Adapting

Today feels like a good time to blow the thick layer of dust off of our blog and let everyone know that we are all, in fact, still alive and well. J  It’s hard to believe that it’s already been nearly a year and a half since we moved away from the US, yet at the same time, I feel as though we have lived in Brazil for eons!  Apparently I have still not managed to camouflage well enough to seem Brazilian, as everywhere I go I am still asked “Where are you from?” or more accurately, “De onde você é?”  I must still have an American accent hanging around… (Yes, I'm sure that's their only clue. :)) When I tell people how long we’ve been here, they are always anxious to know how we are adapting so far, how we are enjoying their country so far.   (They are mostly curious about Lissie and I, of course, as Tiago already knows a thing or two about living here. J)  So I do my best to answer in my broken Portuguese and tell them at least a bit of the following information:

I feel more or less adapted to life in our ‘little’ city now.  I am proud to say that in most conversations, I am able to understand about 80-90% of what is being said, and USUALLY I am able to come up with a somewhat coherent response.  Luckily most people are pretty forgiving of incorrect verb conjugation and fill in the blanks when I get stuck trying to think of a certain word.  I’ve also discovered that if I don’t know a certain word, I can usually find a way to describe it or a different word that has a close enough meaning.  Or when all else fails, I play an impromptu round of Charades as I attempt to act out the word.  So hey, communication has improved a lot since we arrived here!  

Lissie has a blast with the neighbor kids.

People often ask how Lissie is doing with her Portuguese as well, particularly when they ask her a question and she hides behind my leg instead of answering.  I’m sure it’s pretty typical for most kids her age to hide behind mom when asked questions by strangers or less familiar acquaintances, so I explain that she understands a lot of what they are saying to her, but she is a little shy about responding in any language.  She’s actually quite impressive when playing with other children, as she automatically starts spouting the kid Portuguese vocabulary and phrases as she runs back and forth across the room. “Laurinha, vem ca!  Olha la!  E o gatinho!” etc. (Fine, here’s the translation:  “Little Laura, come here!  Look over there!  It’s a kitty!”)  So anyway, how is her Portuguese?  I would say she knows a lot more than she let’s us hear.   (Note to self:  Someday I should write an entry on what I have observed about bilingual babies/children.) 

Another way in which I feel I am more adapted now, is I can usually find my way around our city.  I am getting more comfortable with the layout and how the roads are, and I feel less and less terrified about driving into town by myself!  Which is a big deal for me! J  Have I explained in other blog posts about how confusing the road layouts are and how traffic signals are often difficult to see or have been knocked down and also how most of the roads here are cobblestone so that the very vibration of the car as it rolls along adds a whole new element of “Is this how it’s supposed to feel/sound?!”  and how people often just don’t stop at stop signs and pass other cars on single-lane roads and….  How about if I just say that public transportations isn’t really that bad of an option here?  Well, now when there is an errand to run, as long as I have a car, I run it!  Need to pick up a pharmacy prescription?  No problem!  Out of milk?  Not for long!  I still do not drive in or to other cities, but I’m beginning to feel more and more like maybe, just maaaaybeeee I could. If I had to.  If my life depended on it. 

Also, I feel like I am becoming a pretty decent  Amerizilian chef!   (See what I did there?)    I recently received the Brazilian equivalent to the “Better Homes and Garden” red and white checkered cook book, and I am really looking forward to using it.  Rice and feijao (black beans) have become staple foods and appear on the table a minimum of once per week.  We also eat a lot of Shepherd’s Pies, chicken casseroles, and Bife/Lombo Milanesas.  I’ve really enjoyed learning new (to me) traditional Brazilian recipes and cooking techniques.  At the same time, my very American recipe for Brownies has become famous with our fellow church members here, and is often requested for any upcoming activity.  We’ve also been known to enjoy an occasional banana bread, cupcakes, and other miscellaneous recipes I feel like trying that I’ve pinned on Pinterest.   (By the way, Cream Puff Cake = AWESOME!!) 

"Giddy-up, Daddy!"

One other area requiring some adaptation:  the ‘backwards’ weather!  I’ve gotten used to it now (after experiencing all four seasons first-hand last year), but it definitely throws me for a loop to have to wear sweaters and coats in June and July, and break out the short sleeves in time for Christmas.  Just think:  Right now, you’re probably enjoying a nice hot, sunny day, maybe on the lake or swimming at the town pool…  We’re coooold!!   I have on 3 layers while typing this, and am still thinking of grabbing a thick blanket off the couch and wrapping it around me like a cocoon!   Have I mentioned before about the general lack of heating and air-conditioning units here?  Sure, the bigger stores and most restaurants usually have something installed, but on a cold day here, the best way to stay warm is to assume there will be no heat wherever you go and dress accordingly.   I’ve seen cashiers at the grocery store sitting in full winter gear – hat, scarf, mittens, the whole deal - as they slide those items across the counter.   And don’t even get me started on what we wear to church in the winter months!  But pretty soon, you’ll be putting your jackets and long sleeves back on, and we’ll be shedding the extra layers again.  (In case you are worrying, we are one of not too many families here who have a heating/air-conditioning unit in our home.  Now.  After spending most of last winter shivering and huddling together under thick blankets, I’d say this was one of our best purchases yet!) 

