Something I love about Brazil

I love that I understand what is in my food (for the most part). In the states I hate buying anything in a can, box or sealed and almost always opt for making it on my own. I read labels, all the time (a terrible and awesome habit I picked up from my high school/college sweetheart) and I won't even think about buying things if I don't understand one of the first ingredients and I refuse to buy it if theres all  those crazy colorants and "artificial flavor" this and that. I really do try to lead a healthy lifestyle (with regards to foods) and by healthy I mean as few chemically altered and processed things as possible.

This is where Brazil rules.

I can grab almost any yogurt on the shelf and I understand EVERY ingredient. Butter is CREAM and SALT and cookies are normally just, well, sugar, flour and chocolateeeee! I love this. And High Fructose Corn Syrup?? Noone even knows what I'm talking about. Coca-Cola says SUGAR. Cereal says SUGAR. Things here are sweetened with SUGAR! Wow, who woulda thought!?

I was at the store today and saw a new Nestle brand yogurt with "cereals." I decided to check it out and it's really just fruit pulp, natural yogurt, and all sorts of grains. I understand every single thing on the label from the first ingredient to the last. Result? I bought it and daaayyyuuum it's yummy.

I love that I live in a culture that FOR REAL takes seriously eating naturally. Açaí shakes are available on almost every corner (from LOCALLY PICKED AÇAI TREES) made with milk from local cows and with all sorts of other yummy Amazon fruits and such. The only thing that isn't Amazon friendly is probably the peanuts that go in the shake, but I'm not sure if they are all imported or not. I have never heard of anyone growing peanuts nearby.

Lastly, I love that I live in a place in which the government incentivizes planting trees. You can get tree saplings (is that the right word? like, baby trees?) for FREE every WEEK! All sorts of local trees, including Açaí, palm trees and other LARGE fruit trees. We're trying to figure out where we want to plant some in our yard, even though we already have a ton of trees. You can never have too many!

Big Moves, Big Changes and Xixi

2012 is off to a GREAT start for the Reuse-Martins family! After spending over 8 months in our "provisional 2br apartment" that was rented from a friend that seemed great for a 3 month stay but once the rainy season started and all the leaks in the roof made themselves clearly known, I began complaining and demanding that we move. Once the kitchen sink clogged up at about 3.5 months of living there, and the landlord and my husband seemingly unable to unclog it...my complaining became nagging. It wasn't just the yellow walls and orange floors that drove me crazy but the fact that the small tree-shaded parking lot outside of our place became a common resting spot for truckers, people waiting for the bus, and most entertainingly, horse-drawn carts. I was at the end of my wits at the end of November and broke down talking about the issue with my minister.

"Você tem que se desapegar do problema, minha filha." he told me.
"You have to let go of the problem, my daughter." (minha filha is a way of referring to practically any female here. Mom, don't worry!)

So, I tried my best to "desapegar-me," went to the altar and I made a promise that I would stop complaining about our apartment and appreciate it for what it was, which really was a great, cheap, find in a pinch and was in a perfect location for us to start our Brazilian life together, especially since we had neighbors we knew close-by because Humberto had to travel from time to time and I was really nervous about being left home alone in a city I didn't yet know very well.

Well, whaddya know. Weeks after I did this, Humberto told me that we would start house hunting as soon as I was on vacation!

Our new place, at least so far, is perfect. We're still waiting on a lot of the kinks to be worked out (a new toilet, the broken windows are on their way to being replaced....) but it's the best house I have lived in besides my childhood home. It's HUGE. 3br, an office, 2 bathrooms, a "quarto da bagunça" (or the junk room which is supposed to be the maid's quarters, but since we don't have a live-in maid, it's my junk room!) a GIANT living room and dining room and a good sized kitchen. We have a wrap around porch and a front, back and side yard! Tons of trees including coconut palms, starfruit and papaya! There's also a tree we are still not sure what the fruit is... it looks kind of like a giant cupuaçú and no...it is not jaca. To help me take care of all of this, my maid starts on TUESDAY! Finally!

