Moving and Adapting to Change

Moving is a big deal.  It requires meticulous planning, thoughtful organizing, the actual moving itself, setting everything back up and then finally, adapting to your new home.  I think that in general people have the hardest time with the last step but, when it comes down to it, it is the most important of them all.

Things will not be the same after a move; the corner store will host peculiar faces, the air will smell unusual and the sky will take on new shades of colors.  Your days will begin differently, as the sun will wake you at abnormal angles and they will end oddly while your eyelids grow heaving staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.  If you let all the idiosyncrasies get to you and dwell on them they will turn against you.  This is where the final step of adapting comes in to save the day.

Humans have been adapting to their environments for as long as we have walked the planet.  From cavemen to farmers and Englishmen to pilgrims, no other species on the earth can adapt as well as we can.  Adapting, in short, is just accepting that things are not going to be the same and moving forward from there.

Moving to a new country though is a bit different from a move down the street.  The language is at first a challenge, the money feels weird and requires more math than should be necessary to buy lunch and the clocks run on what we refer to in America as military time.  I still have a hard time answering requests for the time when it is past noon. 

Here is a rundown of some of the things that I found new and strange upon coming to Brazil.  Some are kind of neat and some pretty out there but, there is an interesting allure to their unusualness that makes moving to any foreign country entirely remarkable.

Tap Water

Let us go ahead and start with the tap water.  The tap is not your friend here.  Unless you are boiling it for a soup or to make coffee in the morning, tap water is not to be digested.  This basic practice is something you want to look out for in all third world countries.  Brazil is not the worst of them that I have been in though; in Cambodia I brought a bottled water to brush my teeth and rinse my tooth brush with.  Brushing your teeth flies here but that is where the line is drawn.  About once a week our house goes through a water jug that we call the city to replace for R$5.  Not a bad price to pay to keep yourself off the toilet for a week.   

                Also, the tap has no western water heater attached to it.  So, you have cooked an amazing meal with your roommates.  The group of you has stuffed yourselves with rice, beans, pork and gotten a little rowdy over some beers.  The time eventually comes to clean up the pile of pots and pans you have thrown aside in the mad dash to the table.  You stumble over to the sink, dip your sponge into the stream to get to scrubbing and are rudely shocked into soberness.  The water is like ice and no matter how long you wait for it to get warm, that temperature is not going to budge a degree. 

There is a perfectly acceptable reason why these dishes are not done.

Winter During Summer

                I knew that it was going to be winter while I was here.  It is one thing though to know something and then an entirely different experience to live it.  While the people of the northern hemisphere enjoy beaches and tans, I went out and bought a new jacket to battle the cold.  Even while in Brazil, it can get mighty chilly and I am not much of a packer when it comes to travel; the lighter the better as I am usually on the go.  The house I am staying in does not help much either.  It is designed with loose fitting windows, tiled floors and mortared walls; not the best to insulate heat.  Central heating is also not a translatable phrase because it simply does not exist. 

All my belongings for four months, not much room for winter clothes.

Daytime is not so bad while the sun is out and shining.  Average temperatures can run up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit and with a nice breeze are rather pleasant.  Gloomier, cloudy days can dip into the upper 40s though.  As the sun’s glow turns from yellow to red and sets behind the skyscrapers to signal the coming of night, temperatures plunge into the 40s.  A trip to the market or pizza joint down the road occasionally requires my thickest socks.  I can deal with it for the most part but even while it is 65 F. out, the Brazilians still look miserable in their mittens and caps. 

And oh yeah, sunset is at five o’clock.     

Learn to Love Football

                South American countries love soccer and Brazil is no exception.  On at all times of the day, live or reruns, football is the sport of the country.  Being summer back in the states and missing out on all the baseball is tough for me but, football is not all bad.  The rules to the game are simple enough at least, I just wish there was more action and less whining.  I am not trying to take anything away from the world’s sport; it is most certainly enjoyable after a few beers.  Although, when stalling for time is an integral part of a team’s strategy and looking for penalty handouts occur on the regular…ugh, gag me with a goal post.  Thank god for www.MLB.com's daily free game that I can stream from time to time to get my fix. 

                Despite my complaints, I am looking forward to attending a live match.  Every sport is better live. 

Toilet Bins

                I saved this one for last as I would not expect many people to continue reading the blog if I had made it the first on the list.  In the western world, where most of the people who read this blog hail from, we have been taught after going to the bathroom you throw your dirty paper in the toilet.  Do your best to forget that notion here, it goes in a trash bin beside the toilet.  The reason for this is because the pipes and plumbing here are old, skinny and prone to backups.  At this point it would be way to costly to change the way things are done and already made.  Most western travelers find this most difficult to deal with, as public bathrooms now have another reason to be avoided tacked onto them. 

I'll spare you the toilet bin and show you how every shower has a squeegee instead.

