Jardim Zoológico

We took the younger kids to the Brasilia Zoo this weekend while Jack slept off the effects of a school "lock-in" in which the entire high school spent the night at school playing games, eating, and not sleeping, followed by his soccer game. The zoo covers 340 acres and has about 1300 animals, but I'm not sure if that includes the capybaras all over the place.  Shudder. The capybara is the world's largest rodent. Shudder. And they seem to have the run of the place.

Piles of capybara turds were everywhere. You're welcome!

The zoo is vast, and you can drive all through the middle of it. There aren't sidewalks on the road, and Brazilian drivers are very, um, assertive, so it's best to stay on the grass (earth? dirt? ground that's not paved? it's hard to tell what exactly you're walking on here in the dry season), while constantly being on the lookout for capybara droppings.

"SLOW! ANIMALS ON ROAD" (but hey, don't worry about the toddlers).

The paths can be treacherous in other ways as well, which is why a clumsy girl like me may or may not have tripped more than once, in addition to landing in capybara piles.

The scene of  my first accident.

You Americans, with your debris-free zoos don't know what you're missing.  This is good climbing!

A trip to the zoo is pretty much the cheapest gig in town, with the cost of admission PLUS lunch being R$22, or about 13 bucks for all five of us.

Yummy pastels.

The zoo has a pretty good variety of South American animals and birds, as well as some big zoo draws like elephants and giraffes.

The kids particularly enjoyed a big pond/lake thing filled with all these islands of different monkeys. And capybaras, of course.

Wait a minute...That's not a monkey!  That's a.....shadow of a minotaur? This zoo is awesome!

The zoo was filled with Brazilian families picnicking and...

Taking naps?  Have hammock, will travel! You know, it's a lot of work walking around a zoo all day, and if there's one thing Brazilians love, it's resting in hammocks. They were strung all over the zoo.

Next time I'm going to:
a.) wear more sensible shoes,
b.) bring toilet paper (don't ask), and
c.) bring my own hammock.

Bom dia!

There's not a lot to blog about, and I don't want to bore y'all, so I've been absent. We haven't done very much here in Brasilia yet, because you really need a car in this city, and when we're able to get a car from the embassy on the weekends, it's all we can do to get groceries into the house and shuttle the kids to their various activities. I don't hold out much hope that we'll get our car, air baggage, or the rest of our stuff any time soon, and it's honestly getting pretty old living out of what we brought in our suitcases for the past several months. I think the Brazilian customs agents, well, I have a lot of thoughts about them, but I'm wearing my diplomacy shoes right now (even though they really hurt my feet), so I'm just going to say that I'm sure they're doing their best.

I do get out of the house two days a week to go to language training at the embassy, and I've met some lovely people. My house is sparkling, thanks to our new cleaner (sent over by one of said lovely people), who even rolled up the toothpaste tubes in the bathrooms and cleaned out my refrigerator. The kids thought it was hilarious that she arrived dressed up nicer than I ever look (not saying much-you can take the Pacific Northwest out of the girl...). I've also been taking lots of walks on the path along the lake which is filled with walkers and joggers, none of whom you can pass without exchanging the "bom dia!" greeting. It always puts me in a better mood, if only to affirm the fact that I have at least mastered two portuguese words. Fitness is pretty big in Brazil, especially while wearing next to nothing. This morning a young, verrrrry fit, Brazilian men's group of some kind was standing on the dock in their teensy Speedos, working out after having just finished a swim.  I'm pretty sure the swelling in my nose will go down soon from walking into that tree. I don't know why they planted it so close to the path.

It still hasn't rained and everything is dusty. The kids are getting bloody noses from the dry air, and the dog is constantly filthy from the dry, red dirt that is everywhere. Olivia has taken it upon herself to give him a bath every week, which basically amounts to just getting him wet enough to turn into a furry mudball and then letting him run all over the house flinging said mud everywhere.

We're becoming familiar with all sorts of new creatures. Unfortunately, they always seem to appear in the girls' bathroom. They've taken to shutting the door and stuffing a towel under it at night. We don't have a terrible problem with ants, but the ones we do have are strong. I've seen one carrying an entire Golden Graham and another carrying a piece of popcorn across the floor. I always feel bad squashing them after witnessing their herculean efforts, but I don't want them to go tell all their friends about the family with messy children who drop food everywhere.

Coconuts, Bananas, and an Alligator Head

We've been here five weeks today.  Still no UAB (air baggage) and I won't even mention our HHE (the rest of our stuff), so it still feels like we're living in a hotel. A hotel without even any bad art on the walls. I nearly swooned with excitement over some potted lilies we bought and some cheery green placemats that arrived in our Big Delivery this week. I've started carrying those damn lilies from room to room with me as I move about the house, I'm so starved for decor. We are all finding ways to keep ourselves amused. I found about forty pictures on my camera this morning. It seems Henry has been entertaining himself by taking pictures of the only items he brought:

A Kindle, a few other books, a tiny skateboard, a string, and an alligator head. What? Like you don't take an alligator head with you when you travel? 

