Formigas

On Sunday, Vilma and I took the ferry over to Mar Grande (an island about a 40 minute boat ride across the bay from Salvador) and spent the night at a pousada (bed and breakfast). We went over there with 2 of Vilma's friends to get away from the city and relax. Plus I was able to move my classes on Monday around so that I didn't have class until the evening.

I seem to be having some bad luck with insects here, as you can read in my previous post about cockroaches. This time it was ants, or formigas as they say in Portuguese. This is a picture of my lower abdoman, which received bites from 2 red, biting ants.

There are several different types of ants here. The most common is what I have heard referred to as "sugar ants" in the US. These are those little, tiny guys that you often find in the kitchen. Here they are EVERYWHERE and you have to be really careful about leaving food or dirty dishes around. As one of my Brazilian friends said to me once, "formigas nao sao uma brincadeira" (ants aren't a joke). This is the truth.

Another type of ant is the larger one that you see on the ground carrying pieces of leaves and other items around and making large mounds. I'm not sure if these bite or not. Then there are at least 2 types of biting ants. The red ones, which I have heard called "fire ants" in the US, and then Vilma told me that there is another type of black, large ant that has a more painful bite than the red ones. I saw the 2 that bit me, and they were red, and I can tell you that it HURT! I don't even want to imagine how much the black ones hurt.

And I don't know if I have some kind of allergy, but the bite mark is just as bad, if not worse today than yesterday, and is still all red and itchy. Ouch! Anyway, I hope that this will be my last serious run-in with insects, at least for a while!!!

Violence

There has been a crazy amount of violence happening in Salvador and São Paulo these past couple of weeks. In Salvador at least, the violence seems to be more centered in the suburbs, far from where I live. But it´s scary nevertheless.

The other day in the newspaper, I read that some city official had "declared war" between the police and drug traffickers in the city. What´s happening is that the drug traffickers have decided to do their best to kill as many cops as they possibly can. This includes following cops home, seeing where they live, threatening their families, and killing them when they are off duty and out of uniform. I can´t remember the exact statistic of how many police have been killed this year, but it´s a significant number. The parts of the city that I frequent are not high drug trafficking areas, but favelas are mixed in throughout the city, so nowhere is totally safe. I hope they make peace soon before too many innocent folks are killed or hurt.

I don´t know if this has made international news or not (it should have!), but the other day in São Paulo there was a big riot between the civilian police and military police at the governor´s mansion. I asked one of my students what the difference is between the civilian and military police. He told me that the civilian police do the investigating of crimes, and the military police keep the order. The civilian police have been on strike in São Paulo for the last month, and the other day they decided that they wanted to talk with the governor about it. So they went up to the mansion, and the military police were there to "keep the order". This led to a riot including tear gas, rubber bullets and like 30 or so police officers injured. It was quite a situation. And to top it all off, because all the cops were busy during this time, the amount of crime that occured in the city because of the lack of police officers to do their normal cruising around, led to an increase in the amount of crime that occurred on that day. I was glad that I don´t live in São Paulo!

It´s interesting to be in a place that you often just hear about on the news (sometimes!). Although I would say that I would prefer to be somewhere that doesn´t have this kind of thing happening, even if it is in another neighborhood or city.

Cockroaches

Living in a tropical climate gives one a chance to be exposed to lots of creatures not found in North America. It´s still amazing to me to be able to see parakeets flying around wild, and little monkeys climbing around on the telephone wires. I hope one day to visit the Pantanal, in eastern Brazil, which supposedly has some of the most diverse species of wildlife in the world. You can take safari-like jeep excursions to check out all the birds and creatures there. I´ve seen some clips on TV that were filmed there and it looks amazing.

There is one creature here though that I hate. And while they do exist in the US, I don´t think that the US cockroaches have the size that their brethren in South America have. Last night Vilma and I were hanging out in the apartment when suddenly I heard her scream. There is one type of cockroach here that flies, which is how they manage to get into our third floor apartment. So this guy flies in and is the length of my pointer finger, I´m not kidding. Vilma tried to get him with a broom, and after some cornering, was finally able to get him between the broom and dustpan and then into the toilet to be flushed (hopefully) to his death. Yuck. We were both glad to be rid of him.

I find it interesting because in Portuguese, the word for cockroach is "barrata". Now the word for cheap in Portuguese is "barrato". So if you want to talk about an object that has a feminine derivative with this adjective, it´s the same word as cockroach. For example, the word in Portuguese for table is "mesa", which is feminine. So if you want to say cheap table, you say "mesa barrata". Cockroach table. Funny how language works now isn´t it?

Kids' day and crab

Today is Dia das Criancas, or Kids' day.  In Brazil they celebrate Mothers' day, Fathers' day and Kids' day.  Today basically consists of parents buying presents for their kids and some places having events for kids, like games or a trampoline, or other kid stuff.  On my morning run today they had closed off the street near the lighthouse (which they usually do on Sundays anyway), but had more booths and such being set up to celebrate this holiday.  There was also some kind of dog fest going on near this pet supply store.  They had a sound system and a bunch of folks with their dogs all decked out standing around.  Upon quick glance it looked like maybe it was some kind of pet wellness event because it looked like they were giving vaccinations in this one tent, but it was hard to say because I ran by kind of quickly.  I did love seeing all the dogs though...so cute!  I miss having a dog.

