"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...

International Students, you can`t get away from `em - Take 2. Amazing coincidence this, but we were in Mangai - the restaurant we frequent the most that serves cheap authentic Brazilian cuisine - and we spotted two Brazilians talking to a gringo. It`s fun to hear a British accent and wonder where they are from. We supposed the gentleman talking was from Salisbury, Basingstoke or Little Mousehole. Anyway, next time Rach passed their table with her plate of cheesy rice, dried meat and beans she thought she recognised the Brazilians. A brief conversation later and this is what we found out - the two Brazilians were in York. The male Brazilian was a PhD International Student who attended an event Rachel and I put on in St. Mikes` Belfrey Hall. He and his wife have moved to Natal and the Brit - well he was a Prof from York University. A man called Jim from Computer Science. A quick look on the website reveals it was probably Dr. Jim Woodcock.

Nelson walking. Nelson is galloping around the house, arms outstretched. This changes everything.

Amusing English from my students. I have to be careful what I write here in case any of them check this blog, but here are some quotes from students' written assignments.

"My Mum, she get stressed sometimes, but she got a real pure heart" (It`s perfect English if you`re a grass-chewing cowboy).

"Yes, my friend, all the mistery [sic], romance and polar bears are back" (A review of next week`s LOST episode).

"Don`t worry you are not going to die, because Leonardo di Caprio will give happyness [sic]" (I wasn`t worried before, but now I might well be...)

"You are not understanding? Let one explain better". (One could do with improving one`s grammar although one is impeccably polite).

Skype. The wonders of the internet - we have Skype and a webcam. It`s awesome. Anybody else have Skype?

ENGLAND v BRAZIL

Things I miss about England #98: The Hoobs. Great kids show on Channel 4 I used to watch with Nelsinho... All together now: "We`re off to see the tiddly-peeps, on the road we go!"

Things I love about Brazil #71: Discovery Kids Brasil http://www.discoverykidsbrasil.com/. They may not have the Hoobs here but Cable TV provides several channels of 24 hour kids programmes. Advert free, non-violent and educational, Discovery Kids presented by the intrepid Doki Descobre (pictured) is our (and Nelsinho`s) favourite. What`s more is that he teaches Portuguese to small children which I find helpful. "As formas sao muito divertidos!" (Shapes are a lot of fun!).

If anyone finds themselves in Brazil, looking after a baby between the hours of 5am and 7am here is a review of the best (and worst) things to watch on Discovery Kids. Check the link above for more details on any of these shows, or for the chance to play games with Doki and learn some Portuguese.

Pocoyo (also seen in the UK). The English version is narrated by Stephen Fry. A 3-yr old, and his duck (Pato) and elephant (Ellie) friend have numerous, unpredictable adventures. Absolutely brilliant short animation series from a production company based in Madrid. Great sfx too. 9/10

Jakers! As Adventuras de Piggly Winks (Jakers! The adventures of Piggly Winks). This show has a clever premise - an old Irish pig living in America tells his grandchildren what it was like growing up in rural Ireland. Good music, animation average. 7/10

Harry e o balde de dinosaurs (Harry and his bucket of dinosaurs). Not bad, mildly entertaining animation about a boy who has adventures in the imaginary "Dino-World" with his bucket of dinosaurs who come to life. 6/10

Os Irmaos Coalas (The Koalo Brothers). As the theme tune says "adoram ajudar" (they love to help!). Alrightish antics of two brothers who live in a caravan in the Australian outback. They fly around in a plane and help people. The problems with this show are many: why do the 8 people living in a small village in the outback need help every day? How can the Koalo Brothers afford to run a plane when they appear to have no source of income? Who are the two kids who live with them - the frankly wet Ned (see Caillou and Poko below), and the annoying Josie? Why do they kids never go to school? My theory: Ned and Josie are foster kids and the Brothers Koalo use Australian state money meant for education to fund their fixation with flying in their old time plane. The village folk are too polite to tell the brothers that they don`t need any help at all... 5/10

Toddworld. Todd is far too politically correct to be a real boy living in the real world. 4/10.

