Life in a Bigger City

Well living in a larger city does have advantages. Now, in Garanhuns, the job market was very informal, meaning I really did not need all the documentation. Here you do. Now I went after these docs in Garanhuns, but the delay and lack of informed public servants was frustrating. Here, I was able to resolve one document a day, which is incredible compared to what I went through in the Northeast. I got my CPF (kinda like a Social Security card) yesterday and the reason I never got it before was because in Garanhuns everyone I spoke to was unsure of the procedure for people from other countries. The Federal Police here took care of a log jam and rerouted my card here. I got a document from them with my "real" ID card number too. Today I get my "work permit". Slowly but surely things are moving along.

Goodbye Garanhuns...

After close to 5 years, I must bid farewell to Garanhuns. I mentioned it earlier, but my wife has gotten pretty sick. Leukemia and cancer of the uterus. She went ahead with the kids to the city where her sister lives where the hospitals are better equipped and in fact one of them specializes in Leukemia. This is all bittersweet for me. I've only lived in3 places and Garanhuns by far was my favorite. But things change, nothing is permanent, and it's not like I really have a choice in this one. No one knows what will happen as far has my wife goes. New place, need to make new contacts, look for a job, start over, and hope for the best. I don't know how often I will be able to post in the beginning, but I will try to do my best. So long Garanhuns and thanks for the memories,

FIG/ WinterFest 2010

The main acts for "Festival de Inverno", the WinterFest, have been announced. This is the huge 10 day music festival here in Garanhuns. The main acts appear at Praça Gualadajara.

July 15 = Alceu Valença

July 16 Neguinho da Beija-Flor e Gal Costa

July 17 Skank

July 18 The Fevers & Adilson Ramos

July 19 Elba Ramalho

July 20 Reginaldo Rossi

July 21 Devotos, Pitty

July 22 MV Bill & Marcelo D2

July 23 Paralamas do Sucesso

July 24 Lulu Santos

You need to take my word for it, these acts are HUGE here in Brazil. Each has its own following, and the crowds should be bigger this year. The Tourist Board estimates that over a million people visit throughout the 10 days of the festival.

O Bicho Vai Pegar

O bicho vai pegar. It's a "gíria", and expression. It's also the name they gave to the animated film franchise "Open Season". O bicho vai pegar is the Brazilian equivalent of "The shits gonna hit the fan". This one needs a bit of explaining:

Sete, after three years in the first division of the state championship, was finally relegated this season. The first two years we spent the entire season in the relegation zone only to escape on the last day. This year we were relegated before the season even ended. Now, most every other team receives help from the "prefeitura", city hall. Not here. Most everything is just empty promises. The directors this year decided they had enough and made a statement. All around the stadium they painted in big block letters "City Hall does not help (promote) soccer in Garanhuns." This is gonna be a topic for some time to come around town!!

All I can say is at least I got my salary paid in full and on time every time I did a job for them these last two years, which is more than I can say for the first season

The Brazilian Barry White

One silly way I amused myself when I first moved here was finding people "separated at birth". I took Brazilian figures, singers, politicians, actors, and looked for their "equivalent". This one, hands down, is my favorite. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Tim Maia, the Brazilian Barry White. An interesting bit of trivia, we share the same birthday (29 years apart). Hands down this is my favorite Brazilian singer.

Sete makes the National News.

I wonder if Guy Fawkes and Judas are one and the same

An interesting Easter time tradition here in Brazil is the "Judas Doll". A dummy (a doll, not the village idiot) is dressed up and people in the neighborhood beat on it with sticks, stick firecrackers in him, and sometimes light him up. A lot like I figure Guy Fawkes day must be like. I saw two on my street yesterday when I took the dog out for a walk.

Bloggar Garanhuns

This morning I went to a very interesting event called BLOGGAR. A clever play on words, GAR are the initials for Garanhuns, and a Blog, well you know what that is. The event brought together local and regional bloggers for an exchange of ideas. While many of those already knew each other previously, some were simply "online" acquaintances. The idea is to help everyone produce a nice looking blog, maximize reach and audience, and for those interested in making some $$, getting ads on to the site. Today was pretty much an overview of the blogging world, with ideas to hold future similar events. I mention this because maybe the other ex-pats may want to consider holding a similar event where you live. I will advise again when we hold our next one and let you guys know how it goes.

History Repeats Itself, Family Edition Olympic Special

I used to be a big fan of the Olympics. Of course this was when the Cold War was in full swing. To be honest, I miss having nations to "root" against. I used to laugh my ass off whenever an Eastern Bloc "amateur" failed miserably. Anyways, Erito "Junior", Adriana's oldest, studies during the day, so he spends the afternoons now watching some of the coverage. His favorite sport so far is Figure Skating, cause he just loves to laugh like I did whenever someone takes a spill. He just sits and waits regardless of the nation they represent, hoping for a stumble. It doesn't matter the sport anymore, he just wants to see someone fall or get smacked. He's a big 3 stooges fan. His mom started to get cheesed off, but I said "Hey, I did the same thing.." It has been fun watching him enjoy the Olympics, and he wants to know why they don't show it more often. I explained the 4 years thing, but now he is getting ready for the Summer Olympics. What amused me was how he sat there doing the same exact thing when I was his age. Good to know I was not alone.

