The Silver Spring of Brazil

Not that I have anything against the Silver Sprung, but I made a mistake when I moved to the Silver Spring of Brazil. My city Jundiaí is located 40-60 minutes North of São Paulo, the largest city in South America. If I were planning on raising a family in Brazil, buying property or starting my own ball bearing sales department for a Swiss company I think Jundiaí would be a marvelous place to live, however I have no intention of doing any of those things.
My school is a beauracratic nightmare. Teachers are allowed 1000 copies per week, averaging out to 166.66 pages a day. For every piece of paper printed or copied one has to fill out a card and hand it to a 16 year old lackey to print it. Yet the printer is incapable of even printing 500 pages a day total. It constantly breaks and shuts down. We are not talking about a Xerox; most of us have superior printers in our residences.
Not to mention I was teaching one class of complete beginners without books one day never to see them again, and then another class of complete beginners without books the next day never to see them again. I stopped caring stopped trying to build a bond because what’s the point. I became very frustrated with my job.
Especially two weeks ago when we had our first vacation after 2 months of working 6 days a week they told us we couldn't let our classes out 10 minutes early so that we could catch the bus to São Paulo that would be taking us out of town for the weekend. Combined with the fact I didn't like the city I was living in I decided enough was enough.
My supervisor, entered the room I was sitting in and told me students were complaining that I wasn't making an attempt at developing a relationship, I told her "Before I respond to that I better let you know that this will be my last month at Oxbridge." She was a little shocked and I told her my reasoning that the school's methodology didn't provide sufficient training for the students, I wasn't very happy in my surroundings and I was becoming increasingly bitterer with every passing day. I told her I would be leaving the next payday, which is today. After I told her this it was like a huge burden was taken off my shoulders. I no longer cared about the petty, red tape inflicted rules I had to pretend to follow.
The truth is no one in their right mind would come to Jundiaí looking to escape. My first choice was a city called Florianopolis, an island in the South of Brazil in the state of Santa Catarina. The people there are mostly German immigrants with a strong prescience of Azorean Portuguese traditions. A few weeks back I was eating dinner at the fried food establishment across the street called la mama, when an acquaintance was talking on the phone to a former teacher of Oxbridge, my school who happened to be his ex-girlfriend. I got put on the phone with her and we began chatting. She's and Arizonan who worked at Oxbridge for about 9 months and then quit and went to Florianopolis. She told me that I could find a job there and she would put me up until I found a job at a hotel, or school or what have you. So that conversation put all the wheels in motion. The only thing holding me back from going there in the first place was the reasoning I didn't want to lug around 2 suitcases for a month or so without anywhere to stay or a contact in a strange city.
All in all it took me about a week to decide and I'm really happy with my decision. My boss was very pleasant and they are going to pay me in full for the time I worked here this month as well as the cost I incurred fixing my computer. (Another story altogether) My visa situation might get complicated; my boss says he's obligated to tell the Federal Police that I'll be leaving the school. Which means everyday I stay past my visa expiration I will be charged $4 dollars American when I want to return to Brazil. Also I will not be able to leave the country and return.
My last weekend in Jundiaí was very pleasant. I went to a house party and met an agitated Lebanese Brazilian who dubbed Washington D.C. as a "shit city" (strike 1) and said his family had to leave Lebanon because of the "Fuckin' Israelis" (foul tip). Anyways the next day I went to a BBQ with my friend Ana and my Canadian friend Peter. It was really fun we ate some delicious food and played with her 8 year old cousin and his friends. Her cousin Eduardo or "Du-Du" as they fondly call him is an energetic rabble-rouser with an ample belly. I told him that his name "du-du" in English means "co-co" in Portuguese, or poop. He was not pleased to hear this. This awkward silence was broken by their Dachshund who spent the afternoon incessantly chasing his tail. We played a game called Bats that is pretty much like cricket until Peter and I were too lazy and drunk to appear interested any longer.
So I leave tonight on a 12-hour bus ride South. I'm really excited and pleased with my decision. I'm a little disappointed I'll have to leave the friends I've made in my brief time here in Jundiaí, I know I've made the right decision because everyone I've mentioned my plans to asks me why I didn't do this earlier.

