You expect to come home to a nice, quiet house and...

1.  As soon as you get home you realize that your dogs 'diaper' has been chewed off come off (because your dog is having her period and when she does, you put undies and a pad on her) and there are peices of used sanitary napkin littering the living room.

2.  You are trying to cook very quickly and your cat continues to jump onto the counter and lick your food behind your back.

3.  As you finally sit down to enjoy your dinner, a BAT suddenly flies in through the living room and flies frantically around the ceiling before diving down and scuttling along the floor.  This sets your cat off like CRAZY who starts chasing after the scuttling bat who is clearly TERRIFIED and is running further and further into the house.
You start doing that cry/whine/freaking out sound like "nooooo-o-o-oh-oh-oh-oh!!!!!!!! oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god whaddo ido whaddoido!!???"  Then you tap into your spidey sense and have a moment of clarity.  A bowl and plate!  Yes.  You go get said bowl and plate and upon returning discover bat and cat are nowhere to be found.  oh god oh god oh god oh god.
You tiptoe your way into your mother-in-law's bathroom where you find that your cat has cornered the  helpless little bat behind the toilet.  Armed with plate and bowl you help the bat (which definitely looks like a mouse with wings) into safety, walk onto the veranda with your heart pounding, and set the bat free!

4.  As you are walking back inside, patting yourself on the back, you discover a small pool of vomit because someone (probably that cat) PUKED everywhere.  For crap's sake!

I just wanted a nice relaxing evening at home!!!

the troubling parts

I think the biggest thing that gets me down here is just the lack of social circle I have.  I'm so lucky to have my husband and he is definitely my best friend - sorta along the lines of Rachel's description of a great partner, lover, and soulmate. 
But he goes to work sometimes (!) and sometimes I just wish I could invite a girlfriend over to have drinks with or watch movies with or to go out with.  Someone who can just hang out with me all night and eat junk food and gossip with me. 

Having close friendships (even just one or two - I'm more of a quality over quantity person myself) are what I miss the most about Canada.  It's also probably the worst thing about my job.  Both of the main offices at my school are in Centro and I travel to my students' place of business to teach their classes.  This means I don't often come into contact with my coworkers.  In fact, I don't know any of the other teachers (minus maybe one or two who I've met) and I don't know any native speakers here.  Sure, I've met quite a few Brazilians but nobody who I've been able to develop a friendship with (aside from my husband's amazing friends, but nobody lives close enough to just 'come over' for the night). 

I miss the companionship of people who speak my language though.  People who just understand what things are like across the border(s).  I know some of you out there have gone through a similar situation to my own.  Any advice on how to meet people?

Yayyyy! (note sarcasm)

Yeah, so riding along on the bussy bus this afternoon to my class.  Sitting close to the front.  Guy gets on.  I can smell him before he crosses the threshold.

He has a fresh can of beer in hand.  Now, I realize it's legal to drink in public here in Brazil but it still shocks me to see people actually taking the country up on this offer.  Especially in places that you really don't need to be drinking.  Like the bus.

So he is trying to get through the gate and the lady (who is one of the horrible customer service people we are all talking about in Danielle's blog!) is taking her sweet time, not even looking up at the guy.  So he starts pushing against the gate, pushing and pushing and pushing in a real rocking "drunk in public" sort of way.  She finally gets the hint and lets him through (still not even looking at him - shocking I know).  He falls sits down on the seat and opens his beer with one dirty hand, which of course explodes all over his dirty hand.  Can't waste a drop! so he licks it all off.

I'm watching him, just plain interested in this guy who obviously hasn't a care in the world.  Watching as he chugs his beer.  Watching as he starts prying the tab of the can off.  Watching as he successfully removes the tab.  Watching as he takes the tab, opens his mouth, and sticks it all the way down the back of his throat.  Wait... wait a minute.  WHAT did he just do???????  Did he just eat that beer can tab??  Oh yes, my friends.  Yes he did.

Okkkk... so now y'know, it's just weird and neurotic.  My actual first thought was WTF?  My second thought was "good luck pooping that out!"

So the bus starts to get a little more crowded.  Then a little more and a little more until I can't see him anymore.  THEN I smell the distinct smell of tobacco.  I'm like, whoa... did someone JUST have a smoke and hop on the bus?  Then, I hear people start shouting "hey hey put it out!!!"
It's our old friend, the Beer Tab-Eating Guy, lighting up a cigarette ON THE BUS.  What?????  You just thought, "Well, I'm done my beer! Now it's time for my smoke!  Dum di dum!"


People are getting pretttttty agitated by this point.  Everyone is shouting at the guy and calling him names "Seu viado..." I start looking around to see if anyone is going to do anything!  Like a staff member... y'know... someone with some authority?  But low and behold... who is just sitting on her fat butt looking at her nails, either not smelling the smoke or just not caring (probably the latter...)?
Our other old friend, the Stupid Bus Lady. 


Just another day in Rio!

