Brazilian Life

Heart of the Matter

2009-11-11T20:23:00.003-04:00

I did it. After nearly a year of Brazilian churrascos I finally ate a chicken heart.

A Brazilian barbecue has to be experienced to be believed. There are two ways to enjoy them - the first is in the garden with friends, accompanied by copious amounts of beer and caipirinhas and the second is at a specialist Brazilian churrasco rodizio. A rodizio is based on fixed price all-you-can-eat buffet-style dining and loose clothes are essential. My first, at a local restaurant, was quite bewildering. We were shown to our table and each presented with a pair of tongs and a wooden block painted green at one end and red at the other - green for "yes feed me" and red for "NO MORE, FULL UP". Before you get stuck into the barbecued meats you navigate your way around a huge sushi bar, a salad bar, a hot food counter and a pasta bar. Then the meats started coming... On average around 30 to 40 different meats circulate the room on huge barbecue skewers which are carved at the table, the diners using their tongs to lift the slices off as they´re cut. I couldn´t figure out how Brazil seemed to have so many different barbecue-able animals until I realised that 80% of the skewers all contained beef, which after feijao (bean stew) is pretty much the Brazilian national dish. The colours and flavours of the different cuts were all so different it was impossible to believe they were all parts of the same animal.

I was determined to try everything and made a good job of beef, lamb, chicken, pork and yet more beef but something made me hesitate as I eagerly held out my tongs for what looked like a small, smooth, slightly irregularly-shaped barbecued meatball. Some sign language to the waiter (at this point we still spoke no Portuguese) was answered by a wide smile, some flapping of his arms and the pounding of his hand against his chest... chicken hearts!

Chicken hearts are a national favourite. They are eaten in bulk at just about every opportunity, piled one on top of another on huge skewers and barbecued to... well, within an inch of their lives.

I admitted defeat the first time round and have rejected them ever since. But this week, fuelled by a couple of chilled Skol lagers in the sun, I finally plucked up the courage. I picked a juicy-looking specimen, took a hearty bite and... it was delicious in a kind of offally way. I was so excited I tried another. Then my brain reminded me of the reality of what I was eating, and as quickly as my urge to eat them had come, it disappeared. Would I try them again? Probably not, but it feels good to notch up another milestone on our Brazilian adventure.

Something Fishy

2009-10-30T19:40:00.000-03:00

Since moving here we´ve settled into a wonderful weekend routine. We´re lucky enough to live just a couple of blocks from the beach on the Cabo Branco bay so Saturday and Sunday mornings are spent enjoying family strolls down on the sea front. There are moments when our toes are crunching gently into the sand, the palms swaying to the rhythm of our stride and the sun peeking over the cliffs when I can quite honestly say there is nowhere I´d rather be.... However you can rely on the dog and two children (and quite often the husband) to shatter the idyll with relative ease.

This week´s culprit was my eldest son who seems to have developed a penchant for close encounters with Brazilian puffer fish. We´ve only ever come across two on the beach but rather than admiring them from afar he just insists on getting stuck right in. Last time round said fish was in fact discovered by our (giant) labrador pup who dug up a particularly puffy, recently deceased specimen from the sand at low tide, had a quick munch, thought better of it and promptly turned to lick away the horrid taste right across my eldest´s bemused face. It took several days, even more showers and much brushing of teeth before the puffer smell gave up the ghost and departed his poor fishy chops.

This time round we only became aware of the (even more dead) puffer´s existence when the poor lad trod on its rack of completely exposed, protruding spikes. We plucked one chunky spine after another from the line along his swollen foot, all the while reassuring him that he was fine whilst discussing urgently in hushed voices whether a puffer fish puncture was as lethal as a puffer fish meal with the puff still in place. We hot-footed it home where some swift googling turned up a surprising number of threads under "I trod on a dead puffer fish, am I going to die?" but thankfully the resounding answer was no, puffer fish are only poisonous if injested. Rather than be put off though, my son is now desperate to play Russian routlette with a puffer fish at our next Japanese meal. But I think we´ll leave that risk for someone else to take.