Ice has transitioned to being an outside dog with no problems! He loves patrolling the yard, alerting us to visitors and passer-bys and rolling and digging in the dirt all day. (Humberto bought all new sofas and as a result, Ice is not permitted in the house unaccompanied by a human and we are pretty sure he has already made the distinction that he cannot jump on the new couches, he only tried twice and after some stern, "NÃO!" he hasn't tried again!) We also have grass, and it is that interesting Amazonian grass that doesn't ever grow really high, and since the house was abandoned for a while and while it was occupied, I am sure the people didn't take much care of the landscaping, we have incredible black soil  due to all the trees. I cannot wait to start gardening!

Speaking of Ice, when I took him to the vet the other day for his second vaccination, I complained to the vet about how none of the spot treatments seemed to work against ticks and I was worried about him getting sick again. She let me know about an injectable treatment against fleas, ticks, and all sorts of worms and I have to say it has been a lifesaver. He has been tick-free since! I basically spent every other night petting him in order to find all of the ticks and pulling them off of him (which he didn't like at all, as you are probably aware of.) So, if you have a pup in the Amazon that is always full of ticks, ask your vet about the injectable complete anti-vermes treatment.

We had our first barbecue yesterday because of the Libertadores game... Flamengo and a team from Potosí, Bolivia. Interestingly, we didn't even watch the game, we had such a good time hanging out on our porch with old friends and new friends! I recently met the wife of one of Humberto's old friends who also migrated to Orlando for a few years while he was there. She is really nice and I am looking forward to getting to know her better. My little network of friends outside of the family is starting to grow and I have a feeling that as soon as I step foot onto the campus of ULBRA, that network is going to blossom.

The only downside about the new place, we are still without internet, I had to send my MacBook to Cuiabá for repairs so I am also without my own computer and that's about all for right now! Installing internet is just about the most painstaking process here in Brazil and I'm getting ready to call and complain again.

On a business note, Humberto made another sale to China which makes us both really happy and I am hearing through third-parties about how they heard about me teaching English, and even about a doctor who is promoting me like crazy in the local hospitals, trying to get me a nice big class together! I think 2012 is going to be the year that I do something I never dreamed possible: I am going to be 100% self-employed! This is liberating and exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.

And, in closing, I am going to leave you with the best PSA I have ever seen in my life. Since we are getting ever-so-close to Carnaval (which, btw, I do not like Samba, Pagode, Axé or Forró that much so... I'm not all that excited about it....) Rede Globo (the biggest communications monopoly that exists on the planet, I believe) has put out the BEST PSA about not peeing in public.

The lyrics go:

"Tá com vontade de fazer xixi? -- Do you feel like you have to pee? 

Não faz aqui, não faz aqui -- Don't do it here.

Tá com vontade de fazer xixi?  -- Do you feel like you have to pee?  

Não faz aqui, não faz aqui -- Don't do it here.

Nosso bloco a gente vê -- Our block (community) we can see...

É cheiroso, é maneiro -- it smells good, it's cool (I have never heard this word, but that's what google translate says it means...it must be Rio slang)

Tô falando pra você -- I'm telling you

Lugar de mijão é no banheiro" --The place to take a big pee is in the bathroom.

And that's all for now, folks.

Pamonha and Puppy Perfume

So, this week I have confirmed two more reasons why I love Brazil. Pamonha and Puppy Perfume.

Sunday my mother-in-law called the whole family together (and neighbors as well) to make Pamonha, a traditional Brazilian "country" food that resembles Mexican Tamales. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures this year of the Pamonha event (mainly because I was bedridden the majority of the day due to awwwful menstrual cramps) however, here are some pictures from my first visit to Rondônia in 2009 when I first met the whole family.

The family helping to shuck and grate the corn

Avô (grandpa) looking at the mess we had all made

Humberto's cousin Rita and Avô in the background

I love Pamonha because it is the epitome of Brazilian culture. More Brazilian than Churrasco, I would argue.

Pamonha only requires four simple ingredients. 

Your entire extended family and friends. Corn. Oil. Salt. 

