Change of weather. Natal is moving out of it's winter period and it's starting to feel like swealtering summer again. There are only two seasons in Natal: 1) rain and sun 2) just sun. Of course, "winter" stretches the definition of the former. Basically, it means you might not wear shorts every day of the week, but now the baking sun is back you probably will. Unfortunately, the changing weather sometimes brings bad health. A lot of students are spluttering and coughing their way through the semester and today Nelson has a small fever.

Grandpa Barlow. I forgot to mention this last week, but Grandpa Barlow - Rachel's Dad's Dad - has been unwell and in hospital. We visited him there last weekend where he had lost weight and was quite out of it. So, he and the family are in our prayers.

Stop Press: Male student opts for vegetarianism! Vegetarianism in Brazil is a fringe cult reserved for lunatics. That's how the majority view it, anyway. So you can imagine how surprised we all were in my Saturday English class when, during a discussion about McDonalds, a young lad chirps up that he is going to decline all burgers as he about to start being a vegetarian for ethical reasons. "I tried last Sunday but failed so I'm starting again", he points out. "Sometimes I think I get on with animals better than people". For a red-blooded young north eastern Brazilian male this revelation is on a par with Billy Elliot telling his coal mining Dad that he wants to be a dancer not a boxer. The rest of the class were largely incredulous and we will monitor our young friend's progress in the next lesson.

I've seen eleven goals netted in my last two visits to watch my local team, America RN. Sadly, they only scored two of them. Four of us went to watch America play again yesterday. They were playing Santos, Pele's former team. Santos' no.10 shirt was illustriously worn by Pele in the 50s, 60s and early 70s where he brought unprecedented success to the club. More recently, the number 10 shirt has been worn by the Brazilian international Ze Roberto - but due to the threat of kidnapping to his family and insecurity he has returned to play in Europe. Santos' manager is former Brazil and Real Madrid manager Vanderlei Luxumbergo.

Anyway, Santos rode over America comprehensively beating them 4-1 last night. Our local team were diabolical. But, whereas I think British fans of a struggling Premiership team would show a bit of pluck and rally for their local team, Brazilians are very bad losers. British fans can't tolerate their players and manager not trying, but if the team DO compete and still lose, they are often given a rousing send off. And, although this is rare - it's true, if one team comprehensively outplays the other, British fans might sportingly clap the opposition at the end in the name of fair play. In the season when Arsenal went unbeaten this occurred a number of times.

Not in Brazil. Brazilians are fickle about success. The fact is, for a small north eastern town to have a team in the top division is already a fantastic achievement. My, how they partied a few months ago when they were promoted! But now that America are rooted to the bottom "holding the lantern" as the Brazilians say, nobody wants to give them the time of day. My students keep schtum on the subject of football now, like America RN are some king of unspeakable embarrassment. I've just come back from teaching a class and when I asked Thiago, an avid fan, if he bad been to the match he said this: "No way, teacher. It's a waste of money. I'm forgetting all about it. It's better to wait until next season when we are in Division 2".

And gate receipts for the club are way down despite the fact that some of the best players in the country are coming to Natal to play. When Santos scored their third goal yesterday, the two guys next to us got up and walked out. It was only the 47th minute. The team were boo-ed off at half time and at the end. Somebody near us threw a cup of coke at the goalkeeper. In Brazil the referee and linesmen are given armed escorts when they enter or exit the field of play. After yesterday, I felt the riot police should've been covering America's manager. Oh, for a bit of British stiff upper lip. Chin up, tally ho and all that.

Teaching English to a Premiership footballer. Have you ever wondered how the latest International signings who come over to play their football in England learn how to communicate with their English-speaking teammates? Answer - private English lessons. Chelsea's new Brazilian defender Alex (pictured above with Jose Mourinho) is being taught by my friend Julian Kenny. Actually, it seems the majority of people at Chelsea speak Portuguese and other languages so if Alex sticks at it for a few more weeks he'll be one of the most fluent English speakers there...

Julian, who is a very experienced English teacher and trainer and fluent Portuguese speaker, is staying with us in Natal for a few days and he came to watch the Santos game with me. One reason he came is Alex is a former Santos player and JK thought it'd be good to see his client's old team in action. Julian teaches English to Alex three times a week. (You may or not be interested to know that he teaches from the very popular English File Elementary coursebook). Alex, along with his wife and 3 year old daughter are living in a hotel while they sort themselves out in London. Alex is an Evangelical Christian and made it his priority to find a church, asking Julian for advice on where he could go. Julian has been filling me in on the inside story of life for a footballer earning a 6 figure-a-week salary. And here's a scoop: Julian says that Alex says that Mourinho is a very nice, caring man who is really fun to be around! That I find hard to believe.

Anyway, Julian is slowly getting his head around football lingo as he hasn't been a huge fan up to now. He even sent Steve and I a vocab list to help out with. I had to seriously think through the implications of indirectly helping a Chelsea player, especially one who knocked Arsenal out of the Champions League last season. But this Alex chap sounds like a nice guy, and he'll never know that I translated "boot it clear" as "score an own goal".

Tim Vickery, who reports on football in South America for the BBC, has written about Alex here.

(Several) amusing uses of English. I need to thank Ruth Leckenby for this startling picture from a public toilet near here in Natal. I hope you don't mind me posting it here, Ruth. All credit is yours for finding this use of Engrish. I wonder if Won would let me take a whizz?

But, it's not only Brazilians with amusing uses of English. I had to read a very dry Policies and Procedures document from an American agency who monitor a certain kind of English test. Before this particular English test, candidates have a picture taken of them. There were two pages of detailed description on how to take this picture. A highlight (or, perhaps, lowlight) was this description:

The examinee's nose should point toward the camera and be centered over the breastbone. This aligns the camera and the examinee's head and shoulders to produce the square frontal pose commonly known as a "mug shot". etc. etc.

So, what you're saying is we want a passport-style shot of the person's face. Summon the "Simple English" Police! And then:

Glasses may cause a glare to appear in the picture. If the examinee is uncomfortable without glasses, tilt his/her head down until the reflection of ceiling lights is no longer visible in the lens of the glasses. Then have the examinee raise his/her eyes (not the head) to look into the camera. Note that under certain lighting conitions, no amount of head tilting will completely eliminate reflections of overhead lights.

I'm glad we've cleared that up. Speaking of Simple English I have recently started teaching a group of four Lawyers from the Brazilian MNC Petrobras. One of them is his company's top dog for Tax Law in the Brazlian North East. I can't think of a more boring thing to know a lot about, although it has to be said he drives a very swanky car. Anyway, they want English to help them with Contract and Business Law. They even helpfully brought me a sample of the sort of stuff they need to read. I took one look at it and have decided that I need a crash course in the new language of LawSpeak before I even have a hope of teaching this to somebody else... Any lawyers out there with some Law 101 textbooks you could lend me? I don't yet know my mitigation from my litigation.

Amusing use of names. Brazilians, as has been mentioned before, do have some mighty unusual names. Rachel met a shop assistant with the name Jamaica last week. It turns out her father, a fan of the names of nations, called her siblings Jordan, Libya, Israel and Argentina. (I imagine Argentina's ex-boyfriend singing "Don't cry for me...").

Random things round our way: English language schools. We're just into the start of a new semester and the competition amongst the English language schools is fierce for the business of the local population. English schools are fat on the ground in Brazil as state education does not provide enough of a headstart for language learners, and top employers want English fluency. I took these pictures within the space of 10 minutes - all these schools, competitors of my employers Cultura Inglesa, are within a mile or so of our house. I know of at least one other private school run by an English guy, and I didn't get to photograph FISK school whose building is about 100 yards from Cultura. The language schools have creative names and logos - my favourite is the English and Spanish school "Watford": why has Watford suddenly been incorporated into the London underground? What does Watford have to do with learning Spanish? I'm sure there's a story there somewhere, but I don't quite get it...

