Life in Manaus

With most of our traumas now over, it ocurred to me recently that this is really the end of chapter one for us and our new life - we have come, we have seen and we are bonkers. Seriously, we have achieved most of our original aims (i.e. we’re here and reasonably well organised), apart from the flutuante. Now, after the climax of it all (as it were), we need to stir ourselves and think what we’re going to do with our new life. The money won’t last that long (not the way we’re spending it, anyway), and we really need to find some form of income at some point. We are still spending a lot of money on the house (electrician to do the wiring, buying a new gate and other security items, building a few walls here and there, buying a dining table, chairs and a sofa, and so on). We have completely overshot our original budget for the house, but on the other hand we could not have found anywhere better, and are very happy here.

But like I said, what now…? So far, there’s the Wisdom of Oz, which I’m still working on (and may still be working on in 10 years time), and we’re considering putting our faces around the English language teaching/ translating community in earnest in due course. We looked at setting up an export company, but there’s not much point unless you have something to export, and so far we don’t (although I’m going to the annual trade fair tomorrow to see what’s on offer); and of course there’s the B&B option (but this is unlikely to bring in enough money to even keep the house going). And the floating bar will almost certainly have to wait now, possibly until early 2009. Hmmm.

And then of course there’s the question of adoption, which was one of the prime motives for the move in the first place. Unfortunately this too requires some sort of income, before we even register our interest (one of the first questions is ‘how will you support the child?’, and no doubt ‘We don’t know, but we have a lovely house.’ just isn’t going to cut it).

So. Chapter 2 begins. How it will end, we don’t know. But as usual you can read all about it here (if you’re the masochistic sort).

Taking the Tick...

Has anyone any tips on removing ticks from dogs? I mean tips that actually work? Although Ozzie’s regularly plagued by the little blighters, they’re mostly of some small Brazilian variety which fall off of their own volition (well, helped by the tick lotion we apply monthly). However last weekend, after a visit to Naice’s parents, he picked up a tick which I suspect is just like your common or garden UK sheep tick. And it wasn’t in any hurry to fall off, so we spent 2 days trying to remember what I’d read about removing them. I tried the ‘smother it in Vaseline, and when it comes up for air just snatch it off’ trick, and when the only result was that Ozzie’s left hind leg became lovely and slippery, we resorted to the ‘touch a hot match to it, and when it recoils…etc etc’. All that happened was that we were left with a large pile of matches which were quite dead, unlike the tick.

Today Naice got frustrated with the thing and just whipped it off with a pair of tweezers, but now we’re not sure if we left the head in the wound or not. . So, any budding vets out there who have a FOOLPROOF methodology, perhaps you could let us know?

Das Boot

Shamrock was finally launched (pics) and I motored it around from the Suzuki works to our chosen marina (incidentally, ‘marina’ here means somewhere where they take your boat out of the water with a boat lift and use a fork lift truck to store it on a platform in a multi-storey garage –pics later). It being my first time in charge of my own boat, and having little petrol and no emergency oar (tsk), I was a little nervous about the whole affair. Anyway it went off without a hitch and the boat performed admirably (as, I felt, did the Captain (yo no soy marinero – soy capitan)). Unlike on the following Tuesday, when el capitan took out his first passenger (Naice, of course), for a pootle about on the Rio Taruma (the Taruma Acu, as opposed to the Taruma Mirim, for those interested).

I decided to take 20 litres of petrol along in my spare tank, along with a coffee strainer and a coke-bottle funnel (see earlier post), and all was well until I tried to get the petrol into my main tank. The result was that much of it ended up in the boat and all over me…so we had to abandon this idea and motor over to one of the floating petrol stations (pic) to put R$20 in the tank from the pump. We asked the guy if he would strain it through the coffee filter and he was happy enough to do so. Having thus rescued the situation, we cast off and…couldn’t start the motor. As we floated gently backwards into the petrol station flutuante, I suggested to the attendant that his petrol must be really bad, although I’m not sure he thought this was funny.

Anyway, we floated off again, slowly into midstream and vaguely back towards the marina in the far distance, turning the motor over as much as we dared. After a few minutes of this, I decided an alternative strategy was required, so I sat at the back wrestling with the cover of the motor and trying not to fall in. I succeeded in getting the cover off and checked what I could (I’m not going to take the plugs out or anything, now, am I?). A visual inspection indicated that all seemed OK, so I replaced the cover and re-primed the fuel…and it started first time. Go figure. Hope it doesn’t happen again.

