Christmas lights in Sao Paulo

I was warned long before coming here that this city goes a bit doolally when it comes to christmas decorations, and I have not been disappointed.  So far, on Avenida Paulista, I have seen:

 

FIESP building

Probably a bank

I want to say HSBC...?

HUGE Christmas bridge over Av Paulista - apparently there's going to be a massive show. This is the first time, speaking as a Jew, that I've actually been *excited* about xmas.

Slightly spooky and quite beautiful LED display in Parque Trianon-MASP - this park is usually closed at night due to cruising.

Christmas tree in Parque Trianon-MASP

Itau Bank, which is in competition with the Jungle-themed bank. I think the jungle bank won, in my opinion.

The most interesting thing about the Christmas lights on Avenida Paulista are the crowds that come to view them every evening.  Most of the photos were taken on Monday evening.  There were thousands of people out and about late, around 9-10pm, with their families, taking pictures, walking around slowly and blocking the pavement (sidewalk, for any Americans reading this).  There was also a huge queue to get into the Christmas bridge.  I have no idea what's in there, but I intend on finding out, child or no child in tow.  My mother's small enough....maybe I can take her in...

Crowds outside Itau Bank

General Update

Chihuahua update: he now has fleas.  We had to dose him with frontline and then bleach and spray anti-flea spray everywhere.  Apparently it's something to do with him feeling unwell.  I don't give a flying f*** what it's about, I don't want to be bitten to pieces any more.  Although, it's worse for my mother because she has some kind of allergic reaction to flea bites - she gets a massive swelling about 5-10 centimetres wide.  Ouch.

Portuguese: my spoken portuguese is bollocks due to me speaking english most of the time.  I have a lot of shit to do: find work, sort out visas, other legal crap with our (english speaking) lawyer, make plans...we're really busy and taking the time to "umm" and "errr" through an awful Portuguese conversation is not top of my list of priorities.  I know it's important, I will get around to enforcing some portuguese conversation for a minimum of one hour a day at some point, but at the moment I'm limited to speaking it in shops, cafes/restaurants (which I don't go to very often), and screaming "COM LICENSA!!!" (roughly translated: "EXCUSE ME!!!") when trying to get past all the meandering Brazilians on Avenida Paulista.  On the plus side, my verbal comprehension is very good; i.e, I can understand everything you say but I will talk back to you like a 3-year-old.

Personal life: don't even go there.

Cachorro Fofinho

What I, or should I say we (just to be fair), have been dealing with mostly this week is the dog.  On Sunday he managed to get his paws caught in the escalator on the metro and had a rather nasty and bloody accident.  It looked a lot worse than it was.

We had to rush him to local veterinary hospital (!) for emergency treatment.  By the way, taxi drivers are assholes.  They wouldn't take us the impossibly-far-to-drive 6 blocks to the vets because we had a dog, despite the fact they could see very clearly that he was bleeding and he's TINY.

The vet hospital was better equipped and staffed than most human hospitals I have had the pleasure to see the inside of.  Most of the staff didn't speak English, so we had to communicate in very basic Portuguese (I'm beginning to graduate to full sentences, but still reverting to a pigeon version of the language when I'm in a hurry), using various hand signals and eventually Google Translate.

They had to clean up his wounds and he yelped, squealed and barked his way through the whole thing - even after they administered a sedative.  He's a chihuahua, they're "agitado" (jumpy/fussy) in general.

Then he vomited everything we fed him for about 2 days - including his antibiotics - so since Tuesday he has had to go to the vets twice a day for antibiotic shots.  He hates going there and saves all his pee for whoever is unlucky enough to be administering the shots.  He's eating special [expensive] mush for his dicky tummy and he's still refusing to drink water, so we mix it into the mush to make sure he doesn't get dehydrated.

Other than that, he's happily hobbling along on his messed up paws (no broken bones, just a couple of nails came off - hence the blood) that are healing quite well, and is enduring his neck cone.  Bless.

"When this thing comes off, I will have my revenge..."

My mediocre birthday and some Brazilian sentimentality

Yesterday was my birthday.  I turned 27.  It was a pretty 'meh' birthday as far as birthdays go.  I hadn't had the best week so I didn't really feel like celebrating.  I'm not going to go into it, I don't want this blog to be too much of a downer.  I'm well past my emo days, thank fuck.

Anyway, yesterday morning I dragged my arse out of bed at 8.30am on a Saturday, showered and got dressed because I promised my mother (why the hell did I do that?) that I would attend synagogue at 10am.  So, not only was my birthday going to be mediocre, I wouldn't even get a lie-in.