The Latest Hot Spot

2009-10-17T15:03:00.002-03:00

Brazil is not the fastest at getting things done… and some cities and states drag their heels more than others – if indeed they get round to it at all. Since arriving we´ve heard many a rumour of government funds destined for road expansion schemes or new schools simply vanishing before the projects even get started. Thankfully this habit seems to have by-passed Paraíba, or Joao Pessoa at least. My native UK could learn a thing or two from this laid-back North Eastern city that just seems to quietly get on with it. Here, it seems that the diggers are working furiously almost before the rumour mill has caught wind of a new scheme.

There has been talk of city-wide free broadband wi-fi coverage since a similar scheme was introduced in the Copacabana area in Rio de Janeiro last June. On Thursday it was officially announced that several million Reais of state funding has been approved for the “Cidade Digital” (Digital City) project, which will start next month.

This is great news for the city for several reasons. First off, it will give an undoubted push to Joao Pessoa´s expanding business economy. Secondly, it is an acknowledgement of the fact that personal wealth is rising and a significant share of the population now owns or has access to computer technology. And thirdly it will be welcomed with relief by the next batch of newly-arrived expats whose service provider forgets to connect them up to phone and internet for 4 months and leaves them wandering the streets with their laptop under their shirt, furtively searching for a hot spot so they can skype home and let their loved ones know that all is well and they´re not really missing in action.

Special Delivery

2009-10-08T14:17:00.002-03:00

For someone who spent the last few years living on top of a hill, where even a pint of milk was a car ride away, moving to Joao Pessoa has been a godsend. Brazilian delivery culture is truly a wonderful thing. The concept passed me by for months when we first arrived, largely because at first I couldn´t even read what the shop signs were saying, then when I realised they were offering home delivery I was still too scared to pick up the phone and try out my pigeon Portuguese. But with my newfound confidence, I have also acquired a newfound laziness and am calling up for deliveries left, right and centre. The concept is so ingrained here that even the diet shops deliver right to your door. And though I am of the view that if you need to be buying your gear from the diet shop you could probably do with the exercise of walking there, I must admit there is something quite decadent about ordering your weekly supply of choco-slim without leaving your sofa. Here´s my list of favourite deliveries I´ve used so far:

beer
mineral water
cooking gas
pizza
Chinese
Japanese
choco-slim (shh!)
kids´ prescriptions from the chemist
dog´s prescription from the homeopathic chemist (!)
more beer
alka seltzer from the chemist
weekly fruit and veg order
organic rice in bulk
homemade lollipops to feed the boys´ addiction
printer cartridge refills
and our daily lunch order from a local restaurant

Not bad for starters. Watch out for updates because now I´ve got talking on the phone sorted there´s no stopping me!

More Party Party

2009-10-07T15:36:00.000-03:00

We´re off to another birthday party this weekend.

Judging by the exquisite handmade invitation and location at one of Joao Pessoa´s biggest party rooms it is set to be another lavish affair (check out my blog from April 2009 for our first experience of a full-on Brazilian birthday bash).

Thankfully they´re not all on this scale - I feared after our first experience that we´d be taking out an annual bank loan to finance our own children´s celebrations. But Brazilians certainly take birthday seriously (yep, any excuse for a party!).

Even the schools encourage it. As well as being the official "Toy Day" for the younger students, Fridays are also the official party day. Any child whose birthday occurs during the week is permitted to celebrate during Friday mornings - and not just with their classmates. In come Mum, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles and a brood of siblings to join the revelry! Hardly a moment to get any work done in between but they all come home happy. Six months ago I was still gritting my teeth in annoyance at the interruptions to my sons´ education, but now I´m just glad they come home happy. Maybe I´ve been here too long already?!

Sporting Life

2009-10-01T13:48:00.000-03:00

Sports, sports, sports... I´m exhausted. Not from doing them myself, but because the bargain-loving pushy mum in me is so impressed by the great value of Brazilian kids´ sport classes I´ve signed the kids up for everything. Now my afternoons are spent taxi-ing the pair of them from one place to another on a recurring mission for health and fitness.

My eldest must be the fittest 6-year old alive. Twice-weekly judo sessions, twice-weekly tennis lessons, twice weekly football and a Saturday swim class... the first thing the poor child says on waking up every morning is "is it Sunday, Mum?" in the hope he´s in for a sport-free day.