Exotic Fruits in Brazil

So, I ate a persimmon today.  Seen 'em in Canada too but there it's not the real thing.  Just like strawberries aren't the real thing here.  Anyway.  Persimmon. 

Pretty darn delicious!  Looks a bit like an orange tomato and tastes a bit like an orange tomato! Okay, more like a really sweet tomato.  I didn't really know what to do with it so I just cut it in 4's and started to gnaw away at the insides.  I guess it was right. 

Try a persimmon today if you haven't! I'm not kiddin'... go buy one and eat it now!

Another side to favelas in Rio

Ok Jim - kudos to you for getting such long comments out of me!  I'm really liking your blog topics lately!  Follow up to Jim's blog...

As someone who has been on the favela tour, I have to comment that there are definitely tour groups who have good intentions, and give back to the community.  There are so called "good favela tours".  On the tour that we went on, we were given some really useful and informed information about life in the favelas, most of which broke down negative rumours and stereotypes that favelas are crime ridden, poverty stricken, slums.  The woman who led the tour was really passionate about setting us straight on what the favelas are all about.

The people are poor but they're not miserable, was more or less the theme of the tour.

On that note, the proceeds from the tour went towards funding a community elementary school (which we did go to visit and meet the teachers and students in this school). 

Obviously, I too felt a bit timid going on the tour. I didn't want to be the ignorant tourist going to gawk and stare because the reality is I have a huge interest in life inside the favelas.  They are such a huge part of the culture and community of Rio.  You can't turn a corner without seeing a huge favela community spiraling up a mountain.  We were so privileged to be allowed in.  And I was so grateful and surprised at how friendly and accepting the community was of us entering.  Everyone we passed said hello, smiled, said bom dia...

Yes, the favelas are run by drug dealers.  Another reality.  But as far as crime ridden?  The only rule inside the favela is 'don't shit where you live'.  They don't want the cops coming there.  Of course, drug dealing is sort of an invitation for crime but at least you know the intentions are there!

Anyway, I was really impressed with how respectful and informative the favela tour was that I went on.  I will post the name of it shortly because I can't remember right now.  The only advice I can give if you are thinking about going on a favela tour is to do your research before.  Do your research before you take a tour and make sure you're joining an ethical one. 

Here are a few pics from the tour we went on in April...

The school that the tour funded

Tight walkways between houses

This started out as a comment on Jim's blog

Rachel's comment on Jim's blog is too true.  We have to stop bitching about the lack of availability of ethnic cuisine (like most of us are used to seeing as we all came from multicultural cities) and start making it ourselves!

I've been crying and complaining inside (and out loud to my husband) for so long about the lack of Indian or Thai food here.  It hurts me how long it's been since I ate a delicious chicken tikka masala. 
The problem, however, (as most of you have already blogged about) is also in the availability of ingredients.  The ONLY indian spices I have found here (in the most giant of supermarkets) are saphron, cumin and curry.  No turmeric, the most important ingredient :(  And you can forget about garam masala. 

I did succeed in making a coconut chicken curry last night with fresh roma tomatoes, coconut milk (soooooo good here) and curry powder.  Hot damn was it good.  It was almost like the real thing.

What is awesome is that in having to improvise with the lack of ingredients, we all become much better cooks as a result because we really need to get creative with substitutions!  Did you know that instead of using baking soda (which doesn't exist in Brazil) you can x3 the baking powder for the exact same effect?  Meaning recipe calls for 1 tsp of baking soda so you just add 3 tsp of baking powder.  Voila.
 
Of course, some things you just can't substitute and I know you're all having enormous saudades for this one.  Cheddar Cheese.  Not neon orange imitation cheddar.  I'm taking real Canadian/American cheddar.  Or marble.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmm marble!  Cheese in general suffers a little here.  I used to live on feta and cheddar so I'm outta luck.  I'm starting to appreciate queijo minas though (tastes great when cooked)!

I'd love for us bloggy people to have a giant potluck of our favourite comfort foods.  I think it would be a really interesting spread. :)

A giant fist shake at Rio busses!

It happened AGAIN.

I got on the wrong bus.  This time it CLEARLY said 179Recreio on the side of the bus.  I was exhausted after an already 2+ hour ride home from Centro and failed to check the front of the bus to see if the signs matched.

Long story short, they didn't.  (*Side note: Apparantly the stupid signs have to match.  It could say 179Recreio on the side but if it says 179Central on the front, it's going there.  Please see this post on why I hate busses in Rio)

Me being tired and trying to fight for an inch of space, I didn't pay attention (not that I could see anyway) to where we were going until about 20 minutes in when I noticed we were going through a tunnel.  There are no tunnels on the way to Recreio.  Then we passed through a toll.  There are no tolls on the way to Recreio.  I had already whipped my phone out to cry to Ro that I did it again.

I got off at the first stop after the highway ended which happend to be a pretty scary looking favela town!  Luckily, Ro came to my rescue.  Good thing too because if I had stayed any longer I would have surely been robbed.  Sigh!  Frustration.