Yep, thats all we use. For the sweet ones you substitute the salt for sugar. After you grate the corn you put it into a big bowl, mix in the oil and salt then make little cups with the corn husks, fill it with the corn mixture and whatever you want inside, tie another husk around it to seal it up and toss it into boiling water. We stuffed some cheese into some (and i snuck some cheese and guava paste (goiabada) into some of the sweet ones... mmMmMmM!)

The whole family assumes their traditional positions when the shucking of the corn begins. In our family, Avô is in charge of shucking. This year, since he is 87 I think..., H's cousin helped him out. They shucked 2 bags of corn, that is 240 ears of corn!! About 4 of us took the shucked corn and picked out all the hairs so they were clean and then 4 other people grated the corn into the paste. Men, women and children work together on this first phase. Once this is done all the men open up some beers (or in our case, start serving tereré) and get the churrasco going (of course, there can't be a Sunday without churrasco on the farm!) meanwhile the women share a few beers amongst themselves while they start preparing the corn paste with salt and oil (or sugar and oil) and then making the little pamonha packets with the husks as the casing. There's a secret to the whole process as the way the strings are tied around the pamonhas tells the person who is going to eat them what is inside and if it is sweet or salty! In our family they also like to put a ton of hot peppers in one or two of the pamonhas as a joke! This year my sister-in-law made the practical joke pamonhas so obvious that everyone pointed it out as soon as it was served so of course no one ate it, but we all got a big laugh out of the entire thing.

So, as you can imagine, my Saturday and Sunday were filled with corn this corn that... corn bread, corn cake, corn on the cob, pamonha, creamed corn, chicken-and-corn soup... I'm pretty much corn-ed out for the next few weeks (and my freezer is full of leftover pamonha!)

After the whole pamonha episode was finally coming to a close I took Ice on a nice long hike on the farm to a reservoir that I absolutely love. It was his first time heading back this direction on the farm and I am always worried about taking the pups there because the water is still and I'm always on the lookout for any blue anacondas (sucuri in Portuguese), as they have been known to eat other dogs on the farm. Humberto lost a Pitbull to one a few years back. There haven't been any sightings in the last few years and the pups on the farm have gone on two or three day adventures (meaning they just disappeared for awhile) and came back with no injuries, so I am assuming that they have mostly left the premises). Anyhow, Ice had a blast. The bottom of the reservoir is a thick clay that you sink into. Ice seemed to think that it was some type of animal that was grabbing his feet and he ran into the water barking barking barking and attacking attacking attacking, then ran up the bank back to me and then dashed back down to the water's edge only to repeat the whole process over again. He didn't get eaten by a sucuri, but was more than a bit dirty...which leads me to the next part of this post....

Puppy Perfume? Well, on my last trip to the petshop I decided to pick up some flea and tick shampoo for Ice and found bottles of puppy perfume (ranging in prices from R$20 (about US$11) to a whopping R$80 (about US$44)!!!!! I, of course, picked up one of the cheap bottles and went home excited to give the pup a bath after his Sunday jumping into the muddy water in the reservoir. Not only is he flea-free now... he smells DELICIOUS! I can't stop smelling my dog, and telling other people to smell him, too. You gotta love a country that sells puppy perfume, and it seems NORMAL for people to buy it. (Note: maybe this happens in the States but I have never, ever, ever heard of any of my friends buying their dogs puppy perfume!)

Anyhow, that about sums up what I've been up to this weekend. It looks like this coming weekend we might be taking a trip to some fancy fazenda that has pools and something like a zoo (it's a vacation resort type deal) and I'm pretty pumped about it! If it all comes together you can expect some photos next week!

I've been coming up with ideas for daily postings and I'm thinking of the following.
Motivational Mondays
Tuesday's Tune
Thoughtful Thursdays (i'll chat about some type of topic that isn't directly related to my going-ons)
Fitness Friday (where I will recap my workout progress that I've made throughout the week...)

We'll see how this goes anyhow...

Tchau!! xxxx

Dogs, Rain, Fish and Cows... what else!?