                If you cannot deal with this, rent a room at the Hilton or Marriot for a couple hundred Reals a night; they have western plumbing.  Secretly though, and hopefully my roommates miss this post, I flush mine at home…

                And there are some of the few things that take some getting used to in Brazil.  Granted, those oddities are surely to be found in other places around the globe and the list is but the tip of a long, long catalog of culture shocks.  But that is just the way it is here and fighting against the change will only make one miserable.  It is best to accept and adapt to the changes if one is to enjoy himself/herself in a new and alien place.  In each new shock that comes along there is something to be said about a country and its people, even a beauty to them can be seen once accepted; well, maybe not the toilet bins.

Mercado Municipal

The main entry way

                From a block away the constant flood of people moving in and out of the building grabbed my attention.  Shuffling out from under a striking archway topped with stained glass windows, people teetered like penguins as they carried their loaded bags of groceries and culinary supplies.  As I made way through the masses into the Mercado Municipal, Sao Paulo’s largest food market, my dormant love of food began to awaken.  Everywhere I glanced, my eyes feasted on the food displays extending before me.  Fresh, colorful produce rested in crates, international wines were stocked high upon shelves and drying salami hung from hooks above shopper’s heads.  I had to be careful not to let others see me begin to salivate as I caught a whiff of a spice aisle, the combination of herbs and spices forming recipes in my head.       

                The 12,600 square meter market place is home to over 290 individual shops and employs over 1,500 people, according to the markets website.  Many of the shops seemed to be closed up though dulling such statistics a bit.  After giving the market a thorough walk around the number of shops open was more akin to around 200; still an impressive number.  The Mercado Municipal website also claims that the market handles approximately 450 tons of food per day, this I can believe. 

There are not many things that I love more about traveling than visiting such a place.  Whether the market is artisan or food, outdoors or indoor or a combination of all the above; they are locations that denote a simpler, gentler life.  Unlike the aisle ways of westernized grocery stores where people begrudgingly steer their steel shopping carts, loading them with boxes of cereal and packaged meat, open markets seethe with life.  Markets are not only for getting some basic shopping done but are personal places for people to interact and be part of a community. 

As I strolled through the Mercado Municipal, occasionally stopping to sift through the piles of diverse produce, I focused on the chatter of shoppers around me.  Even with a loose understanding of the Portuguese language I could grasp the other patrons negotiating and bargaining over cuts of meats and the weight of produce.  A short older woman looking happy with the purchase of a bag of salted olives and the banter of a butcher with a middle aged gentleman holding a half empty bottle of beer brought a chuckle to my chest.  Sights like these are rare and few in the canned food aisle at the grocery stores back home.    

A view from the second floor, many bars and restaurants line the larger aisles and second floor

The Mercado Municipal is also a much more elegantly designed building than that of your run of the mill grocery stores.  It was designed by Francisco Ramos de Azevedo in 1926 and was opened in January of 1933.  Lighting is dim and mostly natural, seeping through the grand elongated skylight above and the stain glassed windows rowing the walls on all four sides.  In total there are 72 stain glassed windows divided among 32 panels designed by a Russian artist Conrad Filho.  Filho is famous for his work on Sao Paulo’s Cathedral da Se and 300 other churches across the country.  When clouds pass overhead they play tricks with the shadows and give the impression of a constantly changing environment.

Cheese, Brazilians love cheese

After gawking amid the fine fare, I decided it was my duty as a former culinary arts student to buy some cheese, salami and a bottle of wine; it only seemed appropriate.  I began to prowl through shops more carefully, picking up cheeses to examine their firmness, carefully sniffing them to determine their sharpness as I struggled to read their labels.  After a few shops I came across one that had a good selection of products that matched my opulent criteria.  I asked for a sample and the vendor sliced off a healthy portion right off the block I held in my hand.  It was a softer cheese but retained its shape as I bit into it and had a gentle, smooth finish.  The bottle of wine I was not as picky on and snatched a bottle of Chilean Cabernet from the same store; drinking a European or Californian brand seems pretentious in South America. 

And good meat is not hard to come by

I began my hunt again in search of a few spicy links of salami.  Once again I desired something that was going to retain its shape and not break down while I chewed it.  I approached a butcher’s stand where the salami hung above salted tongue and pigs feet; both delicacies I was not feeling like taking on at the moment.  I sniffed and poked at the links and selected a few that had the texture of beef jerky but still had some leeway when I subtly pinched them.  A short woman reached up with her butcher’s knife and sliced them down for me as I pushed in-between another set of links to hand the cashier my money. 

Now impatient to eat my carefully chosen meal I began to scurry towards the door, joining the other teetering patrons in their scuffle to do the same.  As I made my way down the aisle I noted several juice stands, sandwich shops and bars beckoning me to come spend more of my cash.  I took note and thought to myself that another trip is definitely in store for this market; that is for sure.