Where Judas Lost His Boots

As most of my catholic readers know this past weekend was Easter, or in Portuguese Páscoa. My colleagues and were itching to get as far away from our job as humanly possible. In recent weeks the satisfaction and morale of the gringo employees has fallen. We have a friend who recommended buying a package for a trip to Ilha Grande (big island) in Rio de Janeiro State. We booked our spot at the last minute and we managed to get a hotel room and a bus ticket. We told the school we would be taking off that night. We asked if we could leave 10-15 minutes early and that we would make it up to our students the following week. The school did not comply and they were completely inflexible. We had to run to catch our train. We drank many a beer sold out of a garbage bag on the transport. We made it to our bus in São Paulo, no thanks to the school who fiercely pissed us all off. But all that was behind us as we passed out and woke up in Paradise.
Ilha Grande is located on Rio's Costa Azul that has been compared to Route 1 of California. We got out of the bus and embarked on a boat to the Big Island. We navigated through solitary islands and emerald colored water. We got the island and found our hotel. While many of the people decided to camp we were not brave enough for the rustic conditions and we got a room. Our second-floor room overlooked what resembled a Paulista refugee camp with tents taking up every available yard of space. The Island was very expensive even for Brazilian standards. We went swimming, took boat tours, drank beers, drank caçacha and meet lots of lovely people.
A bit about accents. The people from Rio de Janeiro city are called Cariocas, the people from Rio de Janeiro State are called Fluminese and they both have crazy accents. For example if they try to speak English they say Niishhh for Nice. And often they have a guttural Arabic Hebrew sound when they pronounce an R in the middle of a word. The people from São Paulo are known for not really having an accent but they slightly roll their R's when speaking, its quite beautiful and more subdued than the Cariocas.
I was really amused this weekend when I got to meet many Cariocas and Paulistas arguing about the Portuguese language, slang and their irreversible rivalry. Cariocas are a very sexual people who give an actual kiss on both cheeks as an introduction where as the paulistas only give a cheek-to-cheek kiss on one side. The Cariocas are beautiful people with a strong mix of African, Portuguese and Indian descendancy where as Paulistas are a more recent immigrant demographic and consist of many Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Anyways the Cariocas made fun of my Portuguese like I was a playground foreigner.
The weekend passed fast as the amount we spent on fresh fish, beans, rice and meat on a stick. We took the bus back to São Paulo through a beautiful mountain overpass that ascended through tunnels, natural springs and overlooked the ocean, mountains and islands that looked like floating tortoise shells in the setting sun. As we entered into São Paulo a ferocious storm flooded the highway bringing traffic to a dead-halt. The trip took 9 hours in a non air-conditioned humid bus. Movie played: A dubbed version of Moulin Rouge.
We got back to São Paulo and had missed our train back to Jundiaí so we had to wait in the station until 4 am until they started running the again. My friend Roman slamming his shoulder into the chin of an aloof walking woman capped off the trip. I don't THINK it was on purpose.

Aqui Ô

I started hearing this phrase here while boxing at the gym. Its kind of a filler expression or like saying right here, but after I started noticing it seems everybody and their mother utters it between every other word. Anyways.
My weeks here tend to durate more than I would like them to and I find my self itching to leave Jundiai on the 1.5 days I have off on the weekend. I´ve been hopping on the commuter train to São Paulo which is about $1.50 US, however the trip takes about 1.5 hours as well. I have some friends in São Paulo that I met while traveling before classes started in trindade. They are some nice girls and they all seem to be cousins. (note nearly everyone in Brazil are cousins, have a sibling who has a child or have a deceased close family member) I always seem to wait for several hours when we plan to meet up and Saturday was exactly the same. I met them in the Tutuapé neighborhood in the east zone of São Paulo. When I first got here I was really impressed by the fact most Brazilians my age don´t tend to be smokers, but when they are smokers they make up for lost time. My friends bought 2 packs of cigarettes between the four of them and nearly finished the entire two packs just that night. I think my first observation of the fact Brazilians don´t smoke was off.
We hung out that night on a lively strip that was mostly sit down bars, called Barzinhos, or little bars. The street is called Coelho something or other which means rabbit and the bar we spent the night was called Rabbit Bar, in English. That was almost the only thing I understood that night. Its really hard going out to a noisy bar with a lot of background noise and following the conversation. Its honest work doing having a conversation with the person sitting right next to you so when you add glasses clinking, cigarette lighters flicking, guitar players strumming and Brazilians frenching into the mix all within ear shot the task becomes significantly more difficult. I started to feel dumb. So I told my friends I could analyze their signatures. I got a book from the library once and I realized its all BS. I had them write their signatures down on a pad of paper and then in my increasingly drunken Portuguese gave them vague adjectival descriptions and let them fill in the blanks. Its a fascinating experiment because people get very emotional. My friend had loopy handwriting so I told her she liked to have fun and people liked her to be around. She agreed and proceeding to list off adjectives that would compliment my description. We left the bar, got some hot dogs paninnis with mashed potatoes and lots of other junk on it. While we were ordering the cops pulled up jumped out of their car guns drawn, dressed in uniforms that were oddly similar to those of the SS guards. Apparently there had been an assault so they were after the bandits. Nothing really ended up happening. My friends said that they had never seen anything like it and they blamed it on me. I thought we would be out most of the night and I could catch an early morning train, however they went in early and it would have been completely taboo for me to even crash on their parent´s couches. So we went to a HMotel. A hotel here is a hotel, a motel here can be rented by the hour, I really couldn´t tell on the sign if the first letter was a H or a M and I think that was its purpose. But Motel Tunisia and its orient charm wooed me over and I slept great. The next day they picked me up and we went to a large market in the center of São Paulo. Basically for the yuppies. There was fine cheeses, oils, spices, pates, meats, dried cod fish or Bacalhau and exotic fruits. Bacalhau is a Portuguese delicacy. The Portuguese, Spanish and Basque people of the Iberian Penisula are fond of the cod fish because of its dried and salted preservation qualities. We walked by a colorful fruit stand and a Japanese salesman began cutting off exotic slices of fruit for us. We were immediately hooked and I decided to buy some fruit. I only bought a bar full but it ended up being $62 reais a little more than 34 dollars. We realized we´d been jipped and started talking about it. The Japanese man heard us complaining and gave us a softball sized peach to silence our mouths.

