Patient care in Manaus

Well there we are – another interesting week. Naice’s dad, Pedro, took ill and had to have a hernia op. in Manaus. Having booked himself into a private hospital (the insides of the public hospitals resemble a down-market version of M.A.S.H., blood running down the corridors from the dead and dying who have been scraped off the streets without an insurance policy etc etc). So the private hospital was a must. Of course the logistics of the op. were a bit more complicated than usual, with Dad having to come over the river by boat (how else?) and get delivered to the door by car.

The hospital looked suspiciously clean and efficient (suspicious because there just isn’t much in Manaus that’s clean and efficient – or even clean or efficient). The agreed rate, I believe, was around R$3k for the op (about £850), plus R$800 per night of aftercare. So we got him there for 10:00am on the Thursday, and he was duly operated on at around 16:30 (2.5 hours late). He stayed there overnight, with Naice in attendance (you don’t leave your relatives alone in hospital here – they might accidentally be bagged up and disposed of while your back is turned), and spent most of the night in agony, with an occasional wandering nurse (dragged in by Naice) saying such helpful things as “oh that’s perfectly normal” etc. Anyway, come 7pm the following night (and due another night’s stay), the decision was made to run away. But where to…?

So at 20:30 on the Friday night, Pedro duly appeared, delivered by his son Robbie to our doorstep. He hobbled into our hastily prepared bedroom (no furniture, no facilities, remember?), and spent another painful night at chez nous.

To cut a long story short, after staying with us for four days, he finally was able to go back across the river yesterday, much to his relief I think. For our part, it was a pleasure to look after him and his wife Raimunda (who joined us on the Saturday), and we were sorry (but relieved at the same time) to see them go. He’s still in pain, but we hope he’ll be OK after this week. In the meantime, Raimunda took the time to show me how to make my own chilli sauce from some chillies she found in our garden (chilli plant in photo). Looking forward to trying that.

More Wildlife

There is a beetle here (I may have mentioned him before – big as a football – oh, alright, a tennis ball, anyway) who looks incredibly handsome (as beetles go), but is pretty, well, stupid. Every time I come across him he’s lying on his back with his legs going 19 to the dozen, without any hopes of righting himself. I’ve rescued him at least half a dozen times now, and he usually trundles back to his wee hole (big hole, actually) in the garden wall near the pool, without so much as a ‘thanks mate’. Except for tonight. Tonight I found him with his big face pressed against our door (I nearly stood on him - tripped over him would be more like it). So I left him there and went out. But I was unsettled. I started wondering whether he was in fact just taking the piss. Maybe it was all part of his plan. Maybe he’s a concrete beetle, eyeing up our door posts and quietly plotting how to undermine our foundations (he’s big enough to move them, I’m sure). Anyway I, um, beetled back home (sorry), determined to remove him to a place of safety (i.e. a long way from our foundations)…and the bugger has gone. Now I’m going to bed worried about where he’s gone to. But no doubt I’ll see him again tomorrow, lying in a heap, legs akimbo, pretending that’s exactly how he wanted to be all the time. Or at least I hope so…

Container

The container holding all our worldly possessions is still locked up in the port of Manaus after 5 weeks. We received word today that the officials there (who have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for FIVE WEEKS) were now demanding that we dedetizasar (this verb makes more sense if you think of DDT) the container, as ‘all containers from Asia have to be dedetizasado’. Hmm, well Naice got a bit upset about this and suggested the officials who were demanding this go and get an atlas, and said that to the best of her knowledge and belief Europe and Asia were two entirely different continents. She then followed this up, with hardly a pause for breath, by telling them that if there were any damage as a result of this entirely unnecessary process (a process which, of course, WE have to pay for), we would be suing them. I enjoyed this part of the conversation muchly, although we wonder quietly whether we may have unleashed the bribery and corruption beast. Time will tell, but I will always maintain that the conversation was worth its weight in gold. Just wish our container was, too...

Water Levels

The water level on the Amazon has dropped from just over 8m (above some predetermined mark they use down at the docks), to 7.60m, since 23rd June. Things are not looking good for the floating bar. Will keep you updated with latest levels as the news comes in (that’ll be exciting, eh…?).

Gardening

Our gardener, Claudeno, has spent two days putting a wire mesh fence around the top of the garden so we won’t lose any wandering dogs or children down the wilder slopes around the garden (photos). The slopes are planted with various trees including Coconut palm, Mango, Papaya and Banana, but are pretty wild nonetheless. Besides being an attraction for the local monkeys, the bananeiras in particular are excellent hosts for banana spiders and scorpions, and the long grass below for snakes of various types and sizes. I haven’t plucked up the courage myself to make any forays down “the slope” yet, but I suppose I'll have to sooner or later. Anyway, now that the grass is all cut, the place is beginning to look a bit more respectable.

We’re having a party for some friends’ children this weekend, and all now looks organised for this. The ph of the pool is still too low, according to my litmus paper, so I’ll have to buy some more elevador de ph before Saturday. We’ve also managed to tidy up the bathroom a bit, so that the door, the shower and the toilet all work Ok now. This is good. Someone else will have to do the food, though, as I don’t know one end of a barbecue from the other (and it has to be a barbecue, as this is a national requirement, quite possibly written into the Brazilian legislation). The current barbecue contraption is seen centre of last photo. It looks completely cream-crackered to me, but Naice insists it has years of useful life ahead of it!

Telephones and other projects

Progress on the phone front. Naice finally managed to get us two mobile phones on contract (it has only taken 6 weeks…), and at the same time it would appear the local phone company are suddenly interested in installing a telephone line…and in a rash moment we signed up for Sky TV and this may be done within the same timeframe (2 weeks, maybe?) Of course for the latter, we need to supply a 127v electricity socket, for which we need an electrician. This could be a major hurdle – we also need an electrician to install two 220v supplies for air-conditioners, make the existing 220 and 330v pump supplies safe, and provide a distribution box near the wall where we are currently, um, borrowing electricity from the grid. Of course as soon as we have all this sorted out, we will be informing the electricity company of what we have discovered so that we can be on the right side of the law in a while (rather than have them discover, and get fined).

We have someone coming to decorate the house, too, so that we can finally get some furniture and be ready to receive our container if we ever get the thing out of the docks, and if the contents survive the fumigation process (see The Container).

Meanwhile the boat project is nearly completed, and next week Shamrock leaves the boatyard and goes to the local Suzuki guy to have the important bits fitted. We are also considering a few other projects at the moment. One is the installation of an electric gate at the house, which would require us to knock down part of the walls and do some rebuilding. The other is the erection of a chapel de palha, which is essentially a wooden, palm-covered, open-sided structure where one can sit in the shade or swing in one’s hammock etc. We could use this for ourselves and guests, as an area to sip a few bevvies from (or tea, if you prefer), following a dip in the pool etc. And I hope it may be possible to thus utilise some of the slopey bit of the garden by building it out on stilts. I’m also thinking of getting a bike (well, a scooter thing), which one of us can use to potter around the locale while the other has the car. Other than this, we’re getting reasonably organised and settled.