Today I am going to go eat some crab with one of my students and a friend of mine who is also American and an English teacher.  In Salvador it is very common on Sundays to go to these open air restaurants, sit around with friends and family, eat crab and drink beer.  There are 2 kinds of crab here, crab that comes from the sea (called "siri") and crab that comes from the mud (called "caranguejo").  There is a slight difference in taste and the shells of the siri are softer than those of the caranguejo.  Both taste yummy though and it's fun to sit around and try to get the meat out of the shells.  There is also this dish called "casquinha de siri", which I totally love.  They take out all the siri meat and mix it with breadcrumbs and spices, then serve it in a little bowl.  All the taste of the siri with none of the work wrestling with the shells!

Anyway, I should go and get ready so will sign off.  Happy Kids' Day!

Bad blogger

I´m a bad blogger this week....no blog post since last Sunday. I have no real excuse other than that I started with some new students this week, which took up more of my time, and that when I did have free time at home, I spent it catching up on all the new 90210 episodes since the season started (the latest one ended with a drug overdose!! Ooooh, the drama!!!) and listening to the presidential debate over the internet.

A couple things of interest have been going on. First of all the economic troubles in the US are being felt here. Everyone is talking about it, the stock market here has been tanking as well, and for some reason that I don´t understand, the value of the Brazilian Real to the dollar has taken a nosedive. 2 months ago the value was about R$1.65 to $1US. Now it´s like R$2.30 to $1US. Now that´s good for all you Americans who want to visit, but for someone paid in Reais who is planning a return to the US in February, it´s not so good. I am hoping (for selfish reasons) that the value goes back to what it was 2 months ago so that when I change my Reais to dollars, it´s in my favor.

Also, the moment I was waiting for, the election, happened last Sunday. Unfortunately for those of us who hate the sound cars, there was not a majority vote cast for any candidate, so there will be another election at the end of October between the two candidates who got the most votes. Now since the election happened, I have not heard any sound cars, so I am really hoping that they have packed up their jingles and gone home, and that it´s not just a little "break" before they start driving around again. Time will tell I guess.

On a happy note, I think that it´s migration time for the parakeets, because I have seen a ton of them around my apartment. I seem to remember last year at about this time I saw a bunch of them and now they have returned. It´s so cool to see these amazing green birds that are so cute flying around, when in the US we just see them in cages.

OK time to go teach English. Happy Friday everyone.

40

Well I guess that this is one way to look at turning 40!  I was doing a web search to try to find the *perfect* image to express what I am feeling about my upcoming 40th birthday (it's on October 27th) and really had no luck.  I saw this picture, which is taken from a t-shirt, and thought, "well, things could be a lot worse for me... I could actually be taking this advice!"

I have been experiencing a roller coaster of emotions about turning 40.  First of all I can't believe that I am this old!  I remember being a kid and thinking that I would be 32 when the century turned to 2000, and how old that seemed.  Now I am at the age of "mid life crisis", and while I don't have a red corvette, I am definitely in a position that I never would have imagined myself in- living in a foreign country, far from all that is comfortable and secure.

I feel older, and can tell that my body is getting older.  My eyesight has changed, my knees are not what they were, I have some wrinkles.... but yet I don't feel old. I strongly believe that you are only as old as you live your life.  If you live a sedentary, boring life, you will be old when you turn 40.  But if you live an active, interesting life, you will stay young.  While time will continue to tick on, and the numbers will get bigger when I say how old I am, I am determined to do my best to live a youthful life.  I want to be that 80 year old who still goes to the gym (my Grandpa went to the gym 3x per week until he was in his late 80's!!!), and so I am laying the groundwork for that now.

So while I may partake in an alcoholic drink to celebrate my birthday (but probably not a 40 oz. bottle of beer), I also am trying not to think of this as the start of going "over the hill".  I still have a big mountain ahead of me to climb and I look forward to the view all the way up!

Brainwashing

The election for city government positions, including mayor, is this Sunday. I am literally counting the days until it's over because my brain is turning to mush from all the political advertising.

In Salvador, one of the ways that candidates advertise themselves is to have these "sound cars" drive around. These cars have the politician's picture and the number that you punch in at the ballot box, along with a sound system that is so loud it could wake the dead. And the sound system plays these catchy little tunes over and over and over again.

Now when the political season first started and the cars came out, some of the tunes were actually kind of enjoyable (am I actually saying this?!). They all sang about how the candidate will make Salvador the best place in the world to live because he or she will get rid of all the violence, solve all the problems in the health care and educational systems, and fix everything else that is wrong here. The tunes were varied and they always had that fun refrain that you eventually ended up hearing people on the streets kind of humming under their breath as they went about their daily routines.

In the last 1-2 weeks the songs have changed as it gets closer to the election. Now all the songs basically consist of 2 things: the candidate's name and the number. And they just say it over and over again. The songs are all in Portuguese, but if they were in English, it would go something like this:

Neto is 25
Neto is 25
25 25 25 25 25 25 25
Press 2...2!
Press 5...5!
Neto Neto Neto is 25

Press repeat. And blast at high volume when you are trying to concentrate on your life. Welcome to Salvador's election.