Back in Brazil

Well, I am back "home" in Brazil. I had a great time with my mom, family and friends. The trip back really wore me out, more so that the dozen other times I have made a trip down. I got home and just near passed out on the bed after I took a shower. The kids were really happy to have me back and asked me "never to leave again". I have a lot of catching up with translations so I can't write more now. Just an update to let everyone know..
take care..

LottoFever in Brazil

When I was a kid, there was this TV program my sister and I enjoyed, called Lottery. It was about this mythical national lottery. Two guys, one from the lottery and another from the IRS would travel around the country, informing the winners and the taxman would then take his cut. This show provided one of the great family memories. it was Christmastime. This one particular show dealt with a cameraman at a local news station. The anchor woman was a real nasty piece of work who belittled all her coworkers, but was loved by the audience who only got to see her perky personality. The important thing here is, the camera man won the lottery. To get back at the anchor woman, he flipped the camera on during one of her tirades, and it gets transmitted on air, for everyone to see what she really is like. My sister and I must have really enjoyed this for some reason, because we started cheering and saying "oooh, burn, burn burn.." For reasons we never really understood then, and I doubt we ever will, this led my father to believe the Christmas tree was on fire, and he ran out of the bathroom in a panic. Anyways, lotto fever has hit Brazil. They are giving away a mega jackpot for the end of the year. The prize is R$120,000,000. And someone HAS to win. If no one picks all 6 numbers, they will distribute it to those who picked 5 of the 6 numbers. If no one has 5 numbers, they will distribute it among tose who picked 4, etc.. Now I really don't play MegaSena. I prefer the two soccer lotteries. One is called Loteca, where they give you 14 games, and you have to pick one team or the other, or a tie. If you pick 14 you get the grand prize, 13 also wins, but not near as much. LotoGol has only 5 games, but here you pick the muber of goals each team will score, 0, 1, 2, 3, or more than 3 (3+). Here you win with 5, 4, or 3 correct scores. The kids saw all the media hype with this end of year drawing and asked to buy one ticket. Everyone picked one number, except for Eric, who could not decide who his favorite player is, Ronaldo (#9) or Kaka, (#10), so we threw both of his in. You never know when lady luck knocks on your door...

History repeats itself, family edition

The very first apartment I lived in when I was a kid was on the second floor. We had this large glass window from which you could see the cars driving into and out of the apartment parking lot. Everyday, as my dad would drive off to work, he would stop and wave back at my mom and I. I must have been no more than 3 or 4 at the time. One day, for whatever reason, my dad was in a rush and he drove off without waving. I remember crying and crying and left the living room. My mom, trying to minimize the situation, shouted "Danny, he came back he came back, run, run.." Of course, he hadn't driven back she was trying to make me feel better, but I remember feeling worse because I "missed" him a second time. Anyways, we have a bus stop right in front of our house. Now I usually walk everywhere but Adriana tires easy so she usually takes the bus. As she gets on, Eric always shouts out the front door (we have these little 'windows' on them, where the door is closed but there is an opening that allows you to see the street), "mãinha, mãinha" (mommie, mommie) and she waves back. Mãinha, by the way, is used mostly in the Northeast of Brazil, most everyone else just uses "Mãe", or 'mom'. Today for whatever reason she didn't turn back and Eric started to cry, thinking she didn't hear him, or whatever, but all I could think of was when I went through the same thing way back when. I almost thought of pulling the same "she came back" on him, but I remembered it made me feel worse that I had missed him so I just let it go. He forgot the whole thing in about 15 minutes, but it just made me remember that earlier incident.

And the hits just keep on coming

OK, so what were the most popular posts? Well, far and away, not one post came close to this one about a Brazilian arms shipment going to Venezuela. This was actually a repost from another blog. I got some interesting hits on it: two from Cuba, a handful from Venezuela, and someone, I don't know who, who works at the State Dept. in Wash. DC got it in an email and then resent it to other people there. I know this from the stat tracker that shows where they got the link from. The second most popular post is the review to Bad Buddhist Radio I mentioned yesterday. #3 is a post that was pretty popular among the ex-pats living in Brazil because it deals with "Brazilian pizza". It seems a lot of people had been meaning to do a similar post on the differences. This post about "real crime" shows in Brazil got a respectable number of hits, it seems some Brazilian found the video funny and started emailing it around and around, and I got more email than I expected about it, as did the "price of a can of Pepsi" post that I also mentioned yesterday. The cricket posts all got a good number of hits, but these two about Mark Vermeulen and this one about Mohammad Asif got a good number more than the rest.
Thanks for stopping by....

