I woke up this morning to the faint sound of eery, ice-cream truck music floating in from my window. It's 10 am, early now, for how late I've been sleeping; my jet-lag has finally worn off. I sit up in bed, sticky with sweat. It's been raining since I got here, so the humidity makes the air thick, your clothes cling to your skin, beads of perspiration ever-present on your forehead.
This is my fourth day here in Sao Paulo. I'm in a mansion in a gated community in Crotia, some suburb nestled away from the manic inner-city. Joao's family all work from early in the morning til late at night, so I am left to my own devices during the day. I share the house with two maids and Joao's 100 year old grandma, who apparently is 'confusado', as one of the maids tells me. It doesn't make any difference, I can't understand anything she says anyway. No one speaks english here.
I'm hampered from going places by the removed location of the house and a lack of transportation vehicles, so mostly I've been puttering around this castle. Coming here, I sort of had this fantasy of doing my Henry Miller thing—living in a hovel, subsisting on literature, starving amazing sentences out of myself—but it's become very apparent that as long as I'm living in this house, starving is the last thing that will happen to me. Everyday I wake up and walk down to the kitchen, I'm greeted by a plethora of foods stretched across the table; different cuts of carne, feijoa & arroz, salads, corn with cream, and a dish that seems to be shredded kale cooked with egg. I feel obligated to stuff myself by the expectant looks on maid's faces. It's as if they're making up for the language barrier through food; hospitality slow-cooked into the beans and rice. I'm going to go to the store today and get some supplies for Latkah's, try to cook it for them tomorrow to reciprocate...if they'll let me. They've been very adament about me not doing little things I'd normally do: washing dishes after a meal, making my bed, and cooking for myself. So we'll see.
We leave for Rio on friday, Carnival starting on saturday, I think, so I'm fine to do nothing for my first week or so here. A typical day for me so far has been to wake up at noon, eat lunch with Grandma, smoke a joint (thank god I brought pot down with me!), read a book/write, take the two family dogs for a walk, smoke another joint, attempt to teach myself some portuguese, and then try to make some moves. I caught a cab out to Faria Lima yesterday to go to the mall and get a phone. I ended up watching indoor soccer (weak!) in a sports bar and pounding back caipirinhas, until Joao got off work and met up with me. We went out to dinner and came home.
Exciting, I know.
One of the nice things about not understanding the language here, is that I compensate by imagining everyone is saying flattering things about me. When one of the maids walks by and says something to the other maid, gesturing at me, I pretend she's saying 'oh, aren't we so lucky to have such a handsome and polite young American in the house!', and when the other maid laughs and says something else, I imagine it's 'Hahah, oh yes, I'm laughing because of how funny it is that we've always talked about wanting a tall white boy to live in our house, and now it's happened!'
Oh, Natalie and Li, you're too kind. Stop it, I'm blushing!
I guess there's not a whole lot to report right now. Since I started walking the dogs, the little pug has taken a liking to me. She follows me around the house, tries to jump onto my lap every time I sit down, which is sorta cute, but she's smelly, so it's sorta wack too. My work plans are to teach english, and the guy whose supposed to hire me said he definitely has some gigs for me in the near future. At the moment, I'm just counting down the days until I go to Rio, really get to jump head first into this Brazilian cultural thing.
This will be the last blase post I make. Everything after this will be an exciting story, hopefully with pictures, hopefully an engaging, epic tale that will have you glued to your screen (not that you aren't already....you facebook-lurking internet junkies)
Stay tuned....we'll see if I can really live up to that promise.
T'chao.
-JD
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