To be fair to my Parents-in-law who run our school, Cultura Inglesa has a reputation for excellence and strives to be a market leader with respect to it's modern methods of teaching, use of technology (internet/DVD/e-boards etc.) and teacher training. Teachers at Cultura are expected to have Cambridge FCE (First Certificate in English) and now preferably CELTA (Cambridge English Language Teaching Award). Ironically, I have a young lady in my class who was an ex-Wizard* teacher. It seems that sometimes teachers from other schools come to Cultura to brush up...

* by ex-Wizard I mean, of course, that she was once teaching English at Wizard school, NOT that she was formerly herself a Wizard NOR that she used to be a teacher of Wizards, for example at a place like Hogwarts.

Things I miss about England #51: No dubbing on films. This evening I will be watching the new Simpsons movie at the cinema with my friend teacher Diego from Cultura. The word is that it will be dubbed into Portuguese for the benefit of any young ones who want to see the film and can't read. Homer just ain't Homer without his voice and, for me, "D'oh!" just doesn't have the same ring in Portuguese.

Things I love about Brazil #93: Clothes dry quickly. I've just hung out the washing. It's a nice sunny day and I know that within 10 minutes all my shirts, shorts and undies will be nice and dry, positively crispy in fact. Beats hanging soggy jumpers over radiators in York...

Home Alone. I shall be doing my best Macauley Culkin impersonation and setting boopy traps in the house this weekend as Rach and Nelson go down to Recife leaving me "sozinho" to fend off any burglars. I have to teach on Saturday which is why I can't join them. So, it'll be a case of getting the beers in and watching some Premiership on ESPN... oh and I might go to see the new Simpsons Movie with teacher Diego. On Sunday I drive down to Joao Pessoa to pick them up and also see the latest addition to the family. Rachel's Uncle and Aunt have a new baby: John Barlow, born last week. With a name like that you'd think he'd been born to a family on Coronation Street. Still, everybody is very excited - except perhaps Nelsinho, who slips down one place in the "cute babies who need spoiling" league.

Plastic Bags revisited: Saving the world one bag at a time. A small environmental victory was scored today in the sleepy city of Natal, North East Brazil. Due to an unexpected set of circumstances (which shall be relayed later) we are now quite well acquainted with the Manager at our local Nordestao supermarket. Nordestao, you may remember, is our favourite local place to buy groceries. You may also remember (see blog entry for June 12) that it is here that we accumulate an uncountable and vast number of plastic bags. Well, Rachel expressed her opinions about the wastage generated at Nordestao to our new Manager friend and he assured her we could bring our bags back - (although, we are unclear if he means we can return them to the shop to be re-used/re-cycled or whether we can re-use them ourselves through the tills).

As he put it in his best English to me: "You must deliver your bags here. It is important for the world". It is, indeed, important for the whole world to re-use ones plastic bags...

Noise pollution second thoughts. After posting my comments on the fireworks outside out house (see Sunday's post), I realised that I should have mentioned how lucky we are here in Natal compared to my folks in Chad. At least we don't have a panel-beating garage next to us, farm animals at our bedroom window, the mosque minaret calling people to prayer at far-too-early-am or, for that matter, gunfire in the street. At least fireworks are pretty to look at...

Feeling better. Thanks to God and a pampering wife, no more fever. Back to work tomorrow morning.

Things I miss about England #62: Minimal noise pollution. Sure, if you live, as we did, in a place like Clifton in York, you have to put up with the odd post-pub chant outside your window, but I am pretty sure that on average most urban places in the UK will be quieter in the evenings than most similar urban places in Brazil. Most of the time the booming music, arguing neighbours, local traffic and exotic wildlife don't actually bother us enough to make a point about it... but the fireworks, meu Deus! For some unknown reason (unknown as there is no festival requiring fireworks anywhere near this part of August in the calender) some bright spark (literally) has been setting off cheap but ear-drum-burstingly loud fireworks within the vicinity of our, and more importantly Nelson's, living space.

It's not as if they blast them all off and then stop - I could cope with that. No, they randomly string together half a dozen of their mini-grenades then wait for half an hour before lighting another six or so. I don't like fireworks or loud noises much at the best of times, so you can imagine what this does to my nerves by the end of an evening. I liken it to having a sadistic clown with a very loud toy gun pointed at your temple for several hours. The joke is he may pop another blank in your ear, but you don't know when he will do it again, or even if he is finished...

Last night was the worst. Nelson has proved his ability to sleep through fireworks displays (New Years Eve fifty yards from a beach party is the point in case) but just as he his settling down, having a volley of machine gun-like noises rip through your bedtime story isn't likely to stimulate those eyelids shut. No sooner had he dropped off to sleep when off went some more. Waaahhhh!!!! Twenty minutes later and he's nodded off again then off go the fireworks. Waaahhhh!!!!! etc. etc. Of course, each time this happens it also sets up a barking competition amongst our estate's canine population.

I'd complain if it wasn't considered social suicide in a country where poopoo-ing a party is on a par with killing the president.

Things I love about Brazil: #35: The way they do Father's Day. Today has been Brazilian Father's Day and now that I am in my second year of eligibility I thought I'd milk it for what it's worth. Cunningly designated for this Sunday in August, Father's Day in Brazil falls on the first day of the Premiership Football Season. Two years ago exactly, when Rachel and I were also in Brazil, my Father-in-law Steve took the opportunity in his position as Dad to call the shots on what the family would do with their day. I watched two back to back Premiership games, then went with Steve to a live football match, came back and watched another Brazilian football match on TV. With this in mind, Rachel babysat so I could watch uninterrupted on ESPN the great Arsenal play today in their first game of the new season. They nearly spoiled it for me, but turned a 1-0 shock deficit round to a last gasp 2-1 victory.

Already in a good mood therefore, I was chipper as we went off to our favourite beach just outside Pipa. Ruth, Rachel, Nelson and I joined up with Amy and her entourage of four "gringos" that she was hosting. Even a random Irish guy called John was brought along for good measure. After lunch and once in the sea it was time to try out my Father's Day gift... a body-board, oh yes! The Atlantic tide was coming in and quite high so I summersaulted a few 360s in the water and ended up with sand in places the sun don't shine but I was hardly going to let that spoil a perfect day.

Estou com febre. At home twiddling my thumbs with dull headaches and a fever which I can't shake off after three days. Like last term, I got ill at the start of the semester...

Goodbye to Amy. Firstly, Mark returns to England at the end of July and now Amy has moved out to her parents apartment. Ruth is off home on Monday leaving Rachel and I and Nelson home alone for practically the first time in Brazil: shock horror!

France revisited. Just a quick note to say what a great time we had in France at the end of July. In the beautiful country house of Seb and Jane, with space for the kids and Nelson to run around. Nelson's favourite things were there in abundance - steering wheels (on cars and farm machinery), "au-au"'s (in this case, cats) and lots of kinds of "bodga" (that's "bola" or "ball" to me or you). It was great to meet, some for the first time, some of my extended family and celebrate some key dates: JR's 40th, Aunty Margaret's 70th, Mum and Dad's 30th...

In France, we mainly relaxed although this did not mean we necessarily slept more (think jet-lagged baby waking up at 2am ready to play). A trip to the Asterix Park proved a highlight for me as a I relived my childhood (and, perhaps, adulthood) obsession with comic strips. Seeing Mum and Dad and letting them have time with their grandson was, of course, the key reason we were all there. An extra bonus for me: I benefited from some excellent discussions with the likes of Jane, Seb, JR and Joelle on life, parenting, our family history, Politics, travel... plenty of food for thought.

Random things round our way: the Machadao. I've cheekily copied the picture above from the Wikipedia entry for the stadium which resides less than half an hour walk away from our house. This huge disk is probably the best stadium in the North East of Brazil, and according to Steve, was designed in such a way as to remain breezy and cool despite being filled with 35,000 sweaty bodies. I have been lucky enough to visit stadia in Fortaleza, and several in Recife and another in Natal and none of them match the Machadao on all accounts of size, aesthethic appeal. access or general (pre-game) cleanliness. Natal's own America RN were promoted to Serie A (the Premiership of Brazil) last season and so they have entertained the likes of Sao Paulo and Corinthians here. In fact, the first game of the season - versus Romario's Vasco de Gama - attracted the biggest gate receipts for anywhere in Brazil.

