Best of Brazil: Art Classes

One of the coolest things about living here is that the kids have a chance to have art classes, in our home, each week from a real live artist (at least that's what he tells us. Just kidding, I've seen his work-he's legit). Both Margarita and Julio are artistically inclined (at least according to their proud mom) and I'm so happy they have this opportunity right now. It's not the cheapest activity they've ever been involved in, but I think it's worth it. I figure we probably won't have a lot of artists willing to come over to our house when we move back to the States. At least not for a price that we could afford. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong?

Here's some of their recent water colors:

They are working on a Revolutionary War theme right now. The above painting is Margarita's. The two below are Julio's.


This one's my favorite, I couldn't believe it when I walked in to check on them and Julio had cranked this baby out in under a half hour:

Cool huh?

And for those of you who have been wondering about my washing machine (I'm sure you've been losing sleep over it), of course the guy never showed up and of course they now don't have the part available until the end of next week and of course Carnaval is starting next week so there's no chance the thing will get fixed before sometime in March.

Guapo is seriously considering just buying a new one. It's that frustrating.

On the maid front-we're having a few issues but my house is SO clean. And she made scones this week. And, I'm pretty sure she ironed my sheets and pillowcases today. Awesome.

Have a great weekend and happy Valentine's day!

A Somewhat Happier Post

Things are going ok here.

Repair Update

The hot water heater guy finally showed up today after not having hot water since Friday and it appears that the problem has something to do with the hot/cold water valves for the washing machine (it's not all automatic here like it is in the States, if I want to wash my clothes in hot water, I have to turn the hot water knob on). I guess if they are both on, it kills the heater? So, I don't know-maybe it is working, sort-of? We'll see if I can figure out the secret to getting hot water, otherwise that guy's going to be coming back again.

The washer guy STILL hasn't shown up. The billing people however DID show up at Guapo's office demanding payment for the parts and labor which was interesting. They were pretty ticked when he wouldn't pay up. (me sighing and shaking my head. sometimes I just don't get it.)

Someone's supposed to come tomorrow to fix it. I'll believe it when I see it.

And, for the time being, we're giving up the dream of having a working land-line or in-house phone on our second level where we spend all of our time. So, if the building starts on fire and they are trying to call us from below, I guess we're just out of luck. (Note to self: give my cell number to the guards... )

Luckily all the problems I have are just annoying. We are all healthy and relatively happy, so I don't have that much to complain about.

Projects

I finished piecing the quilt for my brother's baby:



Pretty cute, eh? Once again, I would like to try to machine quilt, but I am too afraid to ruin it, so I will hand quilt it-it just takes so much time!

Random Thoughts:

I don't want to forget that the other day Juan Carlos (5 yrs) was eating a piece of cantaloupe and he said to me, "Here mom, you can have the rest of my antelope, I'm done." How cute is that?

It is so hot here right now I feel like I am back in Small Town, Mexico. I constantly have sweat dripping down my face. We don't have central AC, just window units that can't quite keep up with the heat. Sometimes when I start feeling hot, I have to go into a room where it's not on and then return to the original room to get a little relief.

I'm glad Valentine's Day is almost here-I'm getting sick of this background.

That's it from here!

The Perfect Ending to My Crappy Week

Excuse my French, but last week was the worst in recent memory.


I am not naive as to the how things work (or don't work) in Latin America. I am a veteran with almost 8 years under my belt of trying to suppress the American in me when it comes to punctuality and efficiency. I do pretty well most of the time about being patient, but last week was like nothing I've ever experienced before.


Last I posted was on Wednesday when I had 5 problems to solve. Let's see how that went:

1) Hot water heater: I mentioned that the guy came at a time when the heater WAS working (it turns itself off at random times, especially when I want to wash dishes). He first quizzed me to see if I really knew how to turn on the hot water and then gave me this little note just to drive home the point that I am the stupid, clueless gringo:




That says "heater functioning perfectly". Alrighty then.


I was ticked and said, "um, no, actually it is not functioning perfectly" and he said, "well, you have to call me when it's not working." I said, "That's always on a Sunday" and he, very nicely gave me his cell phone number and said I could call him ANYTIME, even at midnight and he would come fix it.


Sure.


So, it stopped working Friday night. I didn't think I should call him on a Friday night EVEN THOUGH he said I could call him even at midnight. When it still wasn't working Saturday around noon, I had Gaupo call him and tell him it wasn't working.


His reply?


"Sorry, you'll have to call the office on Monday"


LAME.


The good news (???) is that it is still not working, so I am hoping tomorrow it will continue to be dead and that guy will come and see it really is broken and it's not just that I don't know how to turn on the faucet.


2) Modem/Router: The guy came back Thursday and determined there was no problem with anything. (Eerily close to what the hot water technician told me...). It does seem to be working for longer spurts now, so it's not my biggest complaint right now.


3) Washing Machine: Ugh. This story is just too long and boring to blog about, but when the guy showed up Thursday (I was thinking he was going to do the repair because that's what they told me), he was just there to give us an estimate (which is exactly what the other guy did the day before). He was now telling us it wasn't under warranty, and that they would have to order the part blah, blah, blah.


