Who turned the lights out?
I found out just by accident last Friday at the grocery store that Saturday night was the end of daylight savings time in our area. Technically, summer doesn't end until next month, so it is very strange to have the sun setting at 6:30. Different regions of the country do different things, so some places are still on daylight savings time.
I got an e-mail message from my dad announcing that my sister gave birth to her son last night. Welcome to our world, Mark Anthony!! I regret that I won't be able to visit right away, but hopefully I can meet him in July when I go back to the U.S. to visit.
I've been trying to figure out what I can do to be able to use my laptop (other than replacing the motherboard at a cost close to the original price of the laptop) after a second opinion confirmed the same problem with the power. I think I may have found a workable solution to bypass the problem and just use battery power, using a battery recharger that's available only in the U.S. Because there's a 60% import tax to ship most things into Brazil from other countries, the only viable solution was to find somebody that can bring me the part from the U.S. Today I finally learned of somebody headed this way from the U.S., but he's leaving on Friday morning, so this afternoon I was rushing around trying to confirm that I was ordering the right stuff and trying to place an order that would get to the guy by Thursday. We'll see if it gets there in time or not. Then if it does, there's still the matter of getting it from another state in Brazil to here, which is much easier to do, relatively speaking.
We're still working out the schedule for the new semester at the projects, so thus far I know that I'll be teaching an optional knitting class to the Shade and Fresh Water kids at Liberdade and something to the older kids (15-18) at São Gabriel.
Yesterday morning, the real estate agency called wanting to come look at my apartment to confirm the corrections to the apartment inspection that I turned in the first week of January. I arranged for the inspector to come by that morning. Some of the problems on my list I'd already fixed (or paid to have fixed), which he duly noted (but that does not mean I'll get reimbursed--I won't). I couldn't believe that I had five days after signing the rental contract to turn in my corrections to the inspection and then they get two months (or more) to come and check it out. At least he showed up on time and didn't take too long. And I learned something...the same word that means "mirror" also means "faceplate for the door handle" or whatever official name that has in English. Who knew?
Perhaps the author of the Harry Potter books traveled to Brazil before penning her famous stories. Why, you may ask? Because here they have these bright green, roundish, hovering flies that I've never seen anywhere else, and they remind me of the "Golden Snitch" used to play quidditch in those books/movies.
Brazilians seem to have a thing about rearranging the furniture in their workplaces and homes. For example, the furniture in the office at São Gabriel has been moved around at least four times since I've been here. Sometimes it might be to improve functionality, but oftentimes it's just aesthetics. Maybe because there are so many things outside one's control here that people jump at the chance to be able to control something.
Somebody here came up with a t-shirt design that has become wildly popular and even spawned imitations. The slogan is "I love BH radically" [BH stands for Belo Horizonte]. I've now seen the same design used to support a local soccer team ("I love Galo radically") and Jesus ("I love Jesus radically").
Houses here frequently have tiled areas in front where people park their car(s). These areas are particularly striking when the tiles are white or beige. In the mornings, I see people using a lot of water and detergent to clean those areas (especially the light-colored tiles). I was thinking that perhaps the white tile parking areas here are the equivalent of the perfect green lawns of the U.S.--something that doesn't actually make a lot of sense in terms of stewardship of our planet, but they look cool.
Although I've long been an independent woman, at times I feel more vulnerable in this culture where women are generally accompanied by husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers, or at last other female friends.
I had a busy weekend. Saturday, I spent a great day with my old roommate, including lunch, pedicures, watching a video and going to meet some other folks at a teriffic dance performance downtown. Sunday I went to the church annual meeting in the morning and then out to Liberdade in the afternoon for a birthday party. It was a nice gathering with live music. One weird thing, though--I seemed to be the only one who noticed or cared that a 13-year-old was drinking.
And finally, the irony of the week...I saw my first Brazilian Elvis impersonator downtown last week (complete with red satin jumpsuit and shades, but no guitar). Ironically, he was singing one of Little Richard's hits in a very I-don't-have-any-idea-what-the-words-really-are kind of way.