With all that in mind, it was a pleasure to take Ruth to her first football match at the Machadao last Saturday evening. America RN were hosting Nautico, a team from Recife and the darlings of my Father-in-law Steve. At possible risk to our well-being we sat in the Nautico end, with Steve clad in a Nautico shirt, for the encounter. The game was a cracker and Nautico - recently buoyed by having a new manager - overturned the Natal team 5-1. As you can imagine, there was bedlam in our end of the stadium. The drums were out, everybody was hugging, jumping, dancing and hollering... By the final whistle most of the depleted America crowd had already gone home. You can see highlights of the game on YouTube here. The best goal of the game was from Nautico's right back Sidny (whose Father meant to name him after the Australian city, but misspelt his name). Look out for any gringos celebrating the goals... that would probably be us!

Recife to Joao Passoa to Natal.... without any trouble, you'll be pleased to here. Some pictures of the BRA desk in Madrid. Note the people sitting/sleeping on or around the check in, and compare the real time (19.29) with the supposed time for our flight (15.10). Now remember that after 19.29 we still had to wait five more hours, ay caramba!

Chauney to Beauvais to Madrid to Sao Paulo (to a hotel in Sao Paulo and then back to the airport) to Recife... in 44 hours. I know I should write about the great holiday I've just had, and I know there are probably more interesting things to write on a blog but I feel I need to get a few things off my chest after an exhausting long haul journey that took the best part of two days. This may take a while.

HOURS ON ROAD: 0
It all began innocently enough at 4am in France when Mum and Dad drove me across the sleeping French countryside to Beauvais airport. After goodbyes, I checked in to my Ryanair flight, bought a copy of Bill Bryson's autobiography of his childhood ("The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid") and mentally prepared myself for what I expected to be a long trip home... You see, after taking Ryanair to Madrid I was going to be in the hands of the brain-bogglingly incompetent organisation known as BRA, an airline so startlingly lacking in any sense of customer service or fair play there is a ground swell of disgruntled customers on the Brazilian internet forming organisations to boycott this chennabing company. We had already had our share of trouble trying to confirm my flights, they had cancelled my flight for the day I was supposed to be flying, and now my direct flight home was set to go via Sao Paulo... For reasons I won't go into and probably don't fully understand, by the grace of God, Rachel managed to get herself and Nelson on a direct TAM flight from Paris to Recife.

HOURS ON ROAD: 7
Once in Madrid, after some lunch, I made my way over to the BRA desk to check in my bags. Despite the screens displaying a 15:10 flight nobody appeared at the check in desk for hours. Complete silence and no BRA staff in sight. Thanks to my sister-in-law having made some calls the previous day I expected this delay, but the scores of other Brazilians who were there certainly did not. After some time those in the check-in line began to make themselves at home. Brazilians occupy space much the same way gas fills a box - randomly until all the corners are filled. What amused me was the way they made the most of the space BEHIND the check-in desks reserved for airport employees only. Kids jumped up and down on the luggage scales, one lanky chap took a nap on the desk itself while Gramps nodded off in the swivel chair. One enterprising lady covertly attempted to switch on the airport computers to try and see where our flights were... (pics of all this to follow).

HOURS ON ROAD: 12
After a few hours, the chattering amongst the Brazilians began in earnest and was generally good-humoured and banterous all things considered. But, the main question: what was to be done about our invisible flight? As in Brazil those that really took the initiative in getting things going were the middle-aged women, robust housewives with a point to prove. Whilst their husbands sat around supping cans of San Miguel they organised a factory line of complaint forms. I did my part, and one Brazilian lady sent her English speaking daughter over to check I had filled in the form correctly and complained about everything I was supposed to. Several took numerous pictures of every detail, presumably so photographic evidence could be used in court in the future case of the Brazilian people vs BRA. A coke-bottle-bespectacled Spanish airport employee was summoned at one point. When we mentioned BRA he blew a raspberry and waved his hand dismissavely. I didn't need to know Spanish to understand that he had probably been asked about BRA many times over the last few months and there was little he or we could do. Being uninformed was doubly frustrating - if the flight was known to be late and there were BRA employees to check our bags, we could have gone into Madrid for a few hours and done some site-seeing, but no such luck.

HOURS ON ROAD: 17
Eventually, at 21:00 somebody got wind that our check-in desks had changed to some new ones down the hall 50 yards. There began a mad scrum of children, hand luggage, trolleys and tickets to get to the new desks. There was an unspoken fear that some of us might be bumped, hence the rush. Those enterprising women who had organised the compaint forms continued their military operations by enlisting their husbands into securing the perimeter to ensure nobody jumped the line. We checked-in, moved into the departure lounge. Madrid airport, it has to be said, did not help much - it is a grubby little hole of an airport with large swathes cordoned off for development. No internet cafes either, to my dismay. So, most of us made use of the available seats and waited and waited and waited. The TV screens informed us our flight would be here 22:30, then 23:30. At 23:45 I turned the last page of the Bill Bryson book I had bought earlier but still no sign of our plane. Over the course of the day BRA had failed to provide us with any food (or any person to even talk to!) and so at midnight airport employees dished out sandwiches and coke bottles to us ravenous passengers. At 12:30am the plane arrived, and the exiting BRA victims filed out in dribs and drabs to raptuous applause from all of us.

HOURS ON ROAD: 21
At 1.00am things got interesting (or not) as Brazilian lady next to me in the line felt there was nothing better to do than to practice her English by regailing me with mundane banalities concerning the seven years she had passed in London in the 1980s. What I found surprising was how unfussed she was about the delay. I would nervously play with my watch and mutter "why are we not flying yet?" and she would reply dreamily "yes, this is very disrespectful to us. But my son, who is eighteen, will probably study in England later this year..." It helped past the time, I guess, although I was struggling to concentrate as my leaden eye-lids were lowering involuntarily. Shortly after, I was awoken from my stupor as the pilot and staff passed us to get on the plane which resulted in more claps and whoops from those of us awake. By 1.45am, it all felt like a strange surreal nightmare not helped by the boring woman next to me telling me such details as "I have a friend who teaches Flamenco in Glasgow", and then almost immediately and unrelatedly, "one thing I like about the English is they are not afraid of nakedness - you know, people taking off their clothes and lying down in cemetries". WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!!!! AND WHY ARE WE NOT ON THIS PLANE YET??!!!!

HOURS ON ROAD: 22.5
But, by the grace of God, by 2.30am we were on the plane and in the air, some twelve hours later than most of us expected. Nobody was assigned the seat next to me, so I stretched out and slept fairly well. Two rubbery meals were delivered to us over the course of the flight. As we approached Sao Paulo I had a scare. The pilot was saying something in Portuguese on the intercom but I wasn't concentrating. Something he said caused huge consternation in the cabin as Brazilians, up in arms, shouted "Opa!" and "Eta!", tutted and grunted, eyebrows raised in disgust. Baring in mind an airplane had crashed in Sao Paulo less than two weeks earlier, I feared that - following this reaction to the pilot's announcement - at best we would be landing in a football field or at worst one of our wings was on fire. Perhaps, typical to BRA form, we were about to be rerouted to Caracas. When I asked the couple behind me what the problem was they said: "Sete, a temperatura em Sao Paulo esta sete graus!" ... That is to say, the pilot had given the temperature on the ground in Sao Paulo. For Brazilians, it was to be a positively arctic-like 7C. I wiped my brow relieved. Cold weather was something I could cope with. Judging by the reaction of my co-passengers, freezing weather was probably on a par with imminent death.