I was visibly irritated at this point, and he did what he could to find the part and do the repair that day. He stayed around my house until 7:00 pm waiting for the part to show up. He puts it in, turns it on...and...


Nothing. The new part is defective. Of course it is. He tells me he'll be back the next day (Friday) at 11:00 with another part.


No show.


No call.


Nothing resolved.


4) Water Filtration System: The plumber after not showing up for 4 days finally comes and installs a new system. Good news right?


He also somehow turns off the water pump (which unlike the water faucet, I actually don't know how to turn on and off), so shortly after he leaves we have no water. We call, wait and wait and wait and finally his boss comes and insists that his worker didn't mess with the pump and I explained to him that it was working when he got here and not working when he left. He eventually believed me and fixed the problem.


5) Phone, In-house phone: still not working, the guy never came back to fix the damage he did to the land line.


So, if this wasn't all enough, Friday, my car also died when we were out and about. It needed the battery replaced. No big deal, but in light of all the other problems it was quite annoying.


And then the GRAND FINALE.


Vanessa, our pregnant maid, had a doctor's appointment on Friday morning. So she shows up that afternoon around 3:00, somewhat flustered. She's jabbering on about how her baby might be born THAT NIGHT, or the NEXT DAY. Why Vanessa, are you having contractions? No. Are you dilated? No. She didn't sleep the night before and she's really uncomfortable. A lot of pressure on her hips. Um, yeah, that's called being 6 1/2 months pregnant with your 4th kid.


Now, in a normal pregnancy in Brazil, a woman would work until they reach 36 weeks at which time the woman goes on maternity leave and the State pays her salary for the following 4 months (4 1/2 if she's breast-feeding). Giving her 4 weeks of leave before the birth.


She is only 30 weeks along. So, I ask her if she's going to start her maternity leave now since the birth is so eminent.


Um, no, actually the doctor gave her a note for (surprise, surprise) 15 days rest (anything up to 15 days, the employer pays, over 15 days, the State pays) and then (supposedly) she'll start her leave.


Don't you think, if a doctor really believed that a woman who is only 30 weeks along was going to deliver within hours, they would admit her to the hospital?


She just totally got 2 extra weeks of maternity leave. Paid for by me. And if I don't pay her because I think she's full of crap, she can sue us. And she'll win.


So, she's gone. I wish I could say that will be the end of the story, but we are financially tied to her for the next 5 months (we have to continue paying her taxes throughout her leave) and then when we go to fire her when she's done with her leave, we will have to pay her another month's salary. Makes my blood boil.


This week has got to be better.


Right?


I promise I'll post something happy this week.


That is, as long as I have Internet access.

Everything's Broken

A quick post before my Internet cuts off again. A quick review of things that are not working in my house:

1)Hot water heater: the repair man has come twice now and and insists that the hot water heater is in "excellent condition". I would agree except for the fact that it takes one day off every week...

2) modem/router/???: something that makes me lose my connection to the Internet every 30 seconds. A tech guy from Guapo's company has come twice now in the past few days. When he left today, he told me everything was fine. It was, for an hour...

3) Washing machine: not working. This one is scheduled to get fixed tomorrow (but I'm not holding my breath)

4) Water filtration system: needs replaced. The plumber is now a no show for 4 days in a row. Time to find a new plumber...

5) In house phone (you know, that thing that the guards from downstairs use to call us in case we have visitors, or there's an emergency or something): after about 12 hours of working on it (I had to kick the guy out last night at 9 pm), it is still not working. Even better, he also messed up our land line that we got fixed last week...

Very, very sick of problems.

(Sorry for the typos, no time to check, I've to to publish before I lose my connection...again )

Honeymoon's Over

No one's perfect. Very true. This is an important thing to remember when you are contemplating getting rid of a bad maid and trading her in for "the perfect maid". I have learned over and over that if you fire one maid, the next one you get may be worse (see posts from Mexico City!).

In our case here in Brazil that would be pretty hard.

But, after bragging about my bread-making, super fast and efficient maid, I have found her flaw.

She has now worked here 8 days. Two of those days (that's 25%) she has brought her two boys. She tells me they are 11 and 13 but they look a lot more like 6 and 8.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love kids. I have 4 of them myself. But, when I am paying someone to come and work in my home I don't want to have 2 extra boys running around kicking a soccer ball inside the house and needing to be entertained. When my kids go to school, I enjoy the peace and quite of just having Pedro at home.

Does this make me a bad person?

And today, when she showed up she told me she brought them because one of them has a really bad ear infection. Awesome. I know ear infections aren't contagious, but symptoms that oftentimes accompany ear infections can pass germs.

Brazilian schools start in 10 days. I'm going to let it go until then because:

1) I don't like confrontation.
2) She is a really good maid (other than bringing her kids)
3) She's a single mom
4) I don't have any other maid options at the moment.

In the meanwhile, I'll just be up here, hiding in my bedroom with a bag of m&m's, counting the hours until everyone goes home (which is just about the time that my 3 big kids get home from school).