There have been so many different things to learn and experience since we got here, and you know, the list only seems to get longer!   So are we adapted?  Well, there are new aspects to adapt to every day.  But as long as everyone can figure out what word I am acting out next, I think we’re okay. J  

Soaking Up Some Sun

Last week we enjoyed a relaxing (for the most part) family beach trip with Tiago's parents, in the Florianopolis (Floripa) area. Just for fun, I decided that I would describe our experiences there with some, err, I guess you could say statistics:

Bedrooms in our rental beach house = 3 (Thank goodness, Lissie had her own room!)

Central Air Unit(s) in said house = 0 (but the ceiling fans helped some)

Nights spent in said house = 11

Number of nights a certain toddler woke up in the middle of the night to throw up, and did not go back to sleep for several more hours = 3 (Poor little thing!  The strange part - they were not even 3 consecutive nights.)

Mosquito bites I received over the 11 days = about 100 (Why, oh why do they love my blood so much?!?!)

Delicious meals cooked by my in-laws = about 20!  (Okay, I wasn't really counting how many times they cooked, but they really are awesome chefs!)

Board games/dice games/card games played = 20 (Ticket to Ride was by far the most-played; other games included Starfarers of Catan, Killer Bunnies, Dominion, and Greed.  Tiago was the overall game champion, winning about 10 of the 20.)

Viewings of the movie Lilo & Stitch = at least 1000

Requested viewings of Lilo & Stitch = about 1,000,000 (Yeah, Tiago REALLY likes that movie. ;))

Sandcastles built = 2 attempts, none completed (We were becoming rather skilled at making mounds of sand though!)

Minutes Lissie spent on her grandparents' laps/in their arms = (Let's see, 60/hour x 24 hrs/day, - time sleeping...) I'll just go with about 10,000.

Vendors passing by on the beach = a LOT

Some items available for purchase from wandering beach vendors:  (I include this part because I was surprised by the variety of items for sale and how much money was spent while sitting in the sand, soaking up sun by the shore.)

Popsicles/ice cream on sticks

grilled cheese (NOT the sandwich, just blocks of mozzarella cheese on skewers)

corn on the cob

swimsuit cover-ups (Is that what we call them in English?  The little dresses or shirts that we wear over our bathing suit to and from the beach.  Here they are saida(s) da praia, or "beach exit".)

strapless bikini tops (I didn't notice any bottoms, but I can't imagine the guy NOT having some for sale as well.)

sunglasses

blankets & hammocks (probably hand-woven)

"agua de coco" still inside a chilled green coconut (to drink)

pineapples

fruit salad & cocktails

hats

kites

innertubes & inflatable rafts

paddles & rubber balls for beach paddle ball game

churros (chocolate- & doce de leite-filled)

homemade jewelry (beads & woven string mainly)

By the end of the trip, I would not have been surprised to see a real-estate agent walk by trying to sell property!  Not that we would have been interested or anything...  We did do our part for the beach economy by keeping the popsicle and agua de coco vendors in business.  (It was a real sacrifice, I assure you.) 

Elissa surprised me by actually enjoying the ocean water, after being afraid to go near it last year.  As we walked out into the waves, her little finger continued to point further out to sea as she insisted, "That way, THAT way!" Until the ocean water finally sloshed her in the face a few times and convinced her to retreat.

So, to sum it up, a good time was had by all (including the mosquitoes).

Oh, the Madness that is Gincana!

Barriers block off most of the streets downtown and thousands of people line the street for a nearly 3-hour long parade.  Hundreds of people wearing matching shirts scramble here and there all over the region.  Speakers constantly blare the broadcast of the local radio station for nearly 48 hours straight.  Local stores sell out their entire inventory of popsicle sticks and thumbtacks.  And the city is still awake and busy throughout the night.  It’s Gincana time again!!

After hearing about it for so many years (at least 7, since we were married anyway), I was very excited to experience this unfamiliar phenomenon myself first-hand this past weekend.  The simplest way I can describe it to you is that it is a 2-day, city-wide scavenger hunt.  But that description really doesn’t do it justice.  So here come the details!

