Eddy in Brazil

Bom dia tudo mundo!
I am blogging to you from the third biggest city in the world: São Paulo!
Including it surrounding areas, this place has an estimated population of 17 million!! Nobody knows the real number...

The reason I am here, is that Uziel was called to meet with the senior pastor, Ouriel de Jesus (not really related) from the United States (Boston Ministry), who is in Santos/São Paulo this week. We drove in one day from Vila Velha, to Santos. This is where the meeting was originally at. Left at 5am on Tuesday morning, arrived about 7 at night. The church service had already started, so we quickly showered in an apartement in the church building and then joined in. Very big church, and interesting to see how it operates. Back to the trip, it´s approximately 1000kms, but because the road along the coast is very winding and hilly, it takes longer than usual. It´s really a unique landscape, with these big green hills and coves that meet the ocean. We passed through Rio, but it was a murky day, and I couldn´t see a whole lot. Santos is south of São Paulo, it´s on the coast. The two are barely separate, as São Paulo has no boundaries, it´s so big. We stayed in Santos for one night, in a rather chic hotel, paid for by the church =D. The next day, it was mutually decided that we go to São Paulo, where we are now staying in another pastor´s house. Let me just show some pictures from the drive and more:

Here is the route we took; Santos bottom left, Vila Velha is North-East off the map. Ignore the last part of the green line...


En route, we´re over-taking here, so don´t get confused, note the bicyclist!

Having recently crossed into Rio state; a nice impression of the landscape.

A glimpse of a Rio favela; shonky huts crammed against a hill would be my one-sentence summary.

A murky day in Rio, taken from the bridge. The Cristo Redentor statue is on top of that peak.

Santos! View from hotel. Nice city, much cleaner.

About 11 in the morning on Santos´ main praia. The big light pole lights up the sand at night, just like Vila Velha.

Main road to the beach, mosaic pavement, palm trees; this is so Brasil

Hotel, nothing too exciting, but it was a very luxurious one.

A big park in São Paulo. Like my new haircut? Just 8 reais.

At a Churrascaria restaurant. Clockwise from left: Uziel, Daiane, Pr. Walter Brunelli and his wife, Pr. Ouriel de Jesus and his wife and son, and me in my Guaraná shirt.

The service at Walter´s church in São Paulo. Ouriel is preaching.

Oh yea, guess who was at the service? Pélé´s daughter! I´m famous!

We had plans to go down to Curítiba, but right now it doesn´t look like it. We were planning to head back home today, but we decided not too, plus the car played up today, right after we filled the tank. Uziel suspects it could be bad gasoline, as they tend to mix in things, especially in a big city like São Paulo, where control is minimal. Hopefully we can get it fixed by tomorrow. It´s hard to get a proper feel of São Paulo, the sheer size means you can´t just take a quick tour, because traffic here is hell. They even have legislation that means cars with number plates ending on 0 or 9 are not allowed to drive on Friday between 17:00 and 20:00 o´clock. Different numbers for different days, so as to reduce traffic. Damn I would hate to have Friday as my day, as does Pastor Brunelli (our host).

Before all of this, I´ll just let everyone know that, I have started school. I have had about 4 full days. I failed to wake up on one day... I´m going to Escola Santa Adame (ESA), the same school Jess and Jarryd are at. Turned out that none of the other schools nearby had any place, so in consultation with BEX, it was decided I go there. Bought my uniform, and quarta-feira (Wednesday) of last week was my first day. In similar fashion to my Adelaide departure, all alarms failed, and Uziel knocked on my door at 6:51am, ten minutes before the first class starts. I´m getting good at first impressions... No problems in the end, the Bio teacher was away, so a free lesson, more or less, useful to do all the introductions. School isn´t too bad, although I have to change my routine from going to bed at 2:00am and waking up at 10:00, to going to bed earlier, so I can wake up at 6:00, the crack of dawn. Everyone is really curious and friendly, and the three of us (Aussies) are quite famous already. After introducing myself, my English teacher couldn´t pick I was foreign and it wasn´t until another student told her at the end of class that she realised. I took that as a compliment... Classes are pretty easy, as far as physics and maths go. Other subjects like History of Sociology, which are lecture based are harder to follow. Instead of sleeping or distracting others, I just translate new words trying to teach myself portuguese. I´m pretty eager to learn the language, plus my French is proving to be very very useful.

