Week 2 in Brazil

February 8 – 11, 2011

I’m finding that I’m staying much busier than I thought I would be in my first weeks here.  The days pass very quickly, and I have not had as much time to write as I had imagined.  Therefore, I’m going to lump some days together in order to get “caught up”.  Tuesday of this week brought me the gift of Tania, my new maid.  I immediately took a liking to her, and had ample opportunity to practice my Portuguese, as she doesn’t speak English or Spanish.  We seemed to understand each other just fine as she quickly got to work getting this apartment in order.  The previous tenants did not seem to care much about cleanliness, and she worked hard to remove the grime that had built up over the past few years.  Little by little, she had the place sparkling.  She is very pleasant, always smiling, despite her difficult days.  I found out it takes her almost 2 hours to get here – getting up at 4am in order to fix breakfast for her husband and daughters, and gets her own house cleaned up.  She leaves her house at 6am, taking the metro (subway) and a bus to arrive here by 8am.  She never stops to take a break, scrubbing, cleaning, washing, ironing, (even offering to cook for me) for 8 solid hours.  Then she takes another 2 hours to get home, and has to take care of her own family – cooking and cleaning for them.  Such is the life of service people in Brazil – all this for $50 a day.  

While Tania worked away, I spent 2 hours at the grocery store near my apartment getting a lesson in what to buy and what to avoid from another ex-pat who has been here 3 ½ years.  We walked up and down every aisle, as she pointed out the brands that are good, and reminded me to always check expiration dates – I have learned the even with expiration dates, I still have to be careful, as things here spoil very quickly.  I know if Cilissa is reading this, she’ll chuckle, as she knows that I usually don’t pay too much attention to the dates, and that I rely more on my nose to know if something is still good!  I’m learning that here it is necessary to go to the store at least 3 times a week, and to buy produce, cheese, eggs, and meats in small quantities to avoid wasting so much food – otherwise, a lot will end up in the garbage.  While at the store, my friend introduced me to Marcello, a meat vendor who is always there with a smile on his face and knows every customer by name.  He proved this to me the next day, when I went back to the store, and he greeted me by name, asking me in the traditional greeting in Brazil, “Tudo bem?”  which is also answered with the same two words, "Tudo bem!" – “Everything well?”, “Everything well!”. 

Wednesday was an important day for us – we had an appointment to start our “RNE Protocol” – yet another number and identifier that we learned we would need in order to be able to receive our shipments from the U.S.  The only caveat was that we had to travel 100km to a city called Sorocaba to get this done.  We had been given an appointment in Sao Paulo on February 15^th, but could do it in Sorocaba on the 9^th.  We figured that getting our things 6 days earlier was worth a 2 hour drive, and would allow us to see a bit of the area outside of this enormous city.  Our driver picked us up at 9:30am in order to be on the tail end of rush hour – it took us almost one hour to go the first 10km to get out of the city, then another hour on the highway to do the last 90km!  I think I’ve mentioned the crazy traffic here, and I’ll have more to write about that later – it’s really another world!  Once in Sorocaba, we had to check into a hotel, in order to show that we were “staying “ there – after a quick lunch, we were off to the Federal Police, where we would be registered as residents of Brazil.  With the assistance of a kind lawyer, and after telling a little white lie (stating that we would be living in Sorocaba), we were all fingerprinted and received our “protocol” – one more thing we could check off the never-ending list of “things to do to prove we live in Brazil”!  We quickly returned to the hotel, checked out, and survived the two hour drive (most of it without air conditioning, in a very hot car) back to Sao Paulo.  We capped off our busy day with a relaxing walk through “paradise”, the jungle preserve in our condominium complex – a beautiful reprieve from the hustle and bustle of life outside our compound walls.  Back at the apartment, I was thrilled to receive an email from my sister telling me she’d purchased tickets to come visit – our first guest would be coming in just 7 weeks!!!

Thursday brought another big step for us – Matt finally had a car to drive!  This, of course, meant that he’d actually have to drive in Sao Paulo for the first time.  It’s hard to describe how crazy the traffic is here – it really is something that can only be appreciated live and in person.  Drivers here have absolutely no regard for traffic laws, much less for lanes!  People just drive wherever they feel they can squeeze in – creating extra lanes if they so wish.  They may be in the far right lane, but have to make a left-hand turn – no worries, they just cut across all of the cars to their left, and make their turn regardless of who is in their way.  Here, people like to use their horns, honking them the second a light turns green – even if they are 10 cars back from the intersection, and there is nowhere to move.  More insane than drivers in cars are the maniacal “motoboys” – these are the crazy men (and women) who must have a death wish to navigate the streets of Sao Paulo on motorcycles.  I’m serious when I say a “death wish”, as the statistics state that an average of 3 or 4 motoboys are killed daily in this city.  However, if you witness the craziness they exhibit on their bikes, you would understand why this is the case.  As I mentioned, cars just kind of squeeze together in the narrow lanes of the streets here, leaving little space between them – out of nowhere you’ll hear the buzz of an engine, and a little “beep-beep”, and before you know it, a motorcycle is speeding past, close enough to take your nose right off of your face if you so much as lean toward your window – zooming through what little space there is between the cars.  My goal, while living, and eventually driving here is to not kill a motoboy! 

The maze of streets in Sao Paulo is another issue that presents a great challenge to anyone behind the wheel of a car here.  While we never had a GPS in the States, I think we won’t be able to live without one in this city.  Matt is amazed, that no matter how many times he’s been back and forth to his office, he is always taken a different way.  We are told that any road can be closed at any given moment, leaving you scrambling to find an alternate route.  We’ve also been told to watch for changes in direction of the flow of traffic – a one way road going in one direction today, can be headed in the complete opposite direction tomorrow!  Now that Matt had a car, I was worried about him driving and navigating the streets, hoping he could find his way home – to my great relief, he made it without any problems – a huge first step for us, as this brings a lot of freedom to get around on our own! 

Friday came and went as quickly as the rest of the week, but it also brought a few “first steps” for the boys.  On the first day of school for Ian and Alex, Matt and I were handed papers and permission slips for field trips for both of them.  Alex’s class would be traveling to a resort called “Sitio de Carrocao” for the entire day, and Ian’s class would be traveling the following week to “Replago” for a 3-day trip.  Though we’d only just arrived, and the cost for the trips was steep, we decided it would be the perfect opportunity for both boys to really dive in and get integrated with the other kids in their school, as well as a chance for them to see and experience something new.  So, after only one week as a student at Chapel School, a very excited Alex left at 6:15am - the buses returned at 8pm that evening, bringing with them exhausted, but very happy children.  He had so much to tell us about all they did, including swimming in a cave, going down waterslides and through waterfalls, petting exotic animals, and even go-kart racing (he was proud to report he came in 2^nd place!).  Ian also had a fun afternoon, going over to the house of a new friend, and out to dinner with his family – to none other than Applebee’s – the very same chain as in the U.S. that is hugely popular here.  By 10pm, we had both boys back home with us, along with the comfort of knowing that they were happy and adjusting to their new lives in Brazil.