"Santa's House" Float

First, there are 5 teams that have participated in each Gincana for the past 20+ years (or one of them may have joined more recently than that, but I don’t remember).  Each team has a minimum of 600 team members, and some have up to 2500.  The event is put on by the radio station in town and sponsored by many local businesses.  It currently takes place every other year.   Most of our family have been participants with the team Fantasma since the tradition began, and therefore so are we.  One thing I didn’t fully appreciate before is that while the actual scheduled event is only one weekend, these teams begin working and preparing many months, even years ahead of time!  Meetings were held at Fantasma headquarters early this year, discussing a theme for our team’s portion of the parade, including t-shirt design and team anthem for the year.  I knew there would be a parade, but what I did not know was the level of detail and how much intensely hard work went into the preparations!  Our team’s chosen theme was “Christmas”, and hundreds of hours of work went into building and decorating floats with flawless detail, sewing costumes and props, and creating various toys and rolling carts for “jack-in-the-boxes” to pop in and out.  I’d like to say I had a hand in creating some of the colorful parade items, and we did help with some small parts here and there.  But after a painful incident with a hot glue gun, and having to chase a toddler around the majority of the time, our contributions were not as great as those of many others.  So, hats off to the many other team members who worked their tails off and made the Fantasma parade awesome this year!! 

Not just Christmas Trees, DANCING Christmas trees!

I felt sorry for the poor Gingerbread Men, wearing such
thick layers in 80-90 degree weather!

Jack-in-the-Boxes!  (The one on the far left with orange and
black stripes is the project that I helped with, and resulted in my blistered thumb.)

The occupants of these snowmen probably really did melt a little
during the parade!

Study Abroad, Part 2

Okay, another course in my University of Life:

Brazilian Culture 101: (Specifically focusing on the State of Rio Grande do Sul)

The richest cultural experiences we can have (in general) often focus around holidays or special events. Something that I wasn't expecting when we moved to Brazil was how many holidays and special events we would have.  Maybe it's because we tend to celebrate both American and Brazilian holidays in our family whenever we can, but it's easy for me to lose track of when the next special occasion will be, as there are so many! Not that we celebrate with all-out full-blown parties for every occasion, by any means, but generally Holiday = Day off from work! Which, from the mom perspective, means “Daddy is home to spend more time with us!!! Yay!!” So, just for fun, I decided to list some of the days that we have celebrated (or at least honored by not working!) this year as part of Brazilian tradition.

March 8 (or about 40 days before Easter) = Carnaval! Probably the Brazilian celebration most commonly recognized world-wide, for better and for worse. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on this one. Here's the thing about Carnaval: There are certain places that you probably don't want to be during this celebration, and certain channels on TV that you may decide to flip through more quickly than others, to avoid seeing too much human flesh. There is a huge parade with scantily clad women dancing Samba, which is probably the most famous event associated with this holiday. But really, everyone has a different way of celebrating, and the Brazilians friends and family with whom we associate remain fully clothed and did not even dance one Samba song (that I know of).  For us, this year it meant time off from work for a family beach trip! Which was quite nice and relaxing.

April 21 = Tiradentes. This day commemorates a national hero of Brazil who lived in the 1700's. I don't know his full story, but apparently he is important enough to get a day off from work. I guess it is comparable to President's Day.

March/April/May ? = Paixao de Cristo & Pascoa (Easter Weekend). The biggest difference I noticed in how it is celebrated here is the size and type of Easter eggs children receive here! It is also a tradition for many families to leave out carrots and water the night before for the Easter Bunny, and then in the morning he will have left a 'nest' of eggs for the children to find. We really enjoyed keeping some of our previous traditions from the US, as well as learning some new ones here! And we ended up with about a 2-month supply of chocolate eggs afterwards. :)

Studying Abroad

You know, no matter how much I think I know, it seems there is ALWAYS more to learn.  And the more I learn, the more I wish I knew.  I love learning new things!!  So I decided to sit down for a few minutes and reflect on what I have learned so far in my “Study Abroad” experience in this University of Life.  Here is what I’ve come up with so far:

Portuguese 101, 102, 201, 201, etc. -   This is probably the area I have spent the most effort and energy learning.  Before living here in Brazil, I knew enough to say “Hello! How are you? I am fine, thank you.” and a few other things about myself like “I am a teacher” and “Yes, I am an American.”  I also knew some important phrases such as “Where is the bathroom?” and “I am hungry!”  (Anyone interested in learning such valuable phrases in Portuguese can email me and I will share them with you.  They could save your life!)  Anyway, thanks to my high school Spanish classes, a couple course books for learning Portuguese, and spending a great deal of time listening to others speaking Portuguese, I felt like I wasn’t entirely starting from square one when we arrived here.  Now, after continuing to listen a great deal, reading scriptures and other church materials in Portuguese, watching Brazilian children’s shows for hours each week, and continuing to occasionally study my Portuguese course book, I feel like I’m getting a better grasp on both understanding and speaking in Portuguese.  Now, I can not only ask where the bathroom is, but I can also tell others!  And I’ve learned through experience that when I’m cold, I should ask for a cobertor (blanket), rather cobrador (collector, as in taxes or debt...).  Also, one of my favorite words I just picked up on this past week is bagunça - mess.  Fun to say, and extremely useful when one has young children in the house. :)

Six Months Down...