I have to run the motor in for 20 hours before I can give it a good thrashing, and at the moment I can’t even get it to plane at the revs I’m allowed to give it (3,000 rpm). It’s now done two slow hours and counting…

The container arrives

The container was all of a sudden released and our friendly agent arranged for someone to pick the stuff up and deliver it to the house. It duly arrived last Thursday (9th), since when we have been unpacking and trying to organise things in the house as best we can. It’s lovely to have the stuff with us again, even if 50% of it is of no practical use whatever. Never mind.

Given the contours of the garden and the size of the driveway gate, it wasn’t possible to get the truck anywhere near the house, so the 145 boxes had to be lifted out, dumped in the driveway and then carried down to the house. Joy unbounded. And no sooner had we got them all down to the house than the familiar sound of distant thunder started up, so we had to move them all again to get them under cover. Happily, we achieved this with barely seconds to spare. We may look happy in the photo, but I must admit the tempers were somewhat frayed by the time we’d finished (in spite of the impending rain, much of the humping of boxes was done in 90 degree-plus sunshine).

Anyway it’s all done now, and 70% of the stuff has been laid out or put away as required. In fact you can see from the photo that the inside of the house has taken a turn for the better (although there is still much to do). At present we’re looking around for a dining table and chairs, a sofa, and somewhere to put the TV.

Call for a Botanist, please

Naice spotted this thing on one of the palms today (pic - click on image to enlarge). I have absolutely no idea what it is, and neither have any of the locals I’ve spoken to. It was about two - three inches long. Anyone…?

Wildlife update

We were surprised to see a pair of altogether different toucan-type birds the other day – much smaller and distinguished by a really bright yellow chest. Don’t know what they are, but I’ll identify them yet. We also spotted a large eagle drying its wings on the dead tree just beyond our boundary yesterday. Now that we have our binoculars, this bird-watching lark seems to be a piece of cake. The little monkeys are back, making regular forays into the garden on the hunt for our bananas and papayas. Not to be outdone, Naice has taken to trying to remove the ripening papayas first. Given that this has to be done with a 3m long bamboo pole with me underneath trying to catch anything that falls, it’s not so simple. Score so far: monkeys 4 Naice 1.

Water level

Water level now at 26.50m (13th August), down 35cm since last wednesday...

Quickie

A quick post this one, as the internet connections have been extremely poor recently. Firstly, our stuff has been released by the nice people at the docks, and has been received at the house (salt of the earth those people - always said so...). Secondly, the boat has been launched and is now at the marina. Thirdly, we have a permanent telephone line - anyone who wants this, and/or our address, please e-mail me and I'll be v.happy to supply.

More on all the above, with photos etc., when I get any sort of decent connection...

Latest on things

The rain here has dried up completely, and it’s getting depressingly hot. The average temperature is something like 35, but that’s in the shade of course – more than two or three minutes in the sun and you feel like you’ve just run the Mull of Kintyre half marathon in an Aran sweater and woolly tights. It’s so hot we can’t even use the pool during the day (don’t worry, it’s still very pleasant at dawn and dusk).

The river levels continue to go down, and this is now quite noticeable around the harbour areas of the city. At this rate, I’ll be lucky to get my new boat in the river at all, never mind thinking about the flutuante. For the annoraks amongst me, the level is down to 26.89m, receding now at the rate of 6 - 7 cm per day.

We’ve had the painters and decorators in and they’ve made a thoroughly good job of the bedroom and are now working on the rest of the house. We also currently have someone in installing aircon in the bedroom (which they should finish tomorrow, thankfully). The electrician’s coming tomorrow too, to try to make some sense of the previous owner’s DIY circuits and make things safe and sound for us, and the telephone company is threatening to install our phone sometime soon (still).