HOURS ON ROAD: 32
And so, we plopped out of the clouds harmlessly, over sprawling favelas and landed with no difficulty in Sao Paulo. I picked up my suitcase which I was then to take round to check-in once more. The BRA desk was a mess and the dozen of us who were expecting to connect to Recife did what we had a lot of practice doing: we waited. We had missed our connection (obviously) so BRA, in their benevolence, ushered us onto a bus to take us to an hotel until our afternoon flight. The bus driver got lost on the way (begging the question, does any BRA employee know how to correctly transport anyone from a specified point A to a desired point B?). The hotel was pleasant enough and I was assigned a room, and then another one which, unlike the first, had it's own bed. In a bid to communicate my whereabouts I tried using the phone but failed dismally (probably not BRA's fault this one). I twice spoke to a man who, sadly, wasn't my brother-in-law Nelson. When I asked to use the hotel internet the polite lady gave me a sign-up sheet and password, neither of which worked. Internet was tantalising close but there was nothing anybody could do to get me online, so I went for a walk to find an internet cafe outside. It was Sunday morning (I had forgotten which day of the week I was in) so everything was shut except for a charismatic church and a Habib's restaurant. I probably should have gone to church, but instead indulged in a Carne Pastel and Kibe from Brazilian's finest fast-food emporium. My brief glimpse of the city left me with an enduring image of a gulag concentration camp. Everything was gray and grimy. Paulistas (Sao Paulo-ians) huddled together on street corners, huge overcoats, rubbing their gloved hands together and mumbling to each other through their scarves. I, in just an extra shirt, felt that 7C was a perfectly good temperature for a sprightly walk.

HOURS ON ROAD: 38
After lunch at the hotel it was back to the airport. The dozen of us on this ordeal together were forming a tight-knit crisis community. The journey ride was filled with more endless chattering of check-in desks, delays and the prospect of legal action directed against Brazil's most vilified air transporter. At the airport, more chaos. The line for the BRA desk zig-zagged endlessly through Sao Paulo's concrete airport for several hundred yards. When we found the end of the queue we were practically outside. Wisely, I stuck close to my friends, especially the ones who seemed to be the most skillful complainers. Shortly, we were given our own desk as we were on connection. It seemed like we were getting somewhere. But another hour passed and nobody was checking our bags. In theory we had already missed our connecting flight. Finally, a very stressed BRA employee who had one ear permanently glued to a walkie talkie processed our bags and wrote out our boarding cards by hand. Another mix-up ensued for me, in which time I lost a vital piece of paper from my passport, entered the Domestic departure area (I was going to Recife, after all!) instead of the International departure (the BRA flight's final destination was Milan) and got stuck behind the red tracksuited delegates from the Pan American Games' Peruvian team at the hand-luggage x-ray machine.

HOURS ON ROAD: 39.5
I scampered to my gate as they were boarding. Once through the gate I was pulled aside where I met up (again!) with the same dozen travel-weary passengers who had been on the original Madrid flight. I greeted them with a cheery "Tudo bem, gente?" and I was met with some wry smiles in return. There was a problem. BRA weren't happy (why would they be?) with our non-electronic boarding cards (which, incidentally, they had issued!). For a while it looked like we were going to get bumped from the flight, but finally, and after some calls, they scribbled our seat numbers on our tickets and let us board. I found my seat (26G) and sat down relieved. Five minutes later a sweaty man came pacing down the aisle, stopped next to me and mumbled something about wanting to sit in seat 26G. The air stewardess came over. Sure enough, he had an ELECTRONIC boarding pass which said 26G. My homemade "fake" boarding pass which had been cobbled together looked decidedly unauthentic in comparison. I gripped my seat handles in preparation for a fight: I WOULD NOT BE BUMPED FROM THIS FLIGHT! Fortunately, there was space (just!) for all of us and the man took a seat a little behind me. We took off, some two hours late.

HOURS ON ROAD: 41
For the first time on my journey BRA provided onflight entertainment. Up until then it had been a case of no magazines, no TV and no headphones for armrest FM. But, here, on my final leg of the journey, some very throughtful air steward decided that all of us in the cabin could do with a bit of "Simply Red". So we watched a DVD of Mick Hucknall and co live in concert for two hours. My problem was that I had a loud speaker above my seat which made it impossible to ignore the spectacle, but I was some 40 feet from the TV set, and so through squinted eyes I could only make out the bobbing red barnet of the leadsinger. So, it was entertainment, but not of the classic variety. And then at long last we descended into Recife and the plane touched down. As soon as the steward uttered the immortal words "Finalmente, chegamos em Recife" ("Finally, we've arrived in Recife") the cabin burst into spontaneous cheering...

HOURS ON ROAD: 44
Once in the airport, my bag was first off the conveyor belt and I pegged it past the customs man and out. I was mobbed by Rachel's family and Ruth, all of whom had been at the airport for the best part of the day scanning the passengers of all flights in from Sao Paulo and trying to find out my whereabouts. Steve suggested we should design a T-shirt with the slogan: "I'm not a feminist, but I do say no to BRA". Back at the flat, our good friend Julian Kenny made the fair point that BRA probably stands for "Bl£#dy Ridiculous Airline".

With retrospect there was some good things about these flights... OK, maybe not "good" things but at least silver linings on the edge of a very big cloud. I can think of three things. Firstly, baby Nelson didn't have to travel this way home. Rachel had a direct flight from Paris. I left early on Saturday morning and she left on Sunday afternoon and she nearly beat me home! Some of the Brazilians on the Madrid flight had young families - what a nightmare it would have been to entertain, feed and water everybody for 44 hours in airports and airplanes. Secondly, my luggage wasn't lost. Thirdly... I can't think of a third thing... I suppose we didn't crash. Oh, and it did give me the opportunity to read lots of books. I had a Gideons New Testament and read all the book of Acts which can't be bad.

All of this leads me to conclude two things.

Things I miss about England #22: BRA does not exist. English people should be grateful that no British airline operates at quite the same level of incompetence as BRA.

Things I love about Brazil #77: The generally good-natured and efficient way Brazilians deal with a crisis. Latin Americans just seem to get on with life and generally remain up-beat and cheerful even if the world is falling to pieces around them. Their main tactic is to keep talking to each other, speaking in loopy conversations about everything. Brazilians, particularly, seem to have an in-built chip for remaining optimistic in the face of insurmoutable odds. I have to say for most of the time on this adventure I was fairly amused and content. And that was definitely because I wasn't doing it all alone. I can't think of a better group of people to spend 44 hours in close proximity to than a posse of all-age, mixed-background, pepped-up Brazilians.

NB. This was the second longest travel nightmare of my life, still some 16 hours short of the 3 day round-Africa trip to Chad in 2000.

So, it's goodbye to France... It's been a great week here with Mum and Dad and everyone. Everyone is exhausted - babies crying at night mostly. I fly out tomorrow morning on Ryanair then to Brazil on the impossibly unreliable and difficult to confim flights with BRA airlines. Next post back in Brazil.

York to Leeds to London to Wadhurst. Thanks to Hutchings' lift I made it to Leeds on time... thanks to Roger Simpson's generosity I made it across London in a taxi instead of the tube... thanks to the South East trains I arrived in Wadhurst 25 minutes late because of power failure... So great to see so many cousins, second cousins, Uncles and Aunts down in Wadhurst.

Wadhurst to Dover to Calais to Chauny. It's an overcast morning in a tranquil French village and I am writing emails from a room in the corner of a spralling manor house. The house belongs to my cousin Jane and her husband Seb. Also resident here (or near here) are their three kids; Jane's folks (my Uncle John and Aunty Margaret), some cats and other farmyard critters. Rachel and Nelson arrive tomorrow direct from Recife to Paris. We will all be joined by even more cousins and second cousins over the week.

Getting to France with Mum and Dad was no problem on the ferry. Jane's little car with the worrying clunk under the back axle stayed steady, despite the piles of suitcases. I have loads more to write on here but the French keyboard is driving me nuts; it's already taken me far too long to write this much. Perhqps next ti,e I'll just zrite the e,qil on Dad's co,puter qnd copy it over ,qnuqlly;

London to Manchester to York. Just a brief update from casa Byrne. It's great to be here and finally meet Gracie Byrne! Danny's cooking a fry up, Gracie's playing with her jungle gym. I have just been evicted from the dining room to allow Danny's Dad to the lay the table.