I know we´ll need to drop something pretty soon as the current quota is too much for both him and our fuel consumption but it´s just so hard deciding which. Class sizes are small, the teachers are great, and compared to the one-hour-weekly session of musical movement and occasional egg-and-spoon race I remember taking part in when I was a primary school it´s just heaven - I must just remember not to wish too much of a good thing on my tired little boy...

Doggy Diet

2009-08-08T13:52:00.000-03:00

Our Brazilian Labrador is getting expensive...

This week´s diet:

1 pair havaianas
1 pair goggles
2 school books
1 wii remote control
3 shapes from shape sorter
1 pull-along doggie on wheels (head intact)
1 pair children´s underpants
1 nappy (unused)

And that´s before the dog food...

2009-07-07T20:57:00.000-03:00

I went shopping in the local Extra supermarket yesterday. Our new iron has packed up – again – and after the palaver to get it mended last time (several fruitless calls in pigeon Portuguese, a trip to the shop, a trip to the manufacturer’s agent, a trip back to the shop, another trip to the agent, a referral to the master agent, more unintelligible phone calls followed by a miracle in which the iron reappeared in all its former working glory) I figured the easiest thing would be just to buy a new one. Not so. A quick scout through the shelves, I chose my iron, did the rest of my weekly shop (the budget says weekly, the reality says I’ll be back here in three days) and off I went to the checkout. Paying for anything in Brazil takes forever so they’ve developed a great priority system for the most needy – it’s worth being over 65, disabled, pregnant or even lugging two lunatic kids with you just to skip the wait. Unfortunately I’d left my two crazy boys at home in the mistaken belief that I’d be back shortly. An eternity later and the third family-sized pack of frankfurters (hungry children, hungry dog) skids along the checkout followed by the iron… And…

I’m sorry, this iron’s not for sale”

“I’m sorry?”

I’m sorry, this iron’s not for sale

What do you mean not for sale? I just took it off the shelf.

We don’t sell this iron here.

But I just took it off the shelf here. There are ten more the same.

No I’m sorry we don’t sell this iron here. The system says it’s not for sale.

But you ARE selling this iron here. Here’s where I got it. It’s got a price tag and everything.

No I’m sorry, you can buy any iron but not this one.

Well can I buy one of the other ten?

No I’m sorry, they’re not for sale.

What are they there for?

Display

Well what happens when they stop being displayed?

We usually sell them for a discount

Well can I buy it for a discount?

Not until there’s only one left…

I have now officially lost the will to live.

2009-06-11T14:05:00.000-03:00

It was Mother´s Day in Brazil recently - or should I say Mother´s Week. Brazilians take any chance for a celebration extremely seriously but sometimes I´m left wondering how they manage to get any work done in between it all. The demands on my time to ensure I am given a suitable Mother´s Day celebration by my kids have been huge.... First my youngest gets sent home with a request in his school diary for a photo of him enjoying "a moment of leisure" with me. Easier said than done as he doesn´t sit still long enough for photos. Then when I´ve finally figured out how and where to get rapid photos developed here and delivered the thing into school, my oldest gets sent home a few days later with the same request. There then ensues a series of cutting and sticking activities to be done with them at home and delivered into school ready for party day. Which of course is spread out over party week and involves two separate trips to school for two different activities with each of my sons. To be fair to school, the celebrations themselves were wonderful, I´d perhaps just prefer a little less of them and more time spent educating my kids and letting me get on with my work. But that sounds very baa humbug of me so insteads I´ll just wish all the fellow mums out there a happy Brazilian Mother´s Day.

Shrink to Fit

2009-04-20T02:31:00.000-03:00

Possibly the biggest surprise we´ve found with our Brazilian dog is other people´s reaction to him. They´re TERRIFIED. It’s not that the Brazilians don’t like dogs – most of them have a fluffy little pooch of some description that they dress up and carry around in their doggy handbags and the place is awash with funky accessory stores. But they just don’t do big dogs.