We had our first trip out on the river at the weekend, in our friends’ boat the Sammy III, which is a huge, diesel-powered (18m?) monster that I find far too intimidating – it looks like it should be spear-heading the invasion of Cuba or something. Anyway, it was wonderful to be out on the Rio Negro (actually the Rio Taruma), and we had a fish lunch at the

Flutuante Peixe Boi (which I think the translation of is ‘manatee’, although the literal translation is Fish-cow, which is much less elegant don’t you think?). When I was asked by one of the smug staff whether we were all English, I was pleased to say that I was Irish, my wife was Brazilian, my friend Italian and his wife Belgian. I think he was suitably dumbstruck by this veritable galaxy of bi- and multi-lingual foreigners. Jolly good thing too, if you ask me. Last night we managed to add a French and a German woman to the happy throng, in a local restaurant. It all sounds great, although frankly with my Portuguese being the worst amongst all of them, I feel pretty dumbstruck myself most of the time. Never mind.

On the positive side

I was reminded yesterday that I have occasionally been less than complimentary about my adopted country. This is true, although I reserve my right to be critical, whether in relation to Brazil, the UK, or anywhere else for that matter (blah blah blah…). Anyway, in an effort to balance the scales somewhat (and perhaps justify the decision to come to Brazil – or more specifically, Amazonas), let me say something more positive in my next few posts.

Firstly, there’s no such thing as “can’t do”, here. The concept just doesn’t exist. There is always a jeitinho, or “little way” to get round any problem, however large or small. There is a background hum of effortless inventiveness, attenuated by a calm acceptance of what is, which we in the UK may long since have lost. Take for example the paint kettle. They don’t do paint kettles here. A source of some frustration to a gringo like myself (well OK, only when I’m painting, but still...). What do I use instead? In the UK I might have nosed about and found a plant pot or something (except they usually have those pesky holes in the bottom), or (more likely) dug out that old Diana and Charles commemorative mug that Auntie Flossie gave us, with a promise to clean it out afterwards. But I never would have thought of the solution taken for granted by all the painters in Manaus – an empty Coke bottle. Take your bottle and cut it in half, pierce two holes on opposite sides of the newly created rim of the bottom half, find some old electric cable to use as a hanger, and away you go. And the neat thing about it is, as I discovered today down at the authorised Suzuki dealer, you can use the other half as a funnel – with the added advantage that it won’t drip after you’ve used it to top up your oil…because you just put the cap back on.

At the other end of the scale, let me tell you the story of Naice’s father trying to get retrospective planning permission for his newly-built petrol station, following a visit from the local planning authority. “Sorry, you’ll have to rebuild the whole thing – there’s insufficient frontage” (between road and buildings). Can I interest you in a few beers? “No”. Might I perhaps defray some of your expenses? “No”. OK, well I’m not going to rebuild it. “You’d better”. Will not, too. Etc etc. Enough to induce an arterial flutter in the best of us, no doubt. The solution? Carry on regardless, and meantime make some enquiries with the locals, discovering that half the government buildings along the same road fall foul of this particular planning requirement. On the next visit, tell the official Ok, tell you what, start at that end of the road and work towards me, and when I see that everyone’s complying, I certainly will, too. “OK, here’s your certificate.” This is a condensed version of an episode which took place over 18 months, with all sorts of threats of closure and sanctions and fines and what-not. Was Mr da Silva worried? No. Not in the slightest? No. He just carried on doing what he was doing, in the certain knowledge that the problem would be resolved in some way - and in the meantime, well why worry?

I’m sure there are a hundred and one other examples of this jeitinho, with the rather profound result that just about everyone you meet, and no matter their circumstances, is pretty happy with and optimistic about life. If anyone has read The Power of Now, you’ll understand me when I say that in general terms, the people of Amazonas are a pretty enlightened lot.

I’m trying to be enlightened myself, but these things don’t just happen overnight, you know? Today I watched the highly trained technician fitting the steering wheel to my brand new boat. He didn’t have the right drill bit for the fixings, so he used the smaller one as a rasp to make all the holes bigger (and much less round), while I sat there trying desperately to be enlightened, with my jaws clamped tightly around my index finger. (Hey, I’m working on it, okay…?)

Black Cars

They’re all the rage in Manaus. You have to have a black car, otherwise you may as well lie down in the middle of the road and get run over by one. Outside the illustrious establishment wherein I write, is a long line of shiny new black cars abandoned carefully in the driveway by their rich owners (of course we know they’re rich, because they have black cars). Size matters too, of course – the preference is a large 4x4 – and the make should be something you can’t buy without importing it especially; but when it boils down to it, as long as it’s black you’re OK.