Caillou (3/10), Poko (2/10). Boring, slow, dreamy and tame stories about two young lads who probably flinch at passing butterflies. Poko has anger management issues too.

ENGLAND v BRAZIL

Things I miss about England #3: Easter. We had a great Easter in Recife when we visited our old church in Piedade. I met the vicar for the first time, a colossal man of 6'8" who patted me on the shoulder much the same way I might pat the shoulder of an 8 year old boy. The sunrise service was excellent but nothing beats St.Mikes and Riding Lights for Easter week...

Things I love about Brazil #49: The "informal" way they do tests. This week the kids at the Language School were given their mid term test. One of my groups didn't do so well which might mean they are poor or their teacher is. Perhaps both. Anyway, it took me 10 minutes to settle them down and be quiet to take their paper and even when they were doing it and not chatting away in Portuguese they kept shouting out, "Hey teacher, what does it mean - foolishness?" My reply: "Now, Flauber. This would not be a test if I told you that". Two minutes later somebody gets out of their seat to come and show me a word on their paper. With a look of utter seriousness: "Teacher, I don`t understand 'hitch-hiking' - what is it mean?". Again, my reply "Diego, I can't tell you that". And it wasn't just the boys... "Teacher, I have never seen this word - o que isso, rapaz?" "Deborah, be quiet and guess the answer" and so on and so forth... Endearing as this was I eventually said: "How do you do tests in Brazil? Do you all sit around and talk for an hour". One wise crack chirped up: "The teacher tells us everything". Righteo. Maybe that explains their poor marks. Some amusing answers in the papers will get posted here shortly.

Hello to... Norwegians such as Maria and Jon who make a point of reading the blog.

Another one bites the sand. Last Sunday we discovered a beautiful guest house (Pousada) that you can visit for the day. It is baby friendly, has several pools and a restaurant. It also faces the sea. After lunch I decided to take a quick dip but it was high tide. "Hmmm, those waves look a bit big", I thought. "Nevermind, this will be refreshing". So refreshing were the waves I got bowled right back onto the beach twice. The second time I nearly lost my swimming trunks which would have been embarassing for all at the Pousada, not least my wife. At this point Mark saunters out and says he fancies a swim. "I wouldn`t if I were you, it's too strong". Mark gives me a look like he thinks I am BGB* and dives in. 5 minutes later he comes out looking like he`s been pulled out of a washing machine and promptly rinsed through a sandpit (which is a good description of what actually happened). Funniest of all, he forgot he had his wallet in his swimming trunks. The wallet made it back out the water with Mark, but all his money was crinkly and wet. * BGB = Big Girl's Blouse.

Armchair Blogger... Finally, after some shenanigans, we have internet at home. This is the first blog from the comfort of our own dining room. In theory, we should be emailing you all much more often now.

Poverty. According to "Veja", the popular Brazilian current affairs magazine 31% of the population are classified as living below the poverty line. This reminded me of a picture I took off the side of a bus when in Rio. It shows a couple of burnt out cars on the edge of a smelly canal. What fascinated me is that when I looked closer I could see that this hulled out car was some guy`s house. He had just got out and walked off...

The wealth gap is huge in Brazil with some of the population enjoying very affluent and comfortable lives. The students I teach English for are from the latter end of society - they mostly attend the best school in Natal and have ambitions to be Doctors, Lawyers, Diplomats, Architects etc. Many of them are actively involved in community projects to help the poor. Having said that, Natal itself is an affluent city with no sprawling favelas and little of the associated social problems of the Rio, Sao Paulo and Recife.