Back in Action! (see below)

I’m officially a blogger. I received threats of violence and legal battles because of some former entries. I have since realized my words might have been a bit hasty and out of respect to the offended. Anyways I´m back in action! (See above). Oxbridge my job promised to have accommodations for us waiting when we arrived in Jundiai. So back in January I was the first to arrive at the residence house and I had first dibs. The dono or owner of my house showed me a large room that he planned on renting to two people or he would rent it as commercial space, I didn’t want to share a room with anybody so I took a room with enormous cockroaches, holes and a musty, moldy smell. When my colleague Roman, (a name not a member of the civilization) arrived he told the Dono that he would stay in the larger room and he wouldn’t share it with anyone. The Dono said that was ok but at some point he might rent out the room and Roman would lose his spot. So When our two other colleagues Peter and Peter, one Canadian and one Brit arrived there were no more spots for them to stay. The school scrambled for accommodations and eventually found students to put them up however they live a far away from school. British Peter or as well call him in Portuguese, Petinho (litte Pete) is living with a nice girl whose parents are conflicted about their daughter living with a unmarried man, also the apartment is bigger and more expensive than she would care to spend so Pete has been looking for a place for the last few weeks knowing that his roommate would be moving on to bigger and better things. So I’ve been asking my classes if they would like to put up a teacher. I mentioned to the Dono if he had any spots in his residences at this point and he said he only had spots in the Women residences. I told him that my colleague was half woman referring to his British nationality, however the Dono found this amusing. Unexpectedly two days later one of my roommates moved out to be closer to his family. He was a married man who lived in Jundiaí during the weeks and went home on the weekends. I guess he couldn’t stand it anymore and he will be doing a 3 hour commute from now on. So anyways his room opened up and my Dono informed me, however he was a bit cautious renting to the room to a half woman or as he assumed homosexual. I told him not to worry and he would be fine. I informed Pete about the room and we took a look at it. While the room itself is smaller than my room, there is an exterior door that leads to a private garden of sorts, including tall trees which appear to grow bananas, hanging red ladder shaped plants and various other exotic flora. The room is also significantly cooler and has a less pronounced dusty smell. I realized I screwed up by offering Petinho the room and I would have to pull some snaky maneuvers to get it back. Coincidentally the Dono informed me later that day that he had been receiving many offers for the larger commercial room and Roman would have to leave. So we pulled a switcheroo and Roman took my room and I moved to the new room. The Dono said that he would prefer to rent the larger room to two people such as Petão and Petinho (big Pete and little Pete). So they can take over the big room if they want and be within two minutes walking distance from the school or they can continue to live at the end of the world. In the end I felt a little bit immoral about referring him to the room and then turning around and taking it myself, but he should feel a little immoral about housing soldiers in our houses, taxing us without representation and charging us obscene taxes on our imported teas! This one’s for Uncle Sam. USA! USA! USA!