And speaking of boiling it down, this is, of course, exactly what a black car will try to do to its occupants in 40 degrees of sunshine. In fact the obvious colour to go for is white, to reflect all that nasty heat and light. The problem is that this is the colour of the dreaded taxi. All taxis are white. It’s a tradition dating back to when Brazil got its first batch of Volkswagen Beetles (the Fusca). And no-one wants people to think they’re a taxi driver, now, do they?

I don’t suppose any of these rich and beautiful people have ever stopped to consider the reason taxi drivers have cornered the market in white, or ever thought it might be BECAUSE IT’S THE RIGHT COLOUR FOR THE CLIMATE. No. And why would they change even if they had the wit to consider this? Because they have the money to fuel their gas-guzzling, air-conditioned black tanks. And if their cars are black, everyone knows this. In fact everyone knows that they are so stinking rich they have no need to concern themselves with money. And so it is with the rest of Brazilian society, where madness is a sure sign of money. Why design something that’s efficient, effective and economical when it just doesn’t matter? Build your house with a flat roof, paint it black, put plate glass windows in it and let it face the afternoon sun – because it doesn’t matter: just turn up the aircon and to Hell with it. And why demand efficiency from others when you can happily pay for their inefficiency? See - it just doesn’t matter!

Meanwhile, the disenfranchised majority, who would probably be quite grateful for something in Brazil that was efficient, effective and economical, can go whistle. They don’t have enough money between them to influence the market, so the market carries on building, manufacturing, importing and distributing (hopelessly inefficiently) any old tat, because the rich don’t care about it.
Of course I have to admit we have plate glass windows and a black car. And I have to admit that we’re paying through the nose to get our container out of the port in the usual inefficient, and ineffective way (7 weeks and counting now). But that’s Brazil, innit though but…?

Things are looking up

We now have Sky TV. Whoopie! Now I can listen to the BBC world service and watch “BBC World” (which is the same old news repeated endlessly every half hour, and is usually about some politically correct region of the world (India & Pakistan, now) I have absolutely no interest in whatever - still, you can’t have everything, can you?).

We are also in the middle of having the house re-decorated, so we will be ready whenever the local Port hoods let us have what’s left of the contents of our container. This has now been fumigado (fumigated) at our expense (see earlier post), and now needs to be formigado or ‘anted’ – i.e. the hoods need to go over every inch of everything in it with a fine toothcomb.

Other news includes the unexpected inclement weather. I know some of you guys over in the UK are fully familiar with this phenomenon (ha ha), but in the dry season in Amazonas, it’s something of a rarity. So our recent days have been mercifully cool (sub 30), and evenings feel quite cool (like tonight, with condensation, even, on the car!). Long may it continue, although it has exposed a few areas in the house that are letting in water.

Speaking of water, it is apparent that our torrential rain here is only a minor part of the picture, as river levels still seem to be going down at a steady 2 - 3cm per day. We’re now down to 27.39m (sorry I misquoted before – the high water mark was 28.18m, not 8.18m as originally reported). This still bodes ill for the flutuante, although we’re now thinking of buying a small plot of land by the river this year, where we can moor the flutuante next year. We’ll see.

I have good days and bad days with my Portuguese. Sometimes I can communicate, other times it’s like:

ME “Uma cerveja, por favor.”
THEM “O que?”
ME “Uma cerveja, por favor.”
THEM “Desculpe. “Nao entendi,” “O que ele disse...?”
NAICE “Uma cerveja, por favor.”
THEM “Ah. OK.”

Translate it if you will.

I was in the Hotel Tropical again this evening. Lots of Americans there. No disrespect, but they really are irritatingly loud and cringeingly arrogant. And invariably pale and grossly overweight. (And far too tall for my liking…)
Some frog has just turned up and positioned itself strategically next to my beer. I’ll have to go and rescue it (my beer, that is). Ciao….

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.

Bote II

Following a further visit, more photos of the boat, which is in the middle of being painted. Hopeful that next week will see the project completed and Shamrock on the water...

Bote

As promised/threatened, some photos of the boat. I had written several paragraphs about it, but have now lost them (twice), and can't face typing it all up again - so you're spared the detail for the moment. More when the project is nearing completion.