Recife. We made it down to Recife for the Easter weekend. It's great to be back seeing friends (such as Fabinho and Duia) who we've missed since moving to Natal. We decided to catch a flight down. It took half an hour - the shortest domestic flight I've ever taken. They didn't bother turning the fasten seat belt signs off cos by the time we had finished take off we were about to land. Nelson charmed the passengers and was unusally fond of one of the air stewardesses and kicked up a huge fuss when we left the plane without her... On the agenda for the next few days - the beach, watching and playing football and the sunrise church service on Easter Sunday.

Portuguese Learning - é tão dificil, né? Encouragingly, being back in Recife shows me that the Portuguese is slowly improving as I can banter a bit more freely. So I thought I'd mention a bit about this extraordinary language. It is darn complicated and fluency is hard to attain because each verb has to be conjugated seperately. Still, in other parts of the language NE Brazilians show great economy in their use of Portuguese. Some examples,

1) "E ai" is the Brazilian equivelent for "Now then" in Yorkshire. It covers all eventualities, is a greeting, a conversation starter and a gap filler all in one. It roughly translates to "And there" and is pronounced eee-eye-eee.

2) "Valeu" is the Brazilian equivelent for "Cheers" and "Alright". When playing football it gets thrown in all over the place and seems to mean thanks, sorry, well done, good pass, goal, calm down, the ball was out, I'll do better next time, did you see that?, could you get me a bottle of water because I'n so thirsty etc. etc.

3) "Foi mesmo foi?" "Foi!". "Foi" is a very versatile word in Portuguese as it means both "it/he/she was" and "it/he/she went". After some surprising incident or story is related, somebody will usually say "Foi mesmo foi?" which literally means "it was really the same, was it?". I suppose in England we would say "is that right?" or "really?". Back comes the answer "Foi!" - "It was!".

4) "Não. Não pode não." This is the slogan for the Brazilian anti-piracy organisation. It comes from an advert where a man tells his son he can't watch a pirated DVD. It shows how não - "no" - is very flexibily used as it is also stands for "not" in English. It is thrown in willy nilly into almost any negative sentence at any place any number of times. In this case, the Father says to his son "Não. Não pode não" (pronounced: Now. Now podgy now). In English, "No. No you can't".

The library of love. They'll both kill me for mentioning this on my blog but Amy (my sister-in-law) and Mark (my school buddy and best man) are now "an item" or as my Aunt Betty says "special friends". Mark works mornings in the library in the language school in Natal and Amy works afternoons - so perhaps it was over an order for more English File Textbooks that the spark of something more was found. In any case, they're spending a lot of this weekend down here in Recife with Amy's friend Erica and her boyfriend Ricardo. I'm sure everyone's having fun!

Arrival of babies. So it's a big congrats to the Byrnes on the arrival of baby Grace. Along with cousin Anna and hubby Richard's girl Esme and the Thomas' little Rachel the population of fine eligible young ladies is growing. More future friends (or girlfriends possibly!) for Nelsinho.

Easter. Wishing everyone a happy Easter! At the language school we have been eating modified Brazilian Hot Cross Buns. They're cold and made with chocolate but they do have a prominant cross on the top. Tonight a choir is coming into the school to sing Easter songs - I've been asked to share a "word" about the real meaning of Easter during the presentation. I will probably use several words in actual fact, and these will probably be in English as my Portuguese is stilll a bit rusty. In any case, like for Brits, most Brazilian kids think of Easter as a time to eat chocolate so it may be a chance to say a bit about why I think it is more important than that.

Blu-Tac update. Big thanks to Danny and Caz Byrne for sending me Blu-Tac (the shortage of which in Brazil was covered on this blog) and also for sending me curry from Rafi`s www.spicebox.co.uk

The Mystery of the Noise at Night... Solved. One night last week, at around 4.30am, Rachel and I and Mark (but not Nelson, thankfully) were awoken by some beast growling in the street outside our house. It approached slowly and the noise it made got louder and louder until it felt like an airplane was about to land in our bedroom. We rushed out to the balcony to see what on earth it could be only to catch sight of a small pick up truck rounding the corner at the bottom of our street.

