Dear Daughter

When your godmother woke you far too early, you stumbled to the phone, but your inherent bubbly spirit was soon smiling and laughing (pink teddies?). Exhausted, you stumbled back to bed. Naturally, it was reaaally hard to wake you up this morning, as it is every morning, but you pulled through, smiling (major strength of spirit there!). A night of broken sleep and early phone calls and you left home after cake and gifts looking like a ray of sunshine. How do you do it?

Wherever I go, people talk about you... 'simpatico', bubbly, friendly, beautiful, yada yada... Even the packer at the supermarket smiled and commented that, "I see your princess is now working." I think he has his eye on you ; )  Yes, you leave an impression wherever you go.

I will never know what great good I must have done at some point to deserve a daughter like you. Hardly a day goes by where you don't amaze me with your kindness, strength (I won't test your Aikido skills again! 0.o ), courage, and sheer bounce-back-ability.

Once a small child that needed to hold my hand, now blossoming into a beautiful woman!

"ONE"

My child

My friend

My flesh

My blood

My inspiration

My love

My hopes

My fears

My desires

My dreams

My life

All in "ONE"

"MY DAUGHTER"

Happy Birthday, Tatiana! With so much love,
Mom

Visit Tatiana's site: http://mythicalme.multiply.com/

Technorati Tags: tatiana,birthday,tat

é Carnaval!

I've been asked a few times over the past few days why I'm not taking part or at least watching carnival. I'm dragging out the details of our one carnival experience here in São Paulo. You can read about it here if Yahoo cooperates.

Carnival here is extremely expensive for all concerned, except those hanging out at home participating via TV broadcast. They have it lucky, really. The costumes range from R$100 into the millions. The poor save all year for their costume, which they'll get to show off for a whole 20 minutes. The moment one carnival is finished, the organisers, designers, composers, and seamstresses start work on the next year's display. Tickets to watch range from US$88 to over US$1000. I'm not exaggerating. Tomorrow is the official carnival, though business and schools closed Friday and will only open after noon on Wednesday again.

Our carnival experience was in 2006. Carnival fell on Tatiana's birthday. Her godmother thought it would be a great idea for her to experience carnival as part of her birthday. Tatiana and I were among those representing the South African consulate, who thought the theme of the progress of the slaves was fitting. Early on the Tuesday evening, we had to meet at a hall in the center of town. It was an ants nest of moving feathers and sequins, yelling, last minute snacking, temper tantrums when feathers got broken... in short, a cacophony of humanity. Around 10pm, we headed to the buses. We were meant to enter the Sambadrome at midnight or by latest 2am.

Confusion. No one knew who was to go in which buses. The 'lead' dancers got first choice, then the pushy dancers, then the confused masses. A small riot would break out whenever a feather or sequin was damaged, as points would be taken off for the 'school'. The actual carnival procession is a competition with the different regions (they call them 'schools' for some reason) competing for the much-coveted Samba award. Points are given for precision, music, composition, presentation, and more. Points are taken away for being under or over the allotted 20 minutes you are given to display your parade, for losing parts of costumes, stepping out of sequence... and more. Our 'school' was Vai Vai. We packed ourselves into the buses. I mean... packed! I do have a more 'artsy' photo, but this photo gives you an idea of the level of comfort we were in for the next 6 hours. That '6' is not a typo.


The costumes were well made. I was surprised more didn't fall apart. The costumes were HOT! We toasted in our layers of nighty material. I don't know what else to call that fabric. It is thin, shiny, slippery, sweat-inducing, awful stuff. The shoes were of a very thin vinyl... a wear-once-and-toss item. In fact, everything fell in that category. The headdresses were heavy, held onto our heads with brackets. Having your eye poked out a few times during the course of the swirling and dancing wasn't unheard of. The 'thing' over our shoulders had a huge metal bracket anchoring it in place as well. What didn't stick to us, scratched. Not the most comfortable outfit I have ever worn, but what a night!

It turned out that a few of the previous teams were late and messed up in their 'shows', so there were major delays. Our time to enter the Sambadrome came and went. The atmosphere in the bus went from "Let's practice at the tops of our voices" to "Shut up, I'm trying to sleep." We got into the Sambadrome, