the seedy bit. Its flesh had the same texture of a perfectly ripe pear, neither slippy or grainy. The skin, also pear-ish, had a bite to it. It didn't have any particular flavour or aroma. Tastewise it simply registered as sweet. Almost sickly. The skin was like toffee. It was pretty much on a par with eating white sugar, which is too bad for my children because they would have loved it! For my part it was okay, but I couldn't help feeling it was just a sin in fruit form.

Trusty Wikipedia informs me, however, that caqui is low in calories (around 80 per 100 grams) and full of vitamins, calcium, iron and proteins. There is apparently a less sweet version of the fruit called caqui-chocolate, which has a more orange hue. Both types are abundant in Brazil, having been introduced by Japanese immigrants around 1916.

And that, my friends, is all I, or the world's free encyclopedia, have to say about the caqui.

Market Scares

2010-05-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

My first visit to an outdoor Brazilian produce market (feira) was fine until something caught my eye at the fruit stall and my gait hesitated. I was immediately jumped on by store owners shouting, gesticulating and shoving tropical fruit into my mouth. A dozen of everything I didn't want, need or recognize was bagged-up and hooked over my wrists before I could protest. I paid a mint and staggered away feeling very foolish.

That was four years ago, but I'm still intimidated by the feira. On Tuesday mornings I go to the one off rua do Catete to buy fish from the stall at the very edge of the market, so I can avoid the rest of it. When I do brave it, I walk briskly, without eye contact. I don't accept samples. I gesture and point, in the hope that I'll be taken for a Brazilian mute rather than a gringa to be ripped off. Even still, when confronted by a stall with 8 different choices of banana, I usually end up retreating to the safer, simpler, pricier supermarket.

This has got to stop.

The other thing that I can't sustain for the rest of my life here is an exclusively European diet. I import Earl Grey teabags, Marmite, Shreddies, pine nuts, french chocolate, dried cranberries and a million other things. I insist on making roasts even though it's infernally hot. I complain that Brazilian ovens can't make a decent Yorkshire pudding and that the grill is incapable of browning anything, not least a shepherds pie. In five years, I have barely tried anything indigenous to Brazil, with the exception of the traditional arroz feijao (rice and black beans), which only made a recent appearance in our household thanks to our maid, and would now be eaten by my one year old for breakfast (if it weren't for the Shreddies).

Yesterday, in the interests of getting over my feira angst, getting better acquainted with Brazilian ingredients and giving me something to write about, I vowed to go every Tuesday, intentionally purchase something alien, photograph it, prepare it, pop it in my mouth and write about it.

With that promise to my one blog follower in mind, I went to the feira with an open heart. And guess what? I was not assaulted or conned by anyone. The stall owners couldn't have been more helpful (and amused) in response to my questions of "is that a fruit or a vegetable?", as I pointed to bizarre plant growths, and asked them how to prepare them. When I took out my camera an outcry ensued, as each out-hollered the next, wanting me to shoot their stall.

Upshot was, I walked away with an expertly selected caqui given to me as a gift, along with a handful of maxixi. "What are they?", you wonder. Well, I bet you can't wait until the next installment...

The Happy Sundays

2010-05-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Just before we moved here, Forbes reported that Rio ranked as the number one happiest city in the world. I wouldn't say that our cheeks exactly ache from all that smiling, but it is true that when it comes to simple pleasures Rio has plenty. Today was a typical Sunday, so I thought I'd share it:

Up at the crack of dawn as usual and we thought we'd be the early birds at Rio's Botanical Gardens. The children love exploring there, taunting the turtles, clambering rocks, creeping through tunnels of foliage, poking the cacti spikes and eating ice-lollies in the walled playground. Meanwhile, I try but fail to absorb the shapes and names of Brazil's diverse plants.

Brazilians are not generally early risers, so we were surprised at the queue for the car-park at 9am. Turns out today was an orchid festival, which meant crowds at the orchid house, but also a great little outdoor market. We picked up some orchid samples, including one with little wiggly, chocolate-scented flowers (pictured) and another that will, in the unlikely event that it survives being in my care, grow big hairy yellow blooms.

For lunch we met friends at Rio Brasa, Leblon. It's a churrascaria, which means you can gorge on as much melt-in-your-mouth Brazilian meat and trimmings as you can stomach. I'll talk more about this Brazilian institution another time, but the reason we are so especially wild about the place is that it has a kids' room upstairs, with a climbing-frame, ball-pit and smiley child minders. We actually ate in total peace which, given that we were with 5 young children, was something of a miracle. Oh yes, and the kids don't pay. Happy.

After an aimless wander around the chic Rio Design mall, just to digest, we headed home to collect the kids' buckets and spades. We live right opposite Flamengo beach, separated from the sand by a busy road and Aterro, a Burle-Marx landscaped park. In the last hour of daylight, my husband took the kids to build sandcastles and play football while I ran the 7km circuit of the park.

Aterro sweeps along the seafront from the domestic airport to the monument Estácio da Sá opposite the Sugar Loaf. The park incorporates the Modern Art Museum, the Monument to World War 2 soldiers and the Marina de Gloria. I wouldn't go there after dark. The airport end is apparently a notorious transexuals' hang-out, and a young street kid was murdered there during carnaval. But during the daylight, especially at dawn and dusk, it is magical.

This evening the park smelled of Sunday barbecues. Groups of families and friends sat around under the trees, laughing, drinking. By the Museum a brass band was warming up. At the other end of the park a maracatu group (traditional Brazilian music) was winding down. At the Marina, couples of all colours and persuasions watched the fish jump between the sail boats. A guy in a blindfold practised the trapeze. A man flew his remote-controlled airplane in the dedicated circular area reserved for the 'sport'. Groups of old ladies sat gossiping, sitting on their folding chairs on the promenade watching the Sugar Loaf glow like a burning ember until the light faded.