Next week is the official week of carnaval. National holiday for one week! Most people take the week prior, or following, or both off work as well. Samba parades have started already around the country, and TV is filled with ads from the various samba schools that are competing. I haven´t made any definite plans, but there are a couple of options.

Anyway, this should suffice for another update, in the meantime we have to wait for this little car to get fixed. It just got towed to the house, hopefully we can get it fixed tomorrow, it´s just close to carnaval, so everyone is knocking off... This also means the roads are ridiculously busy, especially out of São Paulo.

Thanks to those who signed the guestbook! Time for the rest to sign :P
Tchau!

Hello friends, family and other unrelated visitors.

The school I was initially placed at, Michelangelo, turns out to be somewhat far away and it has a bad reputation with drug use. Seeing as school, for me, will be a place to meet 'good' people who can take me out and show me around, making friends with junkies is just not cool. And as far as convenience goes, it's much easier if school is on a walking distance, especially if I want to go back in the afternoon to play sport or whatever (school only goes till roughly 11:30/12 o'clock). So Uziel and I decided to find a new school.

Sante Adame, seemed a good option as it is very close, and has a good rep etc. Problem was two of the other Australian exchange students Jess and Jarred were already going there, and with only two classes in the second year level (segundo ano) it would mean we would be tempted to just speak English with each other, and not learn Português. So that kinda ruled out that...

We tried three other schools nearby, two with a very big reputation (and price tag), two of which had no room for me. So we're now waiting on the last one. I'm only supposed to be a listener at school. I'm not here to pass subjects or get any academic credit. So I am not asked to pay the usual school fees, maybe just some, for uniform, books and admin.

If this last school says no, I can either go back to Michelangelo, or go into slave labour...

They say it has high job satisfaction...

In the meantime if have been enjoying myself meeting new people and going to the beach for dinner just about every night. Here they have a large paved area in between the road and the beach were there are market and food stalls. The beach is all lit up night with large floodlights every 5/10 metres. The sand is a earthy yellow and there's large cocunut palm trees (coqueiros) on the sand and lining the street. Here is Wednesday night:

Where the sand is flat, a big Limpeza (cleaning) machine was sifting the rhubbish from the sand.

I eat a full plate of lunch (with guaraná) for R$7.00 at the most, usually its about 5 reais (hey-eyes) and dinner (a smaller meal) costs even less. And I am talking about QUALITY food, fresh food like: "yummm", "Oh my God this tastes so good", "This is practically orgasmic!"... I'm sorry, but you just have to try it for yourself. In my first ten days here (we counted it up) I tried 30 new kinds of foods! Today, the two week milestone, the count stands at 47. I am aiming for a hundred... And yes, upon completing this goal I may or may not be morbidly obese, but I'm sure it will be worth it. Once I get some more pictures, I will do a big food post so you can see what you're missing out on.

Meanwhile, the water ran out during my afternoon shower, and the next morning half the suburb was without power for an hour because they were changing some parts on the power lines:

The power lines just across from our building

Apart from the inconvenience, it was actually kind of fun; it's just typical...
I realised I hadn't yet taken a proper picture of my host parents, so here are Uziel and Daiane.

They're really not that bad...

Have a good weekend everyone, and sign the guestbook! It won't hurt you, I promise.

In order to stay in Brazil for the amount of time granted on your visa, you have to register at the Federal Police within 30 days of arrival. Hence, we did so.

We had lunch at Jarred's host family's restaurant and afterwards we went to the Federal Police, which is in Vitória. It was a hot day, just like any other, and so as we approached the front gate in a most casual fashion, the heavily armed guards grunted that we were not permitted inside wearing shorts. Strangely enough, thongs were acceptable, as well as sleeveless shirts. Here we were, about 30 mins from home, with no pants. Trust the Brazilians to find a way... Jeitinho Brasileiro is the expression here. It's like the 'no worries' of Australia, or 'The Brazilian Way'. This means not stopping for red lights at night, not giving way to crossing pedestrians or putting lixo (rhubbish) in the bin.