Ours hasn’t even learnt to bark yet but the pizza boy insists on delivering over the wall rather than via the gate; every time our faulty alarm goes off the muscle-bound heavies from the local security company insist on doing an exterior-only patrol; and fellow dog walkers wanting to engage us in friendly doggy conversation do so from a safe distance of 20 yards. Which isn’t particularly helping our efforts to slot seamlessly and invisibly into Brazilian life. Had we realized this we would almost certainly have chosen a fluffy model ourselves but too late. Our giant pup is part of the family now and here he stays. It just amuses me that people can’t see that underneath his angelic little face, the toddler temper tantrums of our youngest are in fact WAY more scary than our big softie of a dog.

Party Party

2009-04-02T13:00:00.000-03:00

The big birthdays in Brazil seem to be for ages 5 and 15, so when my eldest was invited to the 6th birthday party of one of his classmates last week we imagined a fun-filled but fairly routine affair. Not so.

As we approached the "party rooms" (Brazil is awash with professional party venues of all shapes and sizes) we were greeted by clowns and a live band, and invited to add our gift offering to the mountain of wrapped presents piled against two walls of the large entrance area.

Climbing the stairs to the main reception room we passed through two enormous floors of arcade games, soft play areas and go-cart tracks, accompanied by the happy screams of over 100 children. It took a few moments to realise they were all there as part of the same birthday party - I thought they were literally just normal visitors to a public arcade.

The main reception room was heaving with some 200 parents and relatives enjoying canapés and drinks, while children raced around snatching candy floss, freshly-popped popcorn, hot dogs and fizz from a whole host of vendors who had been brought in especially for the occasion, along with a dozen face painters, acrobats and puppeteers.

Two photographers and a video crew spent the next 6 hours crawling around the 3 floors of screaming children until we were approached midnight, the kids high as kites and bouncing off the walls thanks to several gallons of fizz. As the lights dimmed I assumed it was for the birthday cake ceremony, only to hear an announcement that the hot buffet and creperie were now open. At which point I stifled a serious yawn and wished I hadn´t gone for it so majorly with the canapés. Another hour of craziness and gluttony went by before the lights dimmed again and this time it really was the birthday cake. With a fanfare from the live band, a large Ben Ten capsule was lowered from the ceiling, revolved several times whilst being accompanied by scary-looking indoor fireworks, and out leapt the birthday boy to blow out his candles. All great fun but highly bemusing for an English mum whose idea of a lavish party was a date with Ronald McDonald and 10 of her son´s closest friends.

Doggie Tales

2009-03-09T11:39:00.000-03:00

It´s amazing how kids know how to press just the right buttons to make you say yes to anything... especially when they know where you´ve stored up your residual guilt about dragging them away from their friends and across continents to live in Brazil.

So when the question of acquiring a puppy came up for the umpteenth time we didn´t even stop to argue. No more thought, no more discussion, no planning for the future and wondering how we were going to fiance the puppy food. The same afternoon saw us hot-footing it to the pet shop which we left an hour later with a ton of Science Diet, huge doggie bed, an array of plastic toys and a Labrador pup in tow.

The kids of course were ecstatic but as we feared, I’m noticing it in the food bill. Not only does he consume 3 times the recommended daily allowance of puppy food but he also has an expensive taste for Havaianas. Not that they´re pricey in themselves, they´re fantastically cheap, but no matter where we hide them he hunts them down and chews his way through them at a rate of around a pair a week.

School

2009-03-01T02:01:00.000-04:00

Arriving here not speaking Portuguese has been a challenge to say the least. And children being children, my 6 year old has put us all to shame by being the fastest learner (in fact we could have done with him to translate at parents’ meeting last night).

School Brazilian style has been an eye-opener after the European system. The school day is split in two. Literally there are two entirely different schools running under one roof – one from 7.00am until lunch time and another from lunch time until 6.00pm.

