Things That Are Good to Know

Hotel vs. Motel
A few things of note before traveling to Brazil. First is the difference between a Hotel and Motel. A hotel is where you will want to stay, for a night or week or what have you. As opposed to a Motel, which in Brazil is universally known as a rent-by-the hour type of establishment, if you get my drift. They are usually housed in modest buildings set off the street, very discreet. You would probably miss them entirely, if not looking for one. We have one on the main drag by our house. Its aptly named the OK Motel, so you don’t have to worry about feeling guilty because there its “OK to have an affair”. I’ve only seen one truck speed out of the driveway and I’ve never seen anyone leave it. Except, today I saw a guy with his shorts hanging off his hips, as is all the fashion here among the youth, run from the driveway and cross the street to where I was walking. As he strode by he looked at me, winked and smiled, like I knew why he was there. It was a perverse encounter.

Thumbs Up vs. Okay Sign

Using the thumbs up hand gesture is the way to go in Brazil. People use it here as we use the wave in the States. I usually use it as a response to people staring at me; I smile and say "Oi", with a vigorous thumbs up. One thing that you should never do is to lift your hand in the OK gesture, with your thumb and index finger making a circle. This is equivalent to giving someone the bird in Brazil. I’ve only done this once to my friend Cosmo at dinner…oops! Thankfully, he’s got a good sense of humor.

Don’t Flush the Paper Down

My whole life I’ve been taught to flush the toilet paper down. But oh no, not here in Brazil. No one flushes TP down, they throw it away in the little waste basket. Which doesn’t make for pleasant experience when using a public restroom. They do equip toilets with a nice sprayer so you can get that “oh so fresh feeling” every time you go. But drying off is another mess because the single-ply TP disintegrates as soon as it makes contact with water. So I don’t use these that often. We did manage to find two-ply TP at a store not too far from here. Yes, we’ve stocked up.

Don’t touch that Shower Head
One thing I had to learn quickly was not to touch the shower heads. You see, they are electric! Yes, that’s right electric. That is how we get hot showers. You have to remember that once you turn on the electric switch of heat up your water, you cannot not adjust the temperature on the shower head because you’ll get shocked. Pure genius in this invention (sarcastic tone). I’m pretty shocked that its caught on, just about every middle class family home has one.

Make Time for Shopping

If you are in the mood for some shopping, make sure you got plenty of time and patience. Once you have finally figured out what you would like to purchase, you give it to a salesperson who writes up a ticket for it. That means, a hand written itemized list of all your items and amount. Then you take the ticket to another counter where you wait in line to pay for the items. Then you take the receipt back to the salesperson that you gave your merchandise to and show them the receipt, then finally you can go. These are just a few things that I can think of to let you know what to look forward to when you travel down to Brazil.

Rainy Season

Today Grace gave me one of those hugs, you know, the kind where you bury your face into her hair and take a deep breath, where flashes of her babyhood run through your mind. It left me staggering back to washing the dishes with a drunk smile. Moments like these make up my daily life. A smattering of kisses and leg hugs in between washing the floor, or cleaning the bathroom or hanging up clothes.

The day-to-day routines have begun to grind a rut into the tile floors of the house. Its comforting. The other day we made Thanksgiving turkeys by tracing our hands and coloring them in traditional orange and brown--well Gracie’s is a psychedelic swirl of all the colors. I hung them up with pride, thinking, I can’t believe that its November, it feels like I’ve entered into a time warp where its continually August, hot and humid. It hit 90 degrees yesterday and the humidity was so thick you felt like you were walking in a cloud. Everyone knew the rain was coming but when…

Its rainy season here and the mud stuck to our shoes can prove it. Last night around 5 PM we decided to take a walk down to the nature preserve at the bottom of the hill. We started to walk down there with the girls loaded up in the stroller, Matthew threw the umbrella in just in case. About half way down we could see a massive rain cloud, about the size of Texas moving toward us. At the bottom of the hill, we could see the curtain of rain moving slowly up. As we sped down the hill, we questioned whether we should be doing this, but then, its been so hot all day, a little cooling down was in order. A light sprinkle started and then a torrent of downpours, coming in, sheet after sheet. Matt fumbled with the umbrella and put it over the entire stroller. The girls were dry, but we were soaked. We looked at the each other and laughed, enjoying the freedom of feeling the rain dance over our bodies. I looked back up the hill and there were a bunch of kids running into the middle of the street and laying in the newly formed river gushing downstream. The innocence of youth.

We made it to the preserve and trudged the stroller across the front area to a road that led out to a large palapa that over looked a dry lake. The mud was viscous and stuck to the stroller wheels, Matthew was wearing flip-flops and at the time I thought was a poor shoe choice, but given his short clean up time once we got home, I reconsidered as I scrubbed my running shoes. We essentially carried the stroller out to the palapa and we waited for the rain to stop. However, as we waited we feared that it may get dark before the rain ceased and we didn’t have our head lamps. I couldn’t bare the thought of dragging the girls across that road, which was becoming smaller and smaller as it melted into the side of the lake bed, in pitch darkness.

After a few minutes of heated debate on whether we should go or not, Maddie started to fuss. Great timing, kids always have the best timing. I reached down to give her a kiss and she latched onto my bottom lip and started sucking vigorously! I lifted up my shirt and latched her on my teat, grabbed the umbrella and yelled to Matt, “I’m crossing”. I starting walking her across the mud road, securing the umbrella close to us. I felt confident I wouldn’t fall. However, halfway through I became less confident when my foot slipped out and I swaggered, crossing leg over leg, until I finally got my balance. I looked down at Maddie, surely she was a scared as I, but she hadn’t missed a suck.