So a lot has happened since my last update... first, I have landed a new and exciting teaching position for next year (I hope to continue at the current school I am at as well, meaning I am going to be working 12 hour days, but with every other weekend off, so hopefully I don't die.) I had this great idea when I was in high school about going to college... then after I finished that, I decided to continue on to graduate school. The result? I'm loaded down in debt and I've got to 1) figure out a way to pay it off ASAP so Humberto and I can really get serious about our "adult" life and 2) find a way to do it that is ENJOYABLE. I think all will be well :)

Also, we have adopted another bundle of joy into our home. His name is Ice. (When said in Portuguese it turns into Icey... and everyone goes HAHAH! That means GELO (ice in Portuguese..) RIGHT?! Even our vet was amused. You'll see why whey you see his photo.

Ice, in the flesh. A MinPin Mutt with a mean streak.

He's all black with a little white on his chest and little dots on his feet like he stepped in a puddle of white paint. In this photo we were at the café on the Avenida... he's that kind of dog. Of course I bought him a bottle of water and had his little bowl with me so he wouldn't get dehydrated.

The adoption was a big debate because our previous dog passed away from Distemper... a terrible horrible no good very bad dog disease that is common here in Ji-Paraná, mainly because most people don't vaccinate their dogs and we weren't sure if the disease was out of our home yet. After I put Zara down, I bleached the house, top to bottom, washed all our sheets in bleach water, everything I could possibly do because not only did I want another dog... we have lots of friends with dogs and the last thing I wanted was for them to catch this horrible disease. I have to say I think it is probably the worst disease to watch a dog suffer from, and most pet websites agree with me on that one. They just slowly deteriorate, then magically get better, then from one minute to the next they loose complete sense of where they are, who their owner is, become paranoid, then lose control of their own bodily movements. It tore my heart into pieces and I would never, ever, wish that on another dog owner. After talking with a variety of vets and consulting many websites, I just grew more frustrated. Some sites said within minutes the virus is dead, others said it took years for the virus to die. After doing some hard thinking, we decided at least a month of a dog-less house, with intense bleaching and keeping everything as dry as possible (similar to HIV, it doesn't survive well in hot and dry environments and since our temp here is always around 90F, I made the bet we were in the clear.)

Miss Zara

We've also entered into the rainy season. I have been having a lot of interesting conversations with the people who were some of the first settlers here in Ji-Paraná about how much the environment and weather patterns have changed in only 30 years. The rainy season used to be a continuous rain for 6 months. Now it's just a storm, or a drizzle at most, the lasts about an hour, and it doesn't hit every day. The water tables are all low... the rivers are all low... and everyone knows why. Deforestation. (Vovó, click on the link! You'll find it very interesting!)

From: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Back in the 50s until about the 80s and even until the early 90s, the government actually HELPED people to cut down the forest here for "development". Free land, incentivising clearcutting and highway development. The famous Highway 364 is the highway where my inlaw's farm is. It's true that you have to take down some trees to "develop" but at the same time Brazil did a horrible thing to itself... it stripped away a lot of its natural resources and now the climate is changing at rates that are being witnessed from year to year.  The new government restrictions (you must maintain 30% of your farmland forested and you can't burn anymore) aren't exactly abided by all of the time and enforcement is few and far between. However, people do their best to abide by these regulations because the penalties are heavy and potentially will cause the farmer or fazendeiro to lose their entire investment because of the violation.

However, yesterday it did rain. And it rained during my lunch break. Humberto took me to a wonderful restaurant under the big bridge that joins the two parts of the city together on the bank of the Machado River. 

The restaurant had the freshest fresh fish I have ever tasted in my life... I ordered mine fried with a creamed corn sauce... it was incredible (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture...) and here are some pictures of the restaurant... and of us!

Me and the love of my life... Well, part of me anyways.

And finally, later that day, while at a red light, I looked out my window and I had a bunch of eyes staring at me... let's see if you can see what was staring at me!

Mooooooooo! (or in Portuguese, MAUUUUUU)

Until next time! Beijos para todos!