Our decision to go for the morning shift was a no-brainer given that since our arrival the kids have consistently woken up at sunrise. And I don’t mean a civilized 7.00am sunrise, I mean the glaring 4.30am sunrise that happens in North East Brazil 365 days a year. I’ve tried everything but no amount of blackout curtains, late nights and bedtime cocoa makes the slightest impact on their wake-up time. As a confirmed night owl this has come as a serious shock to my system. But there are benefits – I may be up by 5.00, kids at school by 7.00 and at my desk by 7.15 but by the time I’m ready to go and get the little terrors again I’ve got a good stint of work under my belt and the prospect of an idyllic afternoon with them ahead. A pity the reality of breaking up fights and repeating everything three times over to be heard over Ben 10 doesn´t always live up to the dream but that´s parenting I guess...

Settling In

2009-01-10T14:43:00.000-04:00

The process of settling ourselves and our two children into a new country hasn’t always been straightforward but so far it has certainly been an experience. And in most ways an easier one than our previous move from England to Spain five years ago. Our missing case (well, with 16 to choose from it was bound to happen) was delivered to our door five days after our arrival, our hire car was ready and waiting for us with a full tank of Brazilian biofuel and our estate agent was waiting with the keys at the door to our new rented home.

We had already chosen the house on our visit a month earlier but on just one viewing it was hard to remember much. The sight of the gleaming pool as we swung open the front gate was enough to satisfy the kids (and remind us that until we pulled my finger out and organized the safety netting to fend off our one-and-a-half year old I wouldn’t be able to rest for a moment).

The scene wasn’t quite as idyllic inside when we discovered there had been a “misunderstanding” about what furniture was included in our rent. After much ranting and some tricky negotiations with our decidedly unbalanced landlady various items were reinstated while we hotfooted it to the local shopping mall to buy three beds and learn our first lesson about the idiosyncrasies of Brazilian service culture.

Simply paying for the beds took over an hour due to the ridiculously complicated cashier system (we now know that this is in fact pretty quick). No-one seems to question this – it’s an accepted fact that when you go to buy something it takes FOR EVER. But the Brazilians are not without a service ethic – they know you’ll be there for ever so they ply you with free food and drink, take your kids off and entertain them and generally do whatever they can to help you enjoy your wait. Then when they’re nearly finished they offer you a discount. Which involves another hour trying to navigate the sales system afresh… and so it goes on. An interesting marriage of American-style service ethic and Latin hospitality. It’s taken some getting used to but we’re pretty much there now (just learnt not to go shopping in a hurry). We’ve not been so relaxed about the two-month wait for phone and internet though – but that’s another story…

Life´s a beach - on Sundays at least

2008-12-27T18:57:00.000-04:00

We had our first taste of a day on the beach Brazilian style yesterday.

I´ve never experienced somewhere with so much energy, so much going on, in such a beautiful setting. The beaches here in the North East seem to have all the charm of the Caribbean combined with a charm that is unmistakeably Brazilian. Atlantic rollers humming gently in the background, music from the beach vendors, impromptu barbecues, chilled fresh coconuts... heaven!

The kids loved it too, I can see this becoming a regular Sunday outing. They´ve pretty much grown up living in the sun but trips to the beach have just never been easy. Somehow it was completely different here. They found themselves playing impromptu football with the ice cream vendor and his family for hours, giving us the chance to sit back, relax, watch and chat - just like life before children but with the added fun of watching the smiles on their face as they raced up and down the sand.

And just as we began to feel peckish a mini barbecue appeared from nowhere on the sand in front of us and we were invited to order skewered prawns, chicken, beef and coalho cheese, which grills beautifully and tastes something like a cross between Italian mozzarella and Greek haloumi. We said no to the barbecued chicken hearts though despite assurances of it being a local delicacy...

A nice cold can of Skol to wash it down, a dip in the sea (bath temperature) and we relaxed back for a spot more people watching before heading back to slather on the aftersun.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, maybe we could get used to this.

Off to Brazil

2008-12-18T13:40:00.000-04:00

It was only as we tried to wedge the umpteenth piece of luggage into our hired minibus and set off for the airport that we realized there was a problem. There was no room for the kids. Something was going to have to give – and after some discussion and much resistance we said goodbye to two bicycles, a bag of cuddly toys and my treasured Krups coffee maker. And this is when the reality set in - here we were, we’d rented out our home, packed away our possessions in waiting for their shipping orders, said our goodbyes to friends and family and squeezed our most necessary possessions into 16 assorted bags… and we were off to live in Brazil.