Yesterday was a success when it could so easily have gone all wrong. Made it to Victoria Coach Station in time for £2 Megabus trip up to Manchester. Half the nations of the world were represented on the coach - another reminder of being back in multicultural Britain. Despite rain and roadworks-inducing diversions we made it to Manchester on time. Paul Rockley was there, and it was great to catch up with him, his family and Nathan and Priya. They are a very inspirational family, trusting God in the wake of a painful six months. They drove me to York for the St.Mikes evening service where, I should've guessed, Roger dragged me to the front to share a bit about life in Brazil. I saw everybody I wanted to see and I wasn't late for anything... a miracle!

(Also, I should add how much fun it was seeing the Thomas' little one Rachel on Friday, jamming until "my fingers bled" with Mev and seeing folks from EEFC at Dave Plowman's wedding on Saturday).

Natal to Recife to Madrid to Luton to London. I'm writing this in Mev's room back in ol' Blightey. It's been a long couple of days but I slept 11 hours last night and feel great. A few amusing incidents trying to get out of Brazil... in Recife I went to the shopping centre to change some Reais into Euros. The first place I went to put up a real fight, they looked at my passport, made some phonecalls, got very concerned and refused to serve me unless I had my CPF number (which was back in Natal). I half expected some security guards to pop round the corner and whisk me off to some interrogation room. In my huffiest Portuguese I explained it wasn't important as I was only in Madrid for 4 hours and would just get money some other way. So I walked out. 10 minutes later I find another place to change money, it looked official from the outside but in the cubicle there was small man in a shirt and jeans with a blaring TV behind him - no questions asked, he did not even want to see my passport and he gave me a good rate for my Euros. If at first you don't succeed in Brazil, try, try, try again.

On the flight over I sat next to a Brazilian family who were travelling to Lisbon. They were coming from the southern-most tip of Brazil. I thought I had a long travel itinery but these guys had had to drive to Porto Alegre from their home (3 hours), take a flight to Sao Paulo, stay a night in a hotel, fly up to Recife (4 hours), fly to Madrid (8 hours), then back to Lisbon... They had brought the kids and Granny+Grandpa. It must have been a trip of a lifetime and cost them a small fortune. But, like me, they were on the exceedingly budget "BRA" airlines... known as "The flying bra" in our family. Again, I am reminded of how big Brazil is. In fact, this week I found out that in Natal we are closer to Africa and Europe than we are to Sao Paulo in the south.

Madrid, and our plane arrives late. Easyjet aren't happy about my 30 kilos bag. I repack it and get it down to 19 kilos with the rest in my now exceedingly heavy hand luggage. I drink 3 cans of Guarana (of the 12 I packed) to maximise on weight. Having guzzled all the fizzy drinks I should ever want I don't have time or desire to buy any snacks in Madrid. So, that hassle changing cash in Recife into Euros? I needn't have bothered.

But, seeing Mum and Dad in Luton made it all worth it. And after a pub lunch in which Roast Lamb and Stocky Toffee Pudding were heartily enjoyed, and after paying a visit to sweet baby Rachel Thomas and her folks, all was well again...

Sweet Curry, the Brazilian view of foreigners and Princess Anne. Thanks to Ruth bringing some Rafi's Spice Box packs over with her we had TWO curries last night at our house. We made it a dinner party with Rachel's parents and also some of the trainers on the CELTA course that is running in Natal this month. There was some good banter at the table between Steve (Rachel's Dad), Ron and Julian. What these three don't know about English Teaching isn't worth knowing.

We got onto the subject of the stereotypes Brazilians have of Brits and Americans. It was not uncommon for me last semester to get students asking me out of the blue questions like: "Do people laugh and have fun in England?", "Why does everyone like the Queen?", "If somebody falls down in the street, is it true that in England everybody will ignore them?" and so on. Ron had some good stories to do with this. I think I should quote him directly from his book - the essential How to Say Anything in Portuguese - by Ron Martinez.

In part due to the constant exportation of images and "culture" from other countries to Brazil, some Brazilians who have never even left their own cities believe they know all there is to know about where you are from. Especially if you are of North American or European origin, Brazilians will assume that you are a cold fish, are work-obsessed, are probably bad in bed, dance like you have a herniated disc and only bathe once a week.

From my experience, Ron's analysis is spot on. However, the Brazilians are probably only right about the dancing. Most Brits I know have a bath at least twice a week.

Small aside... Steve has to give a short speech immediately preceding Princess Anne (of all people!) at a Cultura Inglesa conference in Sao Paulo this July. He got me to proof read the script before it was screened by the Palace. I get the impression Steve is dead chuffed about this opportunity... and, well, I think he should be.

Mev has left the building, Ruth has come in and gone to bed. After 6 glorious months in which he made many contributions to our meagre lives in Natal (mainly noise and smell contributions) Mev has returned from whence he came and left a rash-sized hole in our home... No sooner was he out the door on early Saturday morning than we had Ruth Leckenby of YOYO and St.Mikes fame arrive last night for 6 weeks. Haven't seen her today. She may be asleep still.

Birthdays galore! It was my birthday on Sunday. Rach surprised me on the Saturday night and instead of taking me to see Shrek 3, whisked me off to our favourite Pousada (B+B) for a night of unbroken sleep whilst Grandparents babysat little guy. I'll let her tell her side of the story next blog. Thanks to all who were around for the big weekend. And thanks to Brazil for beating Chile 3-0 and generally leaving us all a lot happier with our football than this exact same date last year (when England and Brazil got knocked out the WC). Oh, and "Parabens" and "Feliz Anniversarios" were also celebated in aid of it being Mariano's birthday last Tuesday and Tio Nelson's birthday on Saturday.

A full English fried breakfast, tea with fresh milk, fresh bread and cereal that doesn't taste like cardboard. Just some of the things I'll be looking forward to on a brief return trip to the UK. Rach will fly out to France later in July and I (with my parents) will join her and Nelsinho for a holiday with my side of the family. I arrive in the UK on Friday 13th (ominous for some, but not for me - I'm a Christian). I would like to see babies Rachel Thomas, Gracie Byrne and Esme Kippin as well as celebrate Danny's birthday and my Dad's birthday too. So, will be in York Sunday 15th until Tuesday 17th probably then off to France on the 19th...

Re: comments above. We really do miss Mark, really we do.

More funny English from recent student exam papers.
Job application for a chef: "I think I would be really good at this job. I've always wanted to be a cooker". (We have all the equipment we need sir, it`s a chef we want!).

In a composition about holidays: "We all need a holiday. It is important to have a break from your dairy routine". (Yes, but can I have a holiday even if I'm not a farmer?).

Goodbye Henry. The legend leaves. For the sake of posterity, I'm so pleased I saw him score at Highbury once. Cesc and Gilberto the way for the future. Either that, or I'm supporting Barcelona next season...

Hello R.E.M. The greatest band in the world (IMHO) are playing five dates in Dublin as an open rehearsal for their new album. After 27 years they're still flying the flag although it's uncertain if (to mix metaphors) the boat floats as well as it did... Sadly, I shan't be going to Dublin but I have found the dimmed coals stoaked into life for the music of Stipe, Buck and Mills by an excelllent blog where a chap tries to write a commentary on every R.E.M. song ever recorded (that`s about 250 tracks!). I have also been quite amused by the cultural marriage of two of my favourite instituions - R.E.M. and the Simpsons. Ever wondered what Homer would sound like singing "It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)". Well, click here and see.

ENGLAND v BRAZIL
Things I miss about England #29: The Police are generally not bent. Following the mid-week wedding of Rachel's cousin Natasha to K Max (not sure how to spell his name, but that's how it sounds...) we were stopped at about 10.00am just outside Joao Passoa at a police roadcheck. Mark was driving and four officers were annoyed he didn't have his passport even though he didn't need it and had never been asked for it before. They tried every trick in the book to get us to pay up - "This can be settled here and now" etc. They feigned calling the Federal Police (which we were fine about as this would have confirmed Mark was in the right). They even took Mark and I out the car to semi-frisk us for "armas", but it was actually a cunning ploy to get us to look in our pockets for 10 bob they could have. Anyway, we stood our ground and within 20 minutes were on our way. Just a pain is all. You can see how it is easy to play this game - if we had handed over just R10 (£2.50) at the start they would have waved us through...