Obviously, if I'd known it would take so long for our stuff to get here I would have packed differently. I could go on and on about that, but there's that whole, "if you can't say anything nice, come sit next to me don't say anything at all" adage.

Fortunately, the kids are kept so busy at school that there's little time for them to worry about toys. They're all doing after school activities, and after homework, their day is done. We've gone to a few outdoor markets on the weekends. The kids discovered that  they love street food. Fried packets of meat or bananas and nutella, icy cold coconut water, charred meat on sticks. What's not to love?

 Although Olivia loved the coconut drink, the drink did not love her back. 

 And that's all I'm going to say about that.

There are things I like very much about living here.  Today my favorite thing is having a gardener. He speaks zero English, but he does a good pantomime.  This morning he told me if I could get a hold of  a ladder, he'd get these bananas down out of our banana tree for me:

Although, he may have been saying, "Lady, you are crazy like bananas and your dog eats monkey poop."

We gots the innernets.

Finally! Now I can catch up on what everyone else in the world is doing, and get busy ordering stuff. After a few rocky weeks, we are settling into life fairly well here in Brasilia. The kids are making friends at school and marveling at how different everything is. For example, their school bus has an aide in addition to the driver that rings the bell when they arrive at our house, then holds the door for them as they climb into their leather reclining seats to watch an American movie or Spongebob in portuguese. The cantina at school is an all-you-can eat buffet of tasty, healthy food. I may never have to pack another lunch. Their class sizes are small, about 20 kids, and they have a full-time teacher’s assistant in each room. They also get an hour for lunch, although the younger kids spend most of that time playing soccer futebal.  Jack thinks an hour isn’t enough, what with all the lovely, um, students to chat with and whatnot. His social life is very busy. This past weekend, I was busy wringing wet clothes out  (thanks to a broken washing machine), while Jack was at a party at the Dutch Ambassador's house, being served pizza by private chefs.  Grace noted that one thing hasn’t changed from America, in that 8 year-old boys still only talk about butts, farting, and poop.

Here the kids are on their first day of school. Seamus is in the picture because he matches with his khaki hair. I briefly considered humiliating him with a navy polo shirt on top, but I’ve put him through enough in the past few months.

I have lots of pictures of the house, which I’ll save for another day (it’s not that interesting, anyway, white walls, zero decor, lots of Drexel Heritage furniture).  We actually like the house very much. It’s one of the oldest houses in the embassy pool, but it’s a mid-century prairie house style, which we really like. Five bathrooms and four good-sized bedrooms, plus the maid’s bedroom which Jack plans to turn into a music room. That’s right, no live-in maid, although we do have someone lined up to clean once a week. If you leave one drop of food anywhere, tiny little ants swarm, so everything has to be super clean. Also, the dirt here is red clay and it gets everywhere, and now that I gots the innernets I can’t possibly be expected to clean all these floors on top of my busy schedule of social networking, taking breaks, and ordering stuff. And if it sounds like I’m trying to justify having a maid and a gardener so I don’t sound like a spoiled ass, believe me, I am. 

Our favorite feature of the house is the huge, beautiful yard and gorgeous view.  There are many nooks and crannies in the yard to hide in and build forts, and plenty of critters to watch for out there. Now that we have figured out how to make Spongebob broadcast in English, though, I imagine the little darlings will be occupied for a few days while they get their tv fix.  Seamus has been trying to catch the lizards and monkeys that hide in the trees every day. Mitch likes the built-in bbq, but I prefer lounging on the patio with a beverage of one kind or another. You’ll notice everything is kind of brown with lots barren trees, since we are in the dead of winter here. It hasn’t rained a drop since we arrived and I’m told it won’t rain for another few months.  There are no pics of the exterior of the house, for security reasons, but rest assured, our house is the one you want to come to in the event of a zombie invasion.  Anyhoodle, here is our lovely backyard:

A tire swing! And perhaps the best thing we stuck in our suitcases was the iPod (which has our entire music collection on it) and a sweet little Bose sound dock, so we can enjoy tunes on the patio while Mitch chars dead animals and I applaud him from my lounge chair.

Who needs a snowy winter? Every few days, these dead giant palm leaves fall and the girls use them as sleds on the little hill. I tried to explain/pantomime to the gardener that I didn’t want him to get rid of the palm leaves and I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m insane now, plus he still threw them out.

Pretty much all we do around here. The relaxing, I mean. Not the drinking of wine.
Oh, who am I kidding?