When the park flood lights came on, the reluctant migration away from the beach and towards another happy Monday began.

Rubber or Plastic?

2010-04-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

Given the recent floods we've had here in Rio, and the subsequent open-sewers and lake-sized puddles we had to wade through for a while, I thought it was a good time to talk about my love for the great Brazilian tradition of waterproof footwear.

Actually, I would say that an obsession for flip-flops is the first truly Brazilian trait I assimilated, well before moving here. Specifically, for the ubiquitous Havaianas brand. You know, the classics with little Brazilian flags on them. The ones that Buffy the Vampire Slayer got married in. The ones that sell at Top Shop and Urban Outfitters for a million times more than you pay for them here.

You can buy Havaianas anywhere, but their dedicated stores are irresistible. Rows upon rows of delicious pairs dangle on little hooks. Candy-coloured, manly-coloured. Metallic, day-glo, fluoro. Straps thick and thin, ankle wrapping, criss-crossing or the good old-fashioned 'V'. Wedge heels, colour-spliced soles, ethnic prints, retro, graphic, gothic. I've got dozens of pairs, but my typical 'flavour' is thin metallic straps on a jewel-toned sole. I have been known to adorn with the crystal butterfly or star.

However, I recently had a life-altering flip-flop moment. After almost a decade of brand fidelity, I switched. The third strap malfunction in as many weeks left me walking the streets of Flamengo barefoot (totally not advisable). I hopped to a supermarket and grabbed a pair of, gasp, Ipanemas.

I always thought that Ipanemas were the equivalent of a non iPod MP3 player. I mean, who would want that? No amount of Gisele Bundchen's endorsement could convince me to even try them on. But, needs must. I can report that the soles are softer and squidgier ergo more comfortable than Havaianas. Also, they have a wider shape to accommodate my feet. However, they are kind of sticky and get dirty easily. I'm not exactly a convert but I do have somewhere else to turn: Melissa.

If you want to wade through filthy puddles in real style, Melissas are the way to go. They are basically jelly shoes gone uber cool. I don't know what chemical they pump into them, but they have this signature smell. Super sickly and bubble-gummy. It makes you sniff the shoes, which is kind of weird. If they weren't so cute you'd feel like a pervert. They do all these co-created shoes with designers like Vivienne Westwood to Campana. Sandles, stilletos, velvety ones (how do they get plastic to look like velvet?), sparkly ones.

My latest Melissa fix was a double-whammy - a pair of weird toothpaste minty off-white ones with a big blossom, and a whimsical antique pink flower-covered pair. Bring on the next downpour, and long live the second great Brazilian tradition - the affordable pedicure - to make my feet almost photo-friendly!

Why Brazilians speak Portuguese not Spanish

2010-04-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

Do you have your Brazilian history straight? I spent an afternoon at the National History Museum to get the sanctioned version.

The museum site itself started out as a fortress on a headland overlooking Guanabara Bay. These days a busy road and area of landfill separates it from the water, leaving no clue of its formerly strategic location. In its time the architectural complex has also been a prison for slaves and an arms depot. So much reinvention and evolution in one little corner, how can I hope to grasp the whole story?

At least the country is not that old, having only been "discovered" around 1500. It was an era of great maritime exploration. The Portuguese were establishing their own trade route to India and sent an Armada under the command of Pedro Alvares Cabral across the Atlantic. En route they happened upon Brazil, as one would. It's unclear whether this was accidental or intended. Either way, they landed in Porto Seguro, Bahia, where they encountered indigenous Indians (who had been around for tens of thousands of years...but that's a story for another day).

Historical highlights of Brazil's colonial and imperial history include:

1549 Jesuit priests arrive to convert natives and get rid of indigenous rites and traditions like polygamy, cannibalism and incest. There are brilliant photos in the museum of the savage natives being taught calligraphy. What a trip.

1808 The whole entire Portuguese court, including the Royal Family, ran away from Portugal to Brazil because they were scared of Napoleon Bonaparte. That's over 10,000 people. It's the only time in history that a country's leaders have abandoned their people and fled to a colony. The king eventually returned but his son remained.

1822 Brazil gained independence from Portugal and became and imperial state with Dom Pedro I at the helm. Upon his abdication he was succeeded by his son Dom Pedro II

1871 His daughter, Regent Princess Isabel signed the free womb law declaring all children of slaves would be born free from that date

1888 Slavery definitively abolished. Brazil was the last country to do this.

1889 Republican military coup deposed king and Royal Family banished from Brazil. General Deodoro da Fonseco became the country's first president.

I'll leave the history of the Republic for another day, after a visit to the Museum of the Republic in Catete.

Inaugural Post!

2010-04-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

As the old adage goes: If you can't write that book, then write a blog. So here goes...

With four years under my belt, I may not be a total newcomer to Brazil, but I am still struck every day by wonderful and weird things I see. I'll do my best to share those here.

However, my perspective isn't that of the tourist or the ex-pat. I am neither. I have a Brazilian husband and two Brazilian children. I may be here for some time, possibly forever. Chances are that my grandchildren won't have British passports or speak English as their first language.

My curiosity about Brazilian culture is driven by my own need to 'belong'. Somewhere. Why not Brazil? As I try to figure out everything about this country and its people, culture, geography, politics, economy and more - this blog can serve as my exploration notebook.

I already qualify to acquire citizenship, but even if I do understand everything about Brazil , can I ever really hope to 'Become Brazilian?'