Things I love about Brazil #19: People know how to throw a party. To say goodbye to Mark some friends of ours (Marcello and Veronica and their two kids Kaka and Jonathan) organised a huge, no-holds-barred send off. It was a surprise party at their apartment complex with BBQ, some brief dramatic performances, speeches, prayers, hugs, tears and video messages on a big screen. All week everyone had managed to keep schtum during the planning and not let Mev in on the secret. The big event is still going on as I write - we came back to put Nelson to bed. It all seemed to work exceedingly well. Veronica said her aim with the party was "to make Mark cry" (Brazilians love everyone to bawl at farewells). I said, being a British lad, he wouldn't. I wish I could say I lost the bet, but despite torrents gushing forth from Brazilian tear ducts, Marks eyes remained resolutely dry throughout the night.

I was mighty impressed with the affection poured on Mev at this party. If I had been organising his farewell he would have been lucky to get a piece of pizza at the airport and a hearty slap on the back...

End of the Semester shenanigans... All the kids are panicing and excited in equal measure at the end of the semester. More exams so more amusing uses of English to correct. Really, it is hardly fair to write this stuff here but this student got a very good mark in all other respects: "Huteri's is a club with very loud music. You can dance until your legs can't handle you anymore!".

I know exactly what she means, but the implication is that if you dance too much your legs might get so exhausted they will detach themselves from your waist and literally walk out... if only she had put "it" instead of "you".

For people learning English, prepositions (by, in, on, at, about, with, for, of etc.) are a nightmare - so small, totally irregular and liable to alter meaning considerably. in fact, it's still the one area my wife and her sister get wrong despite having total fluency in English in all other respects. One of the teacher´s here told me that when he writes English he does everything in his power (rewriting and rewriting sentences) to make sure he avoids using prepositions because he fears he will make a mistake. As an example, one student volunteered this mistake she had made in a test last year: "I lived in a house made by trees".

Sunday Times. We had an excellent Sunday lounging round the house after the hectic running about for Nelsinho's Saturday party. After church in the morning, Steve and Celia, various other relatives and Nelson and Marcella came over. Natal is in the midst of it's rainy season and so we couldn't venture out even if we wanted to because the skies were hurling down torrents of water... a great excuse to sit back, finish off Nelson's birthday cake and watch Beckham leave the Santiago Bernabeu with La Liga trophy. It would have capped a perfect weekend except...

The short but exceedingly significant life of Perry "Muggins" the Gatinho, died 18th June 2007 aged 3 weeks approx. Last Thursday one of the Cultura Inglesa students found a very young kitten under a box under a tree outside the language school. Whoever left him there was smart as lots of kids pass by that way to and from the Cei and Floca schools. Sure enough, one of them picked up the kitten and came into Cultura. This "gatinho" eventually ended up on my lap, and in a moment of childlike compassion I decided to take the cat home without even consulting my wife (known for being less feline friendly). Perhaps, I still harbour some need to atone for my treatment of young cats when I was a kid (a story of which was quoted by my best men at my wedding).

I soon realised that looking after such a young kitten was going to be harder than I expected - perhaps, as a kid you forget the responsibility that comes with having animals if your parents are around. Anyway, after checking the internet and consulting Uncle Nelson's girlfriend (a vet), we got him a nice box and fed him formula milk through a syringe. He perked up well and soon began to work his charm on us, including my wife. By Saturday, after having cared for him for three days around the clock, I felt we should get him out of here to somebody else. Sadly, Brazil is not equipped with an RSPCA and we were a bit short of options on who to call... However, by Sunday I was amazed to hear a chorus from the family - led by Rachel! - suggesting we should keep Perry. Nelson seemed to enjoy him and he would be less of a pain to keep than a dog. Marcella (the vet) gave advice about injections and said she would help. So, I too became convinced - Perry would be our family mog.

But, alas, when I went to give him his 11pm feed he had become quite listless and lethargic. A bad sign, and despite various attempts to revive him, he passed away during the night. Cause of death unknown - perhaps he got a bit damp and caught a chill from all the rain. Perhaps the thought of a life of being whumped and verbally abused by Nelsinho was too much of a shock to the system for young Perry. Who knows? In any case, I hope we gave him a better shot at life than he would have had. (I find myself being strangely philosophical as I write this: "Why did it happen? Was it the right thing to take him in? What if...? What does God think about the life of a small cat? What's the right perspective to have when the world, Brazil even, has much much greater problems and tragedies?")

So, here is a short biography of his accomplishments:

Perry was named after the Arsenal footballer of the same first name (Perry Groves). They have in common the same ginger haircolour. In his short career as a cat Perry survived the traumatic experience of leaving his mother aged only 2 and a half weeks. He also survived a 1 year old's birthday party, learned to feed from a syringe and contrbuted two chapters to a collected academic work on the price of fish in 16th Century Switzerland. He passed away in his sleep surrounded by his friends. R.I.P. Perry.

The first birthday party of Nelson (aka. Pocoyo). Just a quick note, exhausted after a great day. Lots of family and friends around for the little one's first. Big thank yous to many, many people - not least Rach (for planning), Nels (for sleeping in the morning so he could be awake for his party), Steve and Celia (for everything), Mev (for blind photography), Amy (for making Pocoyo's Mum's dress), Barbara and Mariano (for offering a spare nappy in an emergency), Granny and Grandpa Mac (for singing Happy Birthday via a tape sent from Chad) and all you others who travelled distances and gave top pressies.

"I'd like a diet baby, a toddler burger, extra cheese... thanks". Last Thursday we went to Maracajau and to a water park they had there. Nelson loved it, as did we all. Spotted this amusing use of English at the entrance.

Busy but fun few days. On Saturday we flew down to Recife for Miguel's first birthday - Miguel being Nelsinho's best mate and the son of our good friends Barbara and Mariano. First year birthday's are huge events here - this one had 8000 balloons for decoration and was on the scale of a wedding reception.

On Sunday it was round to Tia Aurora's new flat and a surprise lunch for Nelson's Great Grandma Laulau who is soon 79. I hope nobody will be offended if I say that Laulau is a nutter - but the best kind of a nutter: the really good egg sort of a nutter. Much good family banter was had by all, the only hitch being when, after some short family speeches in honour of the great lady, Laulau took to the floor herself and got immersed in telling unconnected stories from her youth. (Excerpts: "I grew up in a lighthouse... My Father who was a strict Presbyterian made us dress up for a Bible study each evening... I was trying to come from the interior with a huge suitcase that was too big for the car...). Half an hour later the food was cold and people were trying to gently usher her toward a conclusion so we could start eating.

ENGLAND v BRAZIL
Things I miss about England #31: Bringing your own bags to the Supermarket. I've just come back from the weekly shop at Nordestao (a very good chain of North East Brazilian supermarkets) with another two dozen plastic bags. The problem here is that labour being so cheap, Supermarkets employ a small battalion of baggers. These baggers are generally amiable but they take their job very seriously and practically bag every single object TWICE. Today, I thought I got away with it as the till I was passing through did not have a designated bagger. I quickly started stuffing as many fruit and veg into as few bags as possible hoping to stem the tidal flow of crinkly plastic to our larder at home... but, alas, bagger "Maria" spotted me, (a customer!) bagging my own produce and so she stepped in and promptly took over. What's more she re-bagged (twice!) the fruit and veg I had safely put into the shopping trolley.

In the interests of saving the planet, Rach once brought our old bags to the supermarket to re-use like we would do at Tesco's in York. She was flatly ridiculed by the cashier, who then called over his colleague to look at the "crazy" lady who brought her own bags. The bagger was unimpressed by Rachel bringing her own bags as it encroached upon her job description of bagging customers produce with NEW bags. Last weekend, I saw an item on the news about an old lady in Sao Paulo who makes cloth satchels and takes them to the Supermarket to use instead of plastic bags. This was clearly seen as being "barmy" enough to warrant a news story... but, slowly, maybe due to her efforts and the efforts of my wife, the message of bag recycling is getting out there...

Things I like about Brazil #65: Cheap Internal Flights. Brazil is vast and travelling between cities can take many hours by bus or car. There is a very limited train network too. Internal flights are far more common and, if you buy smart, can be the cheapest and quickest mode of transport for any distance over about 200 kms.