Rach (not one to be woken at 4.30am) muttered Portuguese expletives and went back to bed. I stayed awake and watched the mysterious pick up make a return a few minutes later. To my surprise it was a council van with two guys serenely sitting in the front and a contraption not unlike a machine gun pumping gas onto peoples' houses. This was what was making noise. Why the council should be pumping gas at private homes at that time of night at that volume was beyond us. (It sounds like the hobby of a crazed James Bond villain). And furthermore, why did none of the other residents wake up or complain? So, before Rach had the chance to call the council to have a rant we asked some of the folks round here what was going on...

Basically, the council are spraying some anti-dengue chemicals. Dengue fever is a nasty illness transmitted through water and this gas can help deter it (somehow!). The council can`t spray during the day in case the gas is sprayed into peoples faces on the street - so they do it at night. Now we know, but it`s still a bitter pill to swallow when you`re already sleep deprived. Just ask Rach.

Flashback to February. I meant to post this a while ago - reviews of two gigs we went to in Recife. More news of Natal next time including the story of the noisy council workers who spray chemicals outside our window at 4.30am...

FATBOY SLIM v MARISA MONTE

We’ve been fortunate to see two decent acts performing in Recife recently. In the Green corner representing Brazil, the very talented and highly popular singer/songwriter Marisa Monte who played Recife’s largest indoor arena, the Chevrolet Hall. And in the Red corner representing England, Quentin Nial Cook aka. DJ Norman Cook aka. Fatboy Slim playing a free open air gig as part of his Brazilian tour at Marco Zero in Recife Antigo. So, who came out on top – the best of Brazil or the best of England?

Marisa Monte
Four of us went to this – Mark, Rachel, Amy and I. We drove in as the arena comes with ample parking. Sadly, about half a km away, we got stuck in horrendous traffic and remained stationary for an hour. We eventually parked up on a side street and walked. It turned out that one section of the arena had been rented out to a Christian Convention so parking was at a premium for everyone!

Still, we were pretty confident we would see all of Marisa Monte’s set seeing as Brazilian performers don’t take to the stage until very late (see Caetano blog just before Christmas). Unfortunately, Marisa had come on relatively early and we only caught the last 45 minutes. It was great stuff though – she had a full string section, the stage lighting was amazing and she finished with a lot of her famous songs, including some numbers from her time as a member of the trio ‘Tribalistas’.

Fatboy Slim
On Feb 1st, Mark, Amy and I and a few CELTA graduates piled down to Marco Zero in the old part of Recife to see Fatboy Slim play for free. It is very unusual for Recife to host such a big star – especially for free – so the old area of the city was swarming with some estimated 70,000 people despite it being a Thursday night. There was no way we were going to miss the start of this set as Fatboy Slim didn’t take to the stage until 12.30am. He energetically rattled through some of his songs and a few of his own mixes of the likes of Daft Punk, Gorillaz and Groove Armada.

At around 2am, in full flow, the power cut and the emergency lighting went up. Norman Cook was not impressed and eventually left the stage. We took this as our cue to go home (along with several thousand others), so it was a disappointing end to the night. When we eventually found a free taxi (at around 3am) we could hear the distant noise of the concert cranking into life once more. So the power must have come on and Fatboy will have fired up his decks but by then we were too exhausted to care. Shame really, as it would have been good to hear his big finale.

In conclusion... don’t expect things to be straightforward when going to concerts in Brazil. Expect the unexpected. In terms of MM and FS we missed the start of one and left before the end of the other. Both performers were in fine form when we did see them though so we’ll call it a draw – a fair score for both of 3 out of 5.

