It is a cool and rainy morning in Sao Paulo; the haze is so thick I can’t even see the city skyline. I’m sitting on the balcony surrounded by my new beautiful plants – amazed at how a little bit of green can breathe life into a once empty space. Something as simple as having trees planted into pots that contained dead plants (upon our arrival), then stood empty like a toothless grin, has brought me so much joy over the last two weeks. When Matt asked what I wanted for Mother’s Day, it came as no surprise that my answer was the same as it is every year in the States – plants. The only difference is that in the northern hemisphere, spring is in the air and life is just beginning. Here, by contrast, fall has arrived, bringing with it crisp and sunny days, and many more clear blue skies than we have experienced thus far. Fortunately, the growing season in Brazil is year-round, so any time is a perfect time to plant a garden, even if it sits almost 300 feet in the air.
I’ve written about time and normalcy in my past couple of entries, so today I figured I’d fill in some of the gaps and write a bit about what we’ve been doing the past several weeks. I often joke that my days fill up and fly by while I do nothing. I guess that really isn’t true – it seems as though I am always doing “something” – trying to cram my to-do list into the few hours between the time I drop the boys off at school and then pick them up again, not too different from when we lived in Cranberry. The day to day stuff is pretty boring - grocery shopping, cleaning (yes, even though I have help two days a week, I still clean and do laundry), and working out. But, we have had some pretty interesting experiences in the weeks since my sister was here.
The weekend after Jen left, we packed the car and headed back to Pocos de Caldas. I had been invited to my first Brazilian baby shower, which in this case took form as a “Cha de Fraldas”, literally translated it means, “Tea of Diapers”. One thing I learned is that here, expectant mothers host their own showers, as well as people celebrating a birthday host their own party, or provide their own cake at work. As for the shower, instead of having a gift registry, the mother gives a suggestion of what you can take as a gift. The gift requested from me was a pack of medium-sized diapers, and she kindly suggested her preferred brand (this was very helpful, as I haven’t had to buy diapers in a long time, much less in Brazil). The only thing I wasn’t sure about was how many diapers would be considered an appropriate gift. I asked several friends (all of them expats – none of whom had been to a baby shower here), and though they didn’t really know, their suggestions were all the same – just spend what you would normally spend on a shower in the U.S. I agreed with their ideas and found what I thought was a great deal on Pampers – a jumbo box of 100 diapers for $R 55 (the equivalent of about US $35) – shopping for a baby shower gift had never been so easy! A few days later, when Tania (my helper) saw the box of diapers, she looked at me curiously – I think she was wondering if there was something I had forgotten to tell her. I explained that I had a shower to attend and asked if she thought the gift was appropriate. She laughed and exclaimed, “You bought enough diapers for the whole village!” She went on to say that here, most guests take one small package of diapers. I told her that since I didn’t know, I figured it was better to err on the side of taking more than coming up short and taking too little. “Oh, don’t worry,” she replied, “you’ll make quite an impression!”
As I would with a gift for a shower in the U.S., I wrapped it in brightly colored paper, made a bow, and attached a little card. After a three hour drive to Pocos, and a late lunch, I arrived “late” to the shower, which was supposed to start at 3:00PM – I got there at about 3:45 and was still one of the first to arrive. Apparently, in Brazil, start times don’t really mean much more than just that – a “starting” time – guests can arrive any time after the stated hour – most of the other ladies began trickling in at about 4pm. I had to chuckle as I watched each of them enter, greeting the expectant mother with a kiss and handing her a plastic grocery store bag with one small pack of diapers inside. Yes, I believe Tania was right, I might have overdone it just a bit! I couldn’t help but laugh, a couple of weeks later, when looking at the pictures of the shower and seeing my giant box of diapers surrounded by the other packs less than half the size of my gift. The rest of the shower was nice – very much like ones back home, with little games everyone plays out of obligation. For me, the best part was being included and treated like a life-long friend or family member, as well as the fact that everyone there spoke Portuguese the whole time, and I was able to participate without missing a beat.