So, we took some discounted GOL tickets down to Recife and were due to fly back late to Natal (on a "red eye" as Americans say) on Sunday night. Sadly, our plane was delayed over 2 hours. Imagine trying to entertain a confused, extremely wired but exhausted nearly-1 year old at 2am in a crowded airport. The main problem was trying to keep him from waking other people who were trying to have a kip. We finally boarded, took the half hour flight back, and set our heads to our pillows in our Natal home at 4.30am. Within two hours Nelson was up and I had a lesson to teach at 9am. Mental note: let's not do this again. Pay more for a day flight, but pay less in loss of sleep.

Random things round our way: the 3 Kings. Before there was Natal, there was a small fort called the Three Magi Kings ("Forte dos Reis Magos") which began to be built in January 1598 on the day of Epiphany. Natal ("Christmas" in Portuguese) is so named as it was established as a village outside the main coastal fort on 25th December 1599. Consequently, throughout the city signs and symbols alluding to the Nativity are visible everywhere. Driving up from the south on the main highway into town a huge bridge in the shape of a shooting star with statues of the Three Kings following greets visitors. And, about 200 yards from our street, these three lit up Kings, each about 40 ft high, can be seen from our house.

Buy a house in Natal. Well Done Aunty Betty for spotting this ace article in The Times travel section about why Brits are flocking to Natal to snap up beach homes. Read about here.

ENGLAND v BRAZIL
Things I miss about England #23: York Minster. I miss the familiarity of this enormous, beautiful building. You could turn a corner in any part of the city and come face to face with the Minster. (In a strange way, I always took this as a reminder of God being with us always - you'd turn a corner in life, and God would be there already). Anyway, about the Minster: it was just nice to know it was there. And I miss Constantine on his statue who I could see weathering all seasons from my office window...

Things I love about Brazil #2: The Beach. "The best thing about Brazil is it's just nice to know that the beach is there", said Amy recently. Couldn't agree more.

WWIW update. Electricity rewired (although the electrician had to take a hammer to our patio which has left a hole), car working again more or less, most things roughly functioning as they should... except for some reason I can't call Rach on my new cellphone or vice versa. WWIW?

Corpus Christi holiday. Today is another Brazilian holiday (see May 6 blog). Rachel's folks are here. I think we may go snorkelling.

Why Would it Work? (WWIW). This picture may look like Rach has got a corkscrew stuck up her nose but that's not what's going on... actually, in her right hand she is holding the top of the corkscrew which broke while I was trying to undo a bottle of wine yesterday. It is a recent and classic example of WWIW? - Why Would it Work? Brazil is great for many things, but it has to be said (and I think most Brazilians would agree) things, don't always work as expected... And I know, back in the UK everyone has "one of those days" but sometimes round here it feels like a novelty NOT to have one. The phrase Why Would it Work? (WWIW) was coined by Richard, a Brit on the CELTA course in January, and it has been uttered with frustrating regularity around here over the last couple of weeks. As a taster, within the last fourteen days...

The clock at the bottom of the stairs stopped working (WWIW)
The car wasn't going right because of dirty petrol (WWIW)
Half the electricity is missing from our house, although it momentarily returned during a rainstorm before flickering out again (WWIW)
The cable TV sometimes cuts out (WWIW)
The TV has very strange sound levels that mean you have to watch films constantly fiddling with the volume on the remote to try and hear the dialogue as well as avoid waking Nelsinho with the deafening music (WWIW)
The internet server is temperamental and shuts down often (WWIW)
The car needs a new starter motor (WWIW)
My new watch resets itself every time the alarm goes or you try to use the stopwatch (WWIW)
The fan in Nelson's room has packed up (WWIW)
I couldn't get hot water from the shower on Friday (WWIW)
The printer in the Teachers room only works occasionally (WWIW)
The computer in the Teachers room reboots at random (WWIW)
The DVD players in the classrooms at Cultura sometimes spit out the DVDs they're supposed to be playing (WWIW)
The natural gas option in our hybrid car pops worringly so we have stopped using it (WWIW)
Nelson manages to burst his nappy on regular occasions (WWIW)
I try to speak Portuguese but nobody understands (WWIW)
The light bulb in the fridge has stopped working (WWIW)
The man coming to fix our electricity can't come on the day we thought he would (WWIW)
and so on...

But before you start quoting me the Scripture "Do everything without complaining", let me be the first to hold my hand up and say that sometimes we create our own problems. We have become so used to our car having problems that we took it straight back in last Wednesday when the A/C stopped working. A/C is essential round here, and it had been working before we took it in to the shop about the dirty petrol. (One theory: is the garage sabotaging our car so we keep giving them business?). Anyway, our fears for the car were unfounded on this occasion - the mechanic called us up and, with barely disguised amusement mixed with contempt, he explained we had simply failed to turn the A/C on... it was in fine working order, but the reason we weren't feeling any cooler is that we had failed to PRESS THE SWITCH. So, in conclusion - sometimes my brain malfunctions (WWIW).

ps. WWIW should not be confused with WWJD.

"Somebody is trying to steal my music" (Part 1 of a long story). Here follows an account of an eventful weekend. It all began on Friday night. Half our house didn't have electricity (another story), but we are all safely tucked up in bed when the doorball rang at 2am. Lots of commotion and the Police outside. I stumbled downstairs after Rach to find half a dozen neighbours fussing about, two policemen and a small whispery old man who kept tapping me on the shoulder to tell me something about "o telefone". Amy's car had been broken into and the radio taken out. The Police had been quick to arrive thanks to the phone call made by the small whispery man. The crook in question was obviously an expert as he silently popped a back window without breaking anything. (In fact, the complete glass has already been replaced). Strangely, the radio was still there on the seat - the thief having bolted quickly without his prize when the cops showed up. And so Amy secured the car and parked the car inside our walls. The end of the story... or so we thought.

In the morning when we were more awake we went to sort out the car but, astonishingly, the radio itself had gone missing. Amy remembers it was still on the passenger seat when she brought it in. So, donning our best CSI caps we can only conclude that our thief (or the Police?) returned in the night, scaled our wall, climbed through the popped window and made off with the system back over the wall. This criminal, we were discovering, was cunning, bold and probably athletic. When we have Kanu the Schnauzer here I think this won't be possible - too much barking. Anyway, this wasn't too discouraging - the same sort of thing would happen to us in Surtees Street in York from time to time. The radio was old so Amy was not too upset. And we will heed our neighbours warnings and park our cars inside at night. But...

"Somebody is trying to steal my music" (Part 2 of a long story). On Sunday morning an electrician came to look at our poor wiring and try to get a handle on why only half the house was lit up. (Extension leads are running everywhere, including up the stairs to keep a fan on in Nelsinho`s room). This electrician was recommended by the estate agent and he had done work in our house before. He pottered about for an hour and said the wiring in the house was very bad and would need a whole day to mend. So we arranged for him to come back later in the week. He left, Rachel and I went out to church and when we came back we all got ready to go to the beach for a day - Mark's choice of activity as he leaves in a few weeks. However, Amy's Pink IPod was missing! We all scouted about for it but Rach was sure she put it down in a specific place. We were all certain of where it should be and it evidently wasn't there - so we suspected the electrician must have taken it! As Amy said: "Somebody is trying to take away all my music, first from the car and now from my Ipod!".

Here is where my wonderful wife came to the fore. We thought very carefully about calling said Electrical man and planned what to say. (We didn't want to embarrass or accuse, we just wanted to give him every opportunity to return the Ipod). So, Rach rang him on his cellphone and asked him if he had seen a pink machine for music which had gone missing. She also mentioned we had gone to church - this was savvy, people don't like stealing from Christians especially when they think they are good Christians too! No, he said he hadn't seen anything. He then quickly changed the subject about the work still to be done. At this point Rach was very calm but clear - she didn't trust him around the house and she would find another person to do the work. They finished the call, but 10 minutes later the electrician called back. Oh, yes, he had found a pink music machine in his bag - it must have fallen in! We were not to think badly of him - he was a Christian too, and he didn't want to do anything against Jesus!