Trafficing and Googling Wickets & Guayaba

Well, I thought it would be interesting to end the year with stats for the blog. Now, I took about a year and a half off, but it seems things are as stable as they are going to get. I hope to be posting about once week more or less. On with the stats. Obviously, most of my traffic comes from Google, but #2 was from a blog by a friend of mine which went off air last week, "Pumpkinseeds & Contradictions". #3 was direct traffic by people who knew the address and Blogger was tied with the same number of referrals. The rest if the top 10 is rounded out by fellow expats who either added me to their blog roll, or people who clicked on my link when I left a post. On to keywords people use when they hit my blog. This one comes with an asterisk *. #1 is the coach of the team when I worked there, Marcelo Neveleff. HOWEVER, there is a set of RELATED words that move one topic to the top, and that is "Bad Buddhist Radio". I did a review here and that gets hits all the time with a string of key words, from the name of host of the show Ryu Cope, to Bad Buddhism, or Bad Buddhist Radio. Lots of traffic form those words right there. Another bizzare occurance is people who Google "price of a can of Pepsi". I get hits on that because of this post here, where I talk about a strange custom in Brazil of giving gum balls or candies as change when they do not have enough coins. Well thats enough for today. Next post I will bring some more stats. Maybe...

Today, I am a Man

BA-RUCH AH-TAH A-DO-NUY,
EH-LO-HAY-NU ME-LECH HA-O-LUM,
SH’-H’-CH’-YA-NOO V-KEE-Y’-MA-NOO
V’-HI-GI-AH-NOO LAZ-MAN HA-ZEH.

At least in the eyes of the Brazilian government. I got my provisional "Carteira de Identidade Estrangeira", the Brazilian equivalent of a Green Card in the USA.

Lost in Translation

There used to be a running joke in Star Trek TNG where they would quote Shakespeare and the Klingons would reply "it's just not the same from the original Klingon", implying that his workds were orginally in their language. I kinda related to it after I moved to Brasil and read Hemingway or other English authors in Portuguese. I never really thought about it when I read Dostoyevsky or other authors whose original language was not English. (BTW, you have never really read Dostoyevsky till you read it in Portuguese). Marti is pretty good in Portuguese too. Anyways, the other day I was in the DVD rental place and saw the first season of The Muppet Show. I grabbed it in a instant and rushed home. Now, at first, I watched it alone in English. Then, when the kids got home I ranted and raved about what a great show it was, how I watched it as a kid, blablabla, yadayadayada. So I switched the audio to Portuguese for them to watch. It just wasn't the same. I mean, Jim Henson is Kermit, Ms. Piggy is Frank Oz, as sure as the Sun rises in the East. My favorites, Waldorf and Statler, the two old guys who used to complain about everything, their wisecracks didn't have the same effect. The kids, they enjoyed it though. Eric and Ericka laughed the whole way through. Adriana just kept looking at us, shaking her head saying I was more a kids then they are.

Festival de Inverno

Festival de Inverno (Winterfest) started on Thursday here, and it is by far the biggest event for the city. To give you an idea, the population here is appox. 130,000, and for the 10 days the festival lasts they estimate over a million people visit the city. It is pretty much a music and arts festival. The acts are mostly well known in Brazil. They have a nice mix, and it works out that each night has a "theme" depending on the type of music. They have several "stages" around the city, and there is something for everyone. For a few years now they had a stage in one of the parks where a DJ played Cuban Music for "Noite Cubana", and this year they have a band appearing on the main stage (Sonidos de Santiago). I am working in the main plaza, so I need to be there from about 5 in the afternoon to 5 in the morning. Really tiring but I get to see much of the festival. What surprised me is that while we get a lot of tourists from around the region and Brazil, a lot of Europeans, especially Germans, Austrians, and Swiss visit tooo. Garanhuns is known as "A Suiça Pernambucana" which must strike the Swiss as weird, cause apart from a cool climate and hills, I do not see any resemblance. Anyways, I need to go home and rest up for tonight, so that is all for now.

His name is Ulrich Rosenzweig

Sad links I provide today. Rachel, who is an American living in Rio writes on her blog today about Ulrich Rosenzweig, a elderly gentleman who lived in her building and was murdered. Rachel touches a bit about violence in Brazil and writes a nice tribute to Mr. Rosenzweig, recounting his story. Mr. Rosenzweig was a Holocaust survivor who came to Brazil after the war and established a new life for himself and his family. Very sad albeit interesting reading.

Rio Through The Eyes Of A "Gringa"

A fellow ex-pat American, Rachel, has used words to paint a picture of what she sees in Rio. While it is not fair or accurate to compare life in Garanhuns to Rio, there are many things she touches upon which I see on a day to day here, albeit a much smaller scale. At some point I will get around to doing a write up on Garanhuns, but for now, be sure to check out her post on Rio.

The Brazilian Economy

The Economist, which while I can read online is one of the things I miss about being able to buy when I was back in the States, and probably the best magazine out there, has an interesting article on the state of the Brazilian economy.

TAKE two neighbouring economies, both heavily dependent on commodity prices to make their trade figures look good. Give one an orthodox monetary policy, watch it embrace foreign investors and float its currency. Hand the other over to mavericks who have resorted to fixing prices, banning or taxing some of their own exports and baldly lying about the inflation rate. The result? The rascal—Argentina—continues to grow at a blistering 9% clip, while by contrast well-behaved Brazil plods along (see chart). Is it time to rewrite the economics textbooks? Argentines would like to think so. But there are signs that Brazil may yet come out ahead.

Check out the full write up here.