Agggghhhhh!

Just a Couple of Things

1. The new maid, in addition to organizing all of the drawers and closets today, made 4 loaves of homemade bread.

2. Yesterday we saw a sloth in a tree at the kids school. How cool is it to see a sloth at your school??? Of course I didn't have my camera, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

3. After examining Julio's library book about WWI with the boys, I mentioned how I hoped that none of my boys would ever have to fight in a war, to which Julio replied, "Don't worry Mom, I'm not going to join... (pause) ...but I do want to be on a paint-ball team."

4. Pedro now knows most of the colors and can count to 10 in English and Portuguese. Smart little cookie!

5. Only 2 of 3 scheduled service men made it to the apartment today. The one that was here to fix the hot water heater that sporadically turns itself off for 24 hours at a time told me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the heater and left. GRRRRRRR. The telephone guy fixed the phone and the plumber never showed up...

6. My kids are not allowed to play the Wii during the week-not until Friday after school. It's really ticking off Julio.

7. I finally set up my new ipod. I got it for Christmas (35 days ago). The last one took me like 4 months to set up. I have yet to touch the new camera. Why am I weird like that???

Different Strokes

Yesterday, we invited over a man from our ward. He's 86 years old and joined the church just 5 years ago. I had never talked to him that much (I'm in the primary all the time), but would always see him around. I didn't know he was married or single or why he was living in Brazil (he's an American with horrible Portuguese that he's not shy about using which is really cute) Before we left on vacation last month, he missed a Sunday which never happens. Turns out he had pneumonia. When Guapo went over to visit him he met his wife and their daughter.

So, they all came over last night for dinner. They were very nice- I had always wondered if the guy was all there, being so old, but he is totally with it-up on all the current events in the world.

His daughter is 21. So, she was born when he was 65. His wife is obviously much younger than him. I'm thinking the oldest she could be is 66 (that would have made her having a baby at 45), but maybe she's a little younger. Anyway, they met and married while living in San Francisio where they had planned to spend the rest of their lives.

Until one day the wife decided she couldn't live there any longer. She wanted to go back to Brazil, insisting their life would be much better there. She told us she couldn't hack the lifestyle of an American woman. She grew up in a well-to-do Brazilian family that had a staff of 6 people (cook, maid, nanny, gardener, butler, driver) which is common even today amongst the wealthy. She told me she couldn't stand the constantness of chores that she had in the States with no help. Exasperated she told me, "I had to make the food, and then remember the laundry, and then clean the house, and then cook the food AGAIN! I couldn't handle it any longer! I don't know how you women do it."

So they moved back to Brazil, hired their staff and had their daughter.

It was funny to me because I feel the exact opposite. I can't stand the constantness of having extra people in my house, even if they are here for my benefit. As we laughed about our differences, I explained to her how I feel like I can never relax when there's a maid in the house and she said, "Well, just go in your room and shut the door!" The thing is, I still know they're here and I just can't relax, even if Pedro is napping. So she told me, "Well, just leave then!" And that is what I find myself doing-looking for reasons to leave my own house because I don't want to be in it while there's a maid around.

I know, you might me thinking, "Well, why don't you just not have any help then?" But, just like it was the norm for her to live in the States without any help, it is the norm here to have help, and lots of it. Life is harder here than it is in the States. It just is. If I didn't have a maid I would waste half of my life waiting for repair men to fix all of our Brazilian appliances that seem to break about once a week. They give themselves a window of 9 am to 5 pm to show up. But, even then sometimes they just don't show up and don't bother calling to let you know. And, instead of heading out to Target for one-stop shopping, you've got to go to about 5 different stores during the week to get everything you need. And everyone else has maids, so there's no "if you watch my kid, I'll watch yours" going on.

She did say one thing that I've always believed, and have always heard expat women say, but I thought it was just a way to rationalize having the help. She said that it seemed that houses in the States are just cleaner than houses here. I wholeheartedly agree! I don't know what it is, but we sweep the house everyday (ok, not we, the maid) and you wouldn't believe the pile of junk that accumulates in just 24 hours. Our apartment is always open to the outside, so I'm sure that doesn't help.

I just thought our conversation was interesting; do I not like having a maid because that's not how I grew up, or is it something deeper than that, some independent American gene that came from my temporally poor forefathers that crossed the Atlantic, staffless, in hopes of a better life? It's quite likely that my new friend descended from wealthy Portuguese who did arrive in their new land with a slew of people to serve them. It's got to be more to it than just getting used to it, because I've had almost 8 years now with a maid and I think I like it even less now than I did 8 years ago. I've accepted that I'm never going to get used to it.

I don't know. I just know that when we finally get the word that we are going back to the States, I will not lose sleep over not having a maid anymore.

(Speaking of the maids, the new maid is still working out well. Last week she asked me to buy her a ladder so she could clean all the fans and walls up high, she asked why Vanessa wasn't in the habit of ironing every article of clothing (she normally irons Guapo's shirts like once a month, if I'm lucky), and she moves all the furniture everyday to sweep and mop underneath. I am in awe...)