It has been a little more than 6 months since we moved to our new home, and probably time to update everyone on how we are all doing.  I’ll start with Elissa, as she is the most fun to write about.  Lissie has grown at least one or two inches taller since Christmas, and her vocabulary has grown substantially as well.  People here often think she is around 4 years old, as she is much taller than other children her age!  We speak mostly English when we are at home, so she has still learned more English than Portuguese so far.  Currently, her favorite phrases/sentences to use are “I love ____” (she fills in the blank with such words as chocolate, blanket, dress, shoes, Xuxa, letters, and any other random thing she is excited about at the time) and “I need ____” (the blank is often filled with the same words listed previously).  She is absolutely obsessed with letters and the alphabet right now!  She has a small set of foam letters which she must have with her in her bed at night or she won't fall asleep.  At least once a day, she sits in the computer chair, ‘types’ on the keyboard and says “ABCs??  ABCs????” until I come over and turn on an alphabet video on Youtube for her.  She will then stay seated and continue watching various ABC songs, number songs, Elmo, and pretty much any other children’s video that looks interesting to her, for as long as I allow her.  She also continues to LOVE watching the old classic Christmas shows, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman.  (I keep my fingers crossed that one of these days while playing with her DVD’s, she will scratch these movies so badly they will no longer play...  6 month have passed of not-so-gentle playing, and no sign of lethal scratches yet.  Sigh.)  Elissa has also become quite the singer and dancer, keeping us well-entertained!  One day while watching an ABC song for about the bajillionth time, she suddenly blurted out “I need to dance now!”, hopped off of my lap, and starting running around the living room, every few seconds pausing to stand on one foot or twirl like a ballerina.  As always, she enjoyed showing off and making me laugh, up until the instant I got the camera ready for filming...  Elissa has also recently been singing the alphabet song in Portuguese, and when asked or told to do something that she doesn’t like, she responds adamantly “Nao, nao, obrigada!!”  I’m pretty sure she picked this up at a pizza restaurant we ate at recently, as we passed on several pizzas brought around that night.  However, she feels it applies when told to put on pants, lay down, sit down, put a toy away, etc., yelling as she runs in the opposite direction.

Urug-Why?!

 Last week Tiago and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary with a trip to the Uruguay- Brazil border.  As exotic as Uruguay sounds, I can say now that traveling there was about as scenic as traveling through Nebraska or Iowa.  And I don’t know much about Uruguay, but there isn’t much on the border that we saw - no amusement parks, fancy restaurants, cushy resorts, etc.  Still, I’d estimate that every week, thousands of Brazilians and probably Uruguaians travel there - Rivera, Uruguay/ Livramento, Brazil.  Why??  Because the streets are completely lined with stores that sell various items (many name brands, like Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, etc.) for prices considerably lower than you can find anywhere else in the country - Duty-Free shops!  (In most cases, the items sold are commonly found in the US for cheaper still.  I used to wonder why my in-laws always wanted to go shopping in New York City or Las Vegas when they came to visit...)  Since we gave away/sold practically all of our earthly belongings in January and had yet to replace several things, and since I had never experienced shopping in Uruguay before, we were excited to plan our trip.  

The hotel restaurant barbecue

We knew in advance that the hotel we would stay in was no Marriott or Holiday Inn.  I would say it wasn’t even a Super 8.  In fact, had it been in the US, I believe it would have been shut down years ago.  The front desk had no computer system, just a paper calendar book with scraps of paper stapled to it for ‘reservations’.   There was an elevator, which had only a thin door on the outside that swung open.  It reminded me of the front door on a trailer.  The elevator itself felt like it should be in some scary movie where the hero gets caught in it with monsters tearing through the roof.  (The monsters wouldn’t have much difficulty at all.)  Then, there were the hallways and rooms.  If we didn’t know better, we would have thought we’d accidentally checked in to a hospital.  The rooms were small, some with a single bed (yes, A single bed).  Ours had a double.  There was a small, old school tv mounted on the wall, maybe a 15 or 17 inch screen.  Rather than a closet, there was a fairly decent sized wardrobe, and there was a small vanity that looked like it could be an antique.  And of course it had a bathroom, complete  with toilet, sink and shower.  Since it appeared to be clean (other than some spots on the ceiling) and it really was conveniently located right in the middle of all the best shopping spots, we went ahead and stayed in our little hospital - er, hotel room.  It was a great decision!!  After visiting store after store and accumulating several shopping bags worth of treasures, we were very grateful that we could then go back up to our room, drop them off, and relax for a while before going out again.