Also incorporated into this idea is the entrepreneurial skills of the people here. With high unemployment, 'people invent' new professions. One of these, is for example the flanelinhas who are guys that find you a park, and then look after your car for a couple of coins. They occupy one street, then point you to a free park, help you reverse park. They may also put some carboard over your windshield or even wash your car while you're away. Back to the Federal Police...

No pants! Well we were not the first, and most definitely not the last. So why not, thought a man that lived down the road one day, do I start renting out some pants! The place today is Ricardo's Photo Shop, just 100m from the police building. Here he does 6 passport photos for R$12.00 and to rent some pants is just two reais! As with the pants issue, a lot of people get turned down because of their passport photos; it's a delicate issue. Quite satisfied that we were allowed in with our 2 reais pants, we found ourselves waiting in a highly inefficient and bureaucratic environment. We took a number. 394, and they were only up to 336. Foreigners registration, passport application and a dozen other things were all done through the same desk. Luckily a nice guy we met, Adrian, who was waiting for his Dad (who had gone home to get pants) swapped numbers with us. Then when our number was called, some spanish dude cut in front 'jetinho brasileiro' style.

I expected to have to fill out a form, maybe get my passport stamped, but there was a more intricate process involved. We showed the man-behind-the-counter all our documents, only to be pointed out our photos required white backgrounds. No to worry, we had already acquainted ourselves with Ricardo, so another quick trip down the road and we had our photos. Then we had to pay two fees, in total R$105. This could not be done in the same place, so we had to go to a different department. As we are getting our receipts printed, the payments counter person shuts his door. Oh and we had to pay R$2.00 for the receipts... If we paid cash however, we could go to another room and pay there. So we did. So that was the payment. Then we needed photocopies of our visa and photo-page in our passports. I had mine, but Jarred didn't so off they went to a photocopy place. The Federal police doesn't have a photocopier handy? It seems not. Now that this was done we needed to get out forms fingerprinted; gee I never knew I had this many fingers. The fingerprinting department was on the otherside of the building... but we got there in the end.

I am now safely registered, although the actual card may take up to three months. Get it in the mail? No, you have to go pick it up. How will you know when it's done? You don't...

Today's plan: Lunch, then Praia!!

Jeitinho Brasileiro!

Oie, a quick update from Vila Velha. God I'm loving this place... So far I have been fed like a God, big lucious lunches, drinking coco gelado (cold coconut water, served in the coconut with a straw) and my new favourite Guarana, a soft drink made from real guarana from the amazon.


Click the photo for a slideshow of the first few days, then click on individual photo's for a brief description.

So far I am meeting lots of people through the church and school; I better explain. Uziel is a pastor who work for the ministry in boston but was sent to Brasil as a missionary. He and Daiane are both originally from Brasil, the southern part but moved to Boston 5 orso years ago. Here Uziel was a truck driver, and eventually stopped driving himself and he owned three large trucks, doing deliveries from coast to coast. It was always Uziel's intention to become a pastor, his father is a pastor too, and so he gave up his trucking business and was sent out by the ministerío de boston to Vitória. He and Daiane therefore moved here 1 year and 2 months ago, (they got married in Boston). Here in Vila Velha, Uziel set up an evangelical church, in an old warehouse. The other half serves as a school where they run several classes; such as english, spanish, electricity, computer management etc. Funds are very limited and Uziel has built everything himself. Just using office panels to block-off little classrooms, and many things like the chairs are donations. I was pretty impressed when I was first shown it, and there is an overwhelming sense of 'doing good for others' with the little they have here. They teach English and several computer classes for various programmes, on computers that are more than just old.

Anyway, it's great to be close to the school because there are constantly people coming and going, and they are all very interested in me, and it's good for my portuguese. Just about everyone has invited me to come eat at their place, and everytime it eat new things and do new things. The other night I had a type of soup made from mandioca and it had the following in it: frango (chicken), queijo (cheese), milho (corn). Taste good doc. Then we played dominoes for a good two hours me and Uziel against our host and his son. You'll see it in the slideshow.

Tchau for now!