I got to the synagogue and got a very polite third degree treatment from the two security guards dressed entirely in black: black suits, black shirts, black ties.  Oswald Mosley would have been proud.  The second one asked me in perfect english for my passport, of which I carry a photocopy with me everywhere because I'm not idiotic enough to carry around an original.  People want to see your passport for the stupidest reasons in this country - like in order to get into a synagogue, for instance.  He went behind the big metal electronic sliding door for 5-10 minutes doing god knows what before he decided to let me in.

I had skipped breakfast and my morning coffee, so as I took my place next to my mother in the third row from the front all I could think was "I hope the time passes quickly so I can stuff my face at kiddush".

Then something unexpected happened.  There were two simchas (celebrations) happening at the synagogue: a barmitzvah and the naming of a baby girl.

First, the family of the baby came up to the bimah (large table at the front of the synagogue) and they announced her hebrew name and her portuguese name, Catarina, to the congregation.  The Rabbi asked the father to explain the reason for her being named Catarina.  The father stepped forward to microphone, said something unintelligible to my ears (everyone was speaking in portuguese) for about 10 seconds then his voice broke and he started crying.  His wife and two teenage daughters that were standing behind him also started crying.  He was speaking in fits and starts and mentioned something about his "avó" (grandmother).  I looked around the room and could see other people crying.  I looked at my mother and she was crying.  I realised I was crying too.

After that was over, the Barmitzvah boy came to the bimah and his father joined him.  His father read a brief speech, held his shit together, gave his son a long and emotional hug, then went back to his seat.  Next was the Barmitzvah boy's little brother - he couldn't have been more than 9 years old.  He was already sobbing before he got to the Bimah.  I couldn't really understand what he said either (something about whenever he has a question or a problem, his brother is always there for him), but I was bawling my eyes out along with everyone else regardless.  By the time the mother came up to the Bimah, I was all cried out, she talked for a long time and my mind wandered.  But it was all very emotional and everyone was in tears.

This is the polar opposite of what goes on at a British synagogue.  Yes, the whole family will be there but they'll be bitching behind each others backs, looking around the room at who dressed well and who looks a mess, making sarcastic jokes during the speeches, hiding their boredom ineffectively, and generally clock-watching.  Every eye in the house will be dry.  Jewish family rituals are generally seen as a chore.  There will be the odd member of the family saying "isn't it a lovely simcha?" but everyone finds them annoying anyway, so their opinion is generally disregarded.  OK, it's not always that bad but there's a lot of that going on.

After the service, there were two kiddushim going on in two separate halls.  The entire congregation was invited to both.  The baby one was nice but more like a normal kiddush.  The Barmitzvah one was a real party.  There was a lot of very good & very expensive food on a beautiful long buffet table, with real cutlery and plates, a flower display, another table for dessert, chocolates and sweets, 15 round tables exquisitely laid out, catering staff with headsets roaming around handing out champagne and soft drinks, clearing empty plates, there were 2 DJs, a sound system, and a dancing area.  Usually in England this kind of thing would be reserved for family and friends; it would be by invite only.  But no, this was a party for the entire congregation.  People of all ages joined in with the usual dancing you get at any Barmitzvah or Jewish wedding.  It was lovely. 

A gang of eastern european octogenarians took me round to both parties and kept plying me with straight vodka shots (they don't have standard shot measures here, FYI - it's whatever size you want it to be) until I had to leave at 2pm, on slightly unsteady feet.

I'm definitely starting to feel at home here.

Fome Zero

A few days ago in class we learned about a government program called 'Fome Zero' ('Zero Hunger') that was introduced by ex-president Lula in 2003.

I had been given a brief introduction to the scheme by a well-heeled Paulistana last Friday, but the way she put it was slightly different to what I read later.  She said something along the lines of "the government started paying them to stop migrating and stay where they were, because there were lots of people coming from the North-East, crime & poverty were increasing and Sao Paulo was getting too full. So they started paying them and it's getting less now."  Um, OK.  Thanks for that explanation... [backing away slowly from what would be a Daily Mail reader where I come from]

Then we read a text on it in school and it was more like "there was starvation, poverty and high infant mortality going on in several parts of Brazil - particularly the North-East - and the government pledged to do something about it".  Sounds a little different, huh?

As with anything political, the reasons for undertaking it were probably a bit of both.

The centrepiece of the Fome Zero program is the Bolsa Familia (Family Allowance), which is the largest conditional cash transfer system in the world.  It contributed to a 27.7% decrease in poverty in Brazil during ex-President Lula's first term (2001-2006).  27.7%.  The condition of receiving the Bolsa Familia is that the family's children attend school.

I've heard and read about funds badly administered, that they don't always get to the people that need them the most, or that it's just throwing money at the problem and not actually fixing it - and maybe on some level they are all true.  However, a decrease in poverty like that is not to be sniffed at - it is a major achievement.

Brazil has a long way to go on a lot of fronts, but they are making progress slowly - and the will to change is there.