The inside of Brazilian hospitals. Well, see last email about "normal life" but it ain`t happened yet. Down in Joao Passoa on Sunday to visit Rachel`s family and Rachel`s Mum fell ill and we spent the rest of the day in a hospital. (She`s doing fine now, by the way). We stayed the night down there and came back up to Natal on Monday cutting it fine for teaching English in the afternoon and evening. And then this week Nelsinho has picked up a fever possibly related to his having new teeth coming through. So, we`ve been off to the Docs again and he isn`t going to play group. Maybe next week things will be normal (!). On the plus side, we have lots to thank God for - family about, good hospitals and health plan (more than can be said for the majority of Brazil`s citizens)...

International Students - you can`t get away from `em. As Alanis Morisette incorrectly sang, "isn`t it ironic?". Having worked with International Students arriving in the UK, I now am working with International Students about to leave to the UK and the USA. In order to study abroad (esp graduate degrees) many universities in the USA, Europe and Australia require Students to have a TOEFL qualification. Basically, it`s a blimmin hard standardised test which shows they have good enough English to survive at uni. What`s more is that the test costs US$150 each time you take it and even if you pass, your qualification is only valid for 2 years. The test itself is 4 hours long and entirely internet based (including speaking where candidates talk into a computer). Anyway, I`m teaching/coaching about a dozen prospective students here, young people all itching to be international students in places just like York... So while you contemplate the benefits of being born into a society immersed in the most widely used language in the world, spare a prayer for Dory (who speaks 3 languages) who takes her test (at the 3rd attempt) this Saturday.

The threat of normality approaches. After what has been an exhausting few weeks we are approaching a state of normality. One suspects that in Brazil and in the Barlow family there is no such thing as "normal" but at least the week has a recognisable routine. My driving license has been translated which means I can take Nelsinho to play group in the morning... we have a wardrobe for our clothes and our suitcases are finally empty... we have a church to go to... I roughly know how to do my job... all our books are in a new bookcase... my arm is better...

But then, Rachel forgot to wear her proper shoes today and came to work in flip-flops... Nelsinho is about to walk which will result in unimaginable chaos... the nearby Catholics are singing vigils all night... there are plans this weekend to maybe do a road trip to visit the family in Joao Passoa... Amy`s friend is over from the UK... what was that about approaching normality?

ENGLAND v BRAZIL
Things I miss about England #14: Pedestrian crossings. Brazilians, and especially the Natalese, cross roads with no regard to oncoming traffic. We live close to a bus depot and every time we drive past various Lemming-like Brazilians will leap out from behind buses into the path of our speeding car. It`s not always easy to spot them when you`re concentrating so hard on not hitting the cyclist with no lights riding towards you on your side of the road. Anyway, these pedestrians won`t stop, speed up, shout or even acknowledge us. They simply saunter across the road like they own it... Ironically, Brazil does have zebra crossings. It`s just we`ve never seen anyone use them.

Things I love about Brazil #41: Hybrid cars. Our car runs on Petrol and Gas. Gas is far cheaper and better for the environment. We have a cannister in our boot which we have to fill up twice a week. By the steering wheel there is a switch to alternate between the two types of fuel. The downside is that with gas the car has the acceleration of a recently fed tortoise. Still, Brazilians are pointing the way for the future on this issue. Brits are much slower to catch onto new technology, I think.

Ups and Downs... I just sent this email out to a few people.

Anyway, the good news is that I have passed my MA in Conflict, Governance and Development with Distinction! (PhD here I come - only joking! Seriously, only joking!). This summer was CRAZY with the birth of Nelsinho but God has really helped us through it...

The sad news: We have shed a few tears this week as we heard the sad news that Krish Rockley died on Monday. Krish was the wife of Paul, my Supervisor with Friends International and she had been battling brain tumours for several years. She was only in her 40s and leaves two kids under 10 years old. So please pray for this wonderful family. Rachel and I are really gutted by this, as they were very good friends and very inspiritational people. We know she is in a better place free of pain for which we praise God.