So, I think he realised that he would lose business not just from us, but from the estate agent if we reported him. So he is coming back with the ipod and we will hide out valuables and keep an eye on him. I don't think he will try anything a second time. But its a lesson for us to be more careful looking after the things we have. Another lesson I think is that we should keep living minimally with less stuff. The less stuff you have, the less there is for people to nick.

Epilogue: "Now that's what I call neighbourhood watch". An impressive part of all this is the way our neighbours rallied to our aid. We really feel a part of a local community in a way we didn't in York. This experience has allowed us to get to know everybody better. The lady across the road said that if her sons and seen the guy who stole the radio they would have given him a good beating. Apparently, these chaps have a habit of doing over any riff raff who come down our street. (Perhaps, for our crook's sake it's good he got away!).

Another form of self-appointed security comes from a man who rides a tin-pot motorbike up and down the streets of our estate at night. He has an alarm which makes a sort of "aliens are landing" bleepy noise. He keeps an eye out for any dodgy stuff. At first, it was quite annoying having him go by every hour of the night with his siren but now we ignore it, sleep through it, and actually find it quite endearing. Sadly, I fear with him there is a discrepancy between appearances and effectiveness: he didn't get anywhere near the scallywag who took Amy's radio.

My life is a full moon, and I'm a lonely wolf barking at the life [the full moon]. That's taken from a contribution made by one of Mev's students in a recent exam. We think it very profound, if a little surreal.

ENGLAND v BRAZIL
Things I miss about England #9: Curry. Brazilians don't like spicy food and I have yet to see an Indian restaurant anywhere in Natal or Recife. The local shopping centre has a Thai restaurant - I went there last week, my taste buds ready for a sizzlingly hot party. Sadly, all I found was a buffet with Chinese and Brazilian food on offer. Somebody told me that the owner is a bone fide Thai gentleman and barely speaks Portuguese. However, after a few months of no business with real Thai cuisine he changed his menu to beans and noodles.

I've found I can make a poor-mans equivalent in Brazil with something labelled as "curry" powder bought from the supermarket. You have to use almost the whole packet, mixed in with some coriander, cocunut milk, salt and pepper and you have the makings of a mild korma. Oh, but for a full on tasty Chenab's Afghan Lamb with Peshwari Naan...

Things I love about Brazil #4: Seafood. The so-called best restaurant in York for seafood - the famous "Blue Bicycle", known also for burning a hole in your pocket, has nowhere near as nice fish as an average Brazilian seafood restaurant. A Natalese chain of restaurants called "Camaroes" (literally, "Prawns") serves jaw-droppingly delicious food. It's pricey (and yet still half the price of the Blue Bicycle) but it's well worth it for special occasions. Salvador has great seafood as does Ilha Grande which we visited over Christmas.

Small language note: don't confuse "Camoroes" with "Caminhoes" as I often do. The latter means trucks. Whilst driving, I still get confused seeing signs for "Overnight Parking for Prawns".

Small medical note: be careful when eating prawns in Brazil. Make sure you have no seafood allergies, of course. If in doubt, avoid cheap restaurants that may not wash their prawns well. And avoid palm oil. Mev found this out the hard way on two occasions recently. Hence, his nickname round these parts: Rash Boy.

Random things round our way: Christ the King drugstore. In our neighbourhood there are about half a dozen churches and right up our street is a huge and very active Catholic Centre. Actually, many things are touched by Christian symbolism - this being the world's most populace Catholic nation (and with 15% Evangelicals too) slogans and signs dot every street corner and every other car has a sticker of the virgin Mary on the back. And here, 2 mins walk from our house is the Christ the King drugstore. Perhaps they offer supernatural as well as natural healing solutions. Prayers and pills available, health for this life and the next, that sort of thing.

Random things round our way: the sign to Rio. First of an occasional series today - random pics from Mirassol, our neighbourhood in Natal. Today, a sign on the main road telling motorists how far it is to Rio. Now, it takes 4 hours to get to Recife by car - so I estimate driving to Rio might take 5 days or so. You'd be a loony to try it. I find it amusing that this sign is here. It's like joining the A64 outside York and finding a road sign with London, Calais, Paris and Rome listed on it. Brazil is a big, big place it seems.

English problem solved more or less. Thanks to those who looked at the taxing English I put in my last blog. Mariano was right to mention the different meanings a verb can take when it is immediately preceded by another verb (ie. He stopped to play football / he stopped playing football). Danny in his comment was almost certainly correct. And well done Aunty Betty for looking up the grammar in a book.

Anyway, when the first verb is try there is apparently a subtle difference in meaning related to the form of the following verb - so subtle I had to learn it for myself, and I'm a native speaker!

Try + -ing = "experiment with"
A better example is: This soup is bland. Try adding more salt.

Try + to infinitive = "attempt"
A better example is: I tried to do my homework, but it was too hard.

The distinction seems clearer in the past - in the present both can sometimes be used interchangably I think. Any more thoughts, anyone?

Facebook. Hello to everyone who is checking this from the facebook link... thanks for viewing my blog.

Very funny video. Cultura Inglesa language schools pride themselves on offering high class English teaching with modern techniques, use of multimedia and backed up by the latest linguistic theory. Nothing we do even comes close, however, to this style of English Teaching... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS2GY8C_2sY

Brazilian Mother`s Day. Brazilians really know how to celebrate this one. Everything, everywhere is covered in decor for this special day which is tomorrow. Rach has asked for a lie in as a present. Our problem is trying to please Mum, GrandMum, 2 GreatGrand Mums and a Great Great GrandMum. Somebody is bound to be upset that Nelson didn`t visit them this weekend.

English puzzle. This week I gave a lesson which completely bombed. I put it down to not knowing English myself. My task for you is this: look at the sentences below and tell me the difference (my textbook says there is one!) between the two examples and then tell me how to teach this grammar to a dozen bored Brazilian teenagers who would rather be at the beach. (Current English teachers are banned from replying!).

She tried using a camcorder to record the event
She tried to use a camcorder to record the event

ENGLAND v BRAZIL

Things I miss about England #59: Knowing why you are in trouble. In the space of a few weeks Mark and I have both picked up driving fines for things we didn't know about. Mev did a u-turn in a quiet road with no road markings or sign posts. A policeman on a motorbike gave him a ticket for driving the wrong way up a one way street (...or that's what we thought he was saying).

As for me, the other day we had to take Nelsinho to the hospital and so we pulled up outside. I was well chuffed on account of having found a space right opposite the entrance. I parallel parked inbetween two cars. Two hours later I popped out to discover I had a ticket. I was baffled - no signs saying "Nao estacionamento" and a row of other cars parked in the same place. It turns out I committed a classic school boy error - parking with everybody else does not guarantee legitimacy. They all had tickets too. I can only put it down to the yellowish paint on some of the paving stones near to the car... this was perhaps my clue that I was in the wrong. Worryingly, the ticket on my car gave no indication of how much or to who I was to pay. I am expecting a knock at the door from the men in black any day now...

Things I love about Brazil #20: 12 bank holidays a year. Brazilian populist Politicians of the past have pandered to the worker vote by sticking more and more national holidays into the calender. The present total of 12 is already a drastically reduced number in comparison to how it has been in the past. The advantage for us teachers is that just when you`re having a stressful and busy week and you could do with a break - you get one! Sometimes the holiday lands on Tuesday, and people take Monday off as well...

Employers and management are unimpressed, however. Not only do they have to pay salaries on these days, on top of extortionate taxes and the bizarre "13th month" Christmas bonus, but this many holidays disrupts productivity and is, in short, bad for the economy.

Safe Electrics revisted. See blog entry for February 2nd. This is how we power internet at home. Note the hole in the wall on the left where a socket should be. And then, from the socket on the right a UK adaptor (the only one thing that fits this plug), followed by another adaptor converting it back into Brazilian sockets, with a split coming out of it (one for the Modem) and then another UK adaptor for my laptop. It`s a bit precarious to say the least. Natal also suffers from power cuts and surges so we have to make sure we unplug everything...