The next morning, we took advantage of the sunny day and the more serene city of Pocos - we visited an artisans’ fair and walked through the beautiful park that is nestled in the center of the downtown. By mid-morning, we reluctantly left this city that is becoming to feel like a second home – we had lunch plans with new friends we had yet to meet. In the weeks before moving to Brazil, just after Christmas, we learned of another family from Cranberry who was also relocating here at the same time. It seemed like we were destined to meet, and the circumstances of our learning about one another were pretty ironic. I had scheduled all of our final appointments (vet, pediatrician, dentist, orthodontist) during the week between Christmas and New Year’s and was frantically trying to get them all in, in the midst of taking down Christmas decorations, packing, and organizing everything for the move. At the orthodontist appointment, Ian was telling the technician about our upcoming move to Brazil, and she mentioned that a patient she had the day before was also moving there. The technician told me his name (a total violation of privacy laws), and I told Ian that maybe he’d be lucky and one day meet a boy from Pittsburgh in our new country. The next day, at the vet’s office for Simon’s physical, the doctor (one we had never seen before) mentioned that he had just done a travel physical for a dog whose family was taking him to Brazil. What?! Two days in a row I’m hearing of another family moving to the same country we are, just 2 weeks before we were scheduled to leave? I gave him the last name of the boy from the orthodontist office, and he confirmed it was the same family.
After doing a quick Google search, I called the first of two numbers that came up with their name and our town. The same teenage boy from the orthodontist office answered and I explained the events of the past two days. I managed to convince him that I was neither crazy, nor a stalker, and left my name and number for his mother to call me back. Fortunately, later that afternoon she returned my call and we talked for an hour comparing notes and marveling at what a small world it is. With both of our crazy schedules, we never got the chance to meet while living ten minutes away from one another, but we communicated via e-mail, and once in Brazil continued to compare our experiences as new expats in this country. Their family lives only one hour from Sao Paulo, in a city called Campinas – which just happens to be along the way to Pocos. So, having known we would be in the area, we made plans to finally meet. They live in a closed neighborhood, in a beautiful house – it reminded us of being in a regular suburb in the U.S. – no walls or fences with razor wire or electric lines running across the tops to deter break-ins. The kids had a great time exploring their house and playing with their older children, while Matt and I enjoyed talking to other people from “home” – it was so nice to be able to talk about familiar places in Cranberry and have someone know exactly what you meant. We look forward to other get-togethers with our new-found friends and former “neighbors” – it only took a move to Brazil for us to meet!
The next couple of weeks passed quickly, with preparations to receive our sea shipment and the subsequent unpacking and organizing of our things. As I wrote earlier, it’s amazing how much it helps to feel at-home when surrounding by your own belongings. Because we are in a furnished apartment, that also meant taking some of our landlord’s things out to make room for ours (not only is the apartment full of furniture, but the closets were also full of electronics, carpet remnants, and other miscellaneous items). We sent repeated requests for them to remove some of the extra stuff (that took up our entire storage room, leaving no space for Christmas decorations, tools, and the kids’ outdoor toys), but they seemed to fall on deaf ears, as we continued to receive no response. It was frustrating to feel ignored, but we were persistent until we finally got a response and they agreed to come and take their belongings – which will lead to my Mother’s Day story in a later entry.
We also experienced our first real holiday, Easter, in Brazil a few weeks ago. This actually was a bit of a hard day for us, being so far from home. Even though we’ve lived in different cities from our families for several years, Easter was a time when we would be with relatives – the boys’ spring break always fell over Easter weekend, and we made it a habit to travel during this time (always with family). This Easter was quiet for us – we haven’t even begun the search for a church, and it seems as though all of our friends here also were feeling sad and lonely and kept to themselves. The boys were expecting a visit from the Easter Bunny (yes, they still believe in the tooth fairy and all of the other magical characters), and apparently he exists in Brazil, too. However, instead of Easter baskets (as they didn’t get packed in the move and are not the tradition here) our Brazilian Easter Bunny brought bags full of chocolate eggs. As for the traditional Easter dinner, with ham and all of the fixings, they are also in short supply - there wasn’t an Easter ham to be found anywhere! Matt and I decided it would be best to get out of the apartment for a family lunch at a churrascaria. After stuffing ourselves, we spent the rest of the rainy afternoon being lazy – the highlight of my afternoon was finally purchasing the plane tickets for our flight home this June – and ended our day with a family game night. Though it was quiet and different, we survived our first holiday in our new country, the most important thing being that the four of us were together – that alone is a blessing for which I am grateful every day.
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