The kids playing Shawshank Redemption, and the elusive American teenager plotting ways to get his siblings to do his bidding.

This mural is on a wall in the backyard. I will talk about this at a later date. I recently found out that the characters depicted are the Black Eyed Peas. So. Yeah.

A lovely place to read a book.

Or a few Kindles.

And a few photos from our arrival in Brasilia:

Twelve giant suitcases, six carry-ons.  No barf bags were used in the making of this trip.

Week 2

Greetings from the embassy, where the internet is s-l-o-w. I just spent two hours trying to order uniform bottoms for my kids, since the school gave me wrong information about color (no navy bottoms), and my boys were horrified that I had them in "uniform khaki shorts" rather than khaki skate shorts like most of the other kids were wearing. They'll live, I'm sure, with their knobby knees poking out until the new stuff gets here. The good news is that Mitch's visa is finally straightened out, which means we can begin the process of getting the necessary information to get our internet, phone, and cable hooked up. Does that make it seem like it will happen soon? HAHAHAHAHA!

We also discovered that our stuff, which was packed over a month ago, is STILL sitting in Maryland.  Getting it by Christmas is looking iffy at this point, but at least we have a concrete bed to sleep on until our beloved bed arrives, so that's lucky.  See how positive I am? With no stuff, the kids were actually excited to begin school today, knees showing and all. They've been reduced to playing invented games with each other, just like we used to do in the olden days before internet and video games. Yesterday, the game was "Shawshank Redemption", in which Warden Jack had the kids locked in the rabbit house in the yard or doing things for him, such as retrieving glasses of water and fanning him with palm leaves.

Despite not having any stuff, or a car, we have been having a good time. We walk down to the lake and spot the monkeys in the trees or up to the small shopping center to get little treats. We love our house, except the soul-sucking lightless kitchen and ugly Drexel furniture, but we'll jazz it up when we get our stuff. The weather is sunny and beautiful every day. Since it's winter here, there hasn't been a drop of rain, which makes the air very dry. Olivia had a visitor drop on her arm the first time she took a shower, and after a bloodcurdling scream that could be heard for miles, has decided to name him/her Cupcake the Gecko. He/she is currently residing under the girls' bathroom cabinet. A few days a week, I'm going to ride in to the embassy with Mitch now that the kids are in school (PS, for the first time I didn't cry on the first day of school-maybe I've had too much 'Shawshank Redemption'?) and we'll take Portuguese lessons together. It is murder trying to get anything accomplished without language.

Tchau!

Brasilia

Bom Dia! We've been here a week. I'm sending this quick update from the embassy because we don't have internet or cable (which also means no international phone) thanks to a messed up visa and paperwork blahblahblah (too boring to elaborate).  We left Atlanta at 9pm last Friday and arrived at 6am the next morning. The plane was FULL of teenagers on their way home from Disney.  Jack did not mind this.  I was seated nearest to the bathrooms, and one of the teenagers spent six hours vomiting with the door open. It was literally rolling out of the bathroom and down the aisle to me. A vomit magnet is what I am. It smelled great!

We were met by our sponsor and another embassy employee who was there to assist with getting the dog through customs. Our sponsor took us to our new home while Mitch stayed behind to get Seamus, which ended up taking five hours.  We love the location of our house, and the yard is big and beautiful, with a gorgeous view of the lake. Pics to come.

The kids are adjusting very well, considering they have no internet, tv, video games, or toys. However, we are all nearing the last of the books I downloaded onto the Kindles, so we'll see how things go after that. They are spending a lot of time playing outside and generally laying about, and walking around the neighborhood spotting all kinds of unusual creatures. After a few days of lethargy, Seamus has bounced back and is back to his job of guarding the kids outside and has been trying to catch a few of the many geckos we have around. The little monkeys tease him from the trees and scream at him, so they aren't his favorite, although the girls love them.

Our car won't be here for a while, and our stuff we'll be lucky to see by Christmas, but we've been able to borrow a car from the motor pool at the embassy and get groceries and eat out a bit. Grace and Henry have been chatted up in Portuguese by older ladies, all the while being stroked on the arms or neck. I thought Henry would faint when it happened to him, but Grace seemed to take it in stride. Jack's knowlege of Spanish has been helpful, in fact, he invited the gardeners in for lunch yesterday, because he felt bad that they were eating alone outside. They, uh, declined. 

As for me, I'm doing my part feeding the starving mosquitos of Brazil with my delicious blood and trying to keep calm and relaxed, which is one thing that is very easy to do here. Everyone is relaxed. About everything. Maybe it will be good for me. Everything here is prohibitively expensive, especially shoes (sad face). And on that note, I'm off to Amazon.  Will have pics of the house when I get online at home, which could be next week. Or next month.  See! I'm already becoming Brazilian.