We made it across without falling into the lake and waited for Matthew and Gracie to do the same. I looked into the graying night, and waited. I started to get a bit worried, but then they appeared. Matthew dragging the stroller with Gracie manning it like a ships’ captain. We were safe onto the sand-compacted walking trails of the preserve. Gracie demanded to go home; “I’m soaked”, she said pathetically. “Okay, we’re on our way” we said.

We slowly walked up the hill, the rain did let up a bit, now it was misting. We turned the corner to our street and let out a sigh of relief. We were home, finally. And after three months of living in the Amazon, a hot shower felt great.

Culinary Limit

Today I reached my culinary limit. As we all know, I am making all the lunches now… Matthew brought home a fresh wild chicken. He said they didn’t have any of the prepared frozen kind, the kind that I am used to cooking (like what we get at the supermarket in the states). I thought, okay, no biggie, I’m sure I can make something delish with it. I took the bag and dropped it into the sink and didn’t think about it again until 11AM, when it came time to prepare it for cooking.

Out of the bag I pulled a chicken, yes the complete chicken with all the innards attached. Now, understand, I’ve never claimed to be one of those chefs that likes to hunt down the prey, skin and cook it. I’m more like the type to go to Whole Foods and buy it, cut and cleaned, removed from anything resembling a live entity with a soul. When I looked at the poor little beak, closed eyes, and dangling feet… a wave of guilt rushed over me, and then, a wave of disgust. I’m all about the Slow Food Movement, but this really putting a face on the food!

I gagged twice, as I shoved its head back into the bag, and stretched its neck across the middle divide of the sink. I grabbed the butcher knife with apprehension, and starting chopping down the neck. A horrible cracking sound rose up, and again I gagged. Man, this is for the birds (pun intended) isn’t there a KFC around?? (in fact there isn’t one fast food restaurant in Rio Branco, which is good, right?). Anyhow, I managed to not vomit while pulling out all the insides, there were things in there I couldn’t identify.

Its funny, but I started to feel better about eating it once I had it cut up into its “proper” portions. I guess I am an American, I like my foods uninhabited , defaced. There is no honor in that, I know. But, I have to say it like it is. So, I threw it all in to a pot, poured some homemade teriyaki sauce over it, added in cut up pineapple and green onions and viola, Teriyaki Chicken, delish! Yes, I am a chef after all!

Gracie & Matthew w/chicken
 

Fond Farewell? To Lana-Nana

This morning I awoke to the sounds of rain drizzle, that always makes me sleep in. Matt had gotten up already. It was 7:15 AM and I could hear Nana in the kitchen washing up dishes from last night. A loud crash from as glass or plate woke up the baby and I thought, "oh well, there goes another". Lets just say that Nana isn't the most graceful. However, after my last post I may have been a bit harsh. My friend, Jamie, reminded me that getting married at thirteen, you don't get much training or many moral lessons.

So, it was 7:15 AM and I could hear Nana in the kitchen washing up dishes from last night. A loud crash from as glass or plate woke up the baby and I thought, “oh well, there goes another”. Lets just say that Nana isn’t the most graceful. However, after my last post I may have been a bit harsh. My friend, Jamie, reminded me that getting married at thirteen, you don’t get much training or many moral lessons.

Yesterday, we had presented her with a list of things that should be done daily, so she had some structure to her week. We felt that she needed structure, due to the fact of her leaving early with dirty pans shoved into the oven and other things to that effect. After a month we had a good idea of how we wanted things to go, so we made up a weekly schedule and told her that if she got things done she could leave early. I had done one day of the schedule on Saturday and finished up by 1pm. So, I thought the schedule wsa reasonable. We also told her to change it around as she saw fit and if she couldn’t finish up by 3pm, she could leave for the next day. That’s fair.

We were on good terms. But this morning Matthew went to get some underwear off the clothes line and noticed that all of our whites were PINK! Yes, Pink… okay, I got a little pissed at this point. I mean, I sucked it up when she dripped bleach all over my black nursing shirt and cool pants I got on Haight-Ashbury in S.F. What really pissed me off, is that she didn’t tell me right after this happened so that I could try to reverse it with bleach. Instead, she rewashed them, WITHOUT BLEACH! Again we had to find out by discovery. We all make mistakes, but owning up to those mistakes and trying to do better, is what makes a good employee, shit, a good person.

She started crying and said she was sorry for all she had done (stealing coins and pain meds, on top of the aforementioned). Now, keep in mind, this is the first apology I’ve heard from her, even after we confronted her about the coins and medicine. She spoke with Matthew while I filled the washing machine with bleach and water. I listened but didn’t understand anything. Matthew called to me and said that she wanted to leave and not come back. I felt bad for her. She is only 16, and I think back on all the shit I did in my adolescence and how cool people were with me… So, I walked inside to her and told Matthew to translate verbatim.
“it’s the choices we make that create the people we are. We all make mistakes, but its how you choose to deal with those mistakes that builds our character. You can’t always run away from uncomfortable situations. (emotional silence here) I would like you to stay, but be honest and upfront with me.” So she looked at me and smiled, I smiled too and she stayed. Then an hour later, she came to Matt and said she still wanted to leave. At that point, we paid her and she left…

As I hang up the load to dry, I can’t help but feel weird about it. I think I am feeling that old martyr feeling again. That same ol’ rut that kept me in a terrible relationship for so long-- (Scarlet O‘hara voice: “I can change him, I know I can”). I think I didn’t want to fire her because I thought I could make her a better person. Sometimes, you just can’t… Welp, at least I saved all the whites except for Matthew’s Eddie Bauer socks, they will have to remain a nice rendition of the 80s IZOD-pink.