I got an e-mail message from my dad announcing that my sister gave birth to her son last night. Welcome to our world, Mark Anthony!! I regret that I won't be able to visit right away, but hopefully I can meet him in July when I go back to the U.S. to visit.
I've been trying to figure out what I can do to be able to use my laptop (other than replacing the motherboard at a cost close to the original price of the laptop) after a second opinion confirmed the same problem with the power. I think I may have found a workable solution to bypass the problem and just use battery power, using a battery recharger that's available only in the U.S. Because there's a 60% import tax to ship most things into Brazil from other countries, the only viable solution was to find somebody that can bring me the part from the U.S. Today I finally learned of somebody headed this way from the U.S., but he's leaving on Friday morning, so this afternoon I was rushing around trying to confirm that I was ordering the right stuff and trying to place an order that would get to the guy by Thursday. We'll see if it gets there in time or not. Then if it does, there's still the matter of getting it from another state in Brazil to here, which is much easier to do, relatively speaking.
We're still working out the schedule for the new semester at the projects, so thus far I know that I'll be teaching an optional knitting class to the Shade and Fresh Water kids at Liberdade and something to the older kids (15-18) at São Gabriel.
Yesterday morning, the real estate agency called wanting to come look at my apartment to confirm the corrections to the apartment inspection that I turned in the first week of January. I arranged for the inspector to come by that morning. Some of the problems on my list I'd already fixed (or paid to have fixed), which he duly noted (but that does not mean I'll get reimbursed--I won't). I couldn't believe that I had five days after signing the rental contract to turn in my corrections to the inspection and then they get two months (or more) to come and check it out. At least he showed up on time and didn't take too long. And I learned something...the same word that means "mirror" also means "faceplate for the door handle" or whatever official name that has in English. Who knew?
Perhaps the author of the Harry Potter books traveled to Brazil before penning her famous stories. Why, you may ask? Because here they have these bright green, roundish, hovering flies that I've never seen anywhere else, and they remind me of the "Golden Snitch" used to play quidditch in those books/movies.
Brazilians seem to have a thing about rearranging the furniture in their workplaces and homes. For example, the furniture in the office at São Gabriel has been moved around at least four times since I've been here. Sometimes it might be to improve functionality, but oftentimes it's just aesthetics. Maybe because there are so many things outside one's control here that people jump at the chance to be able to control something.
Somebody here came up with a t-shirt design that has become wildly popular and even spawned imitations. The slogan is "I love BH radically" [BH stands for Belo Horizonte]. I've now seen the same design used to support a local soccer team ("I love Galo radically") and Jesus ("I love Jesus radically").
Houses here frequently have tiled areas in front where people park their car(s). These areas are particularly striking when the tiles are white or beige. In the mornings, I see people using a lot of water and detergent to clean those areas (especially the light-colored tiles). I was thinking that perhaps the white tile parking areas here are the equivalent of the perfect green lawns of the U.S.--something that doesn't actually make a lot of sense in terms of stewardship of our planet, but they look cool.
Although I've long been an independent woman, at times I feel more vulnerable in this culture where women are generally accompanied by husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers, or at last other female friends.
I had a busy weekend. Saturday, I spent a great day with my old roommate, including lunch, pedicures, watching a video and going to meet some other folks at a teriffic dance performance downtown. Sunday I went to the church annual meeting in the morning and then out to Liberdade in the afternoon for a birthday party. It was a nice gathering with live music. One weird thing, though--I seemed to be the only one who noticed or cared that a 13-year-old was drinking.
And finally, the irony of the week...I saw my first Brazilian Elvis impersonator downtown last week (complete with red satin jumpsuit and shades, but no guitar). Ironically, he was singing one of Little Richard's hits in a very I-don't-have-any-idea-what-the-words-really-are kind of way.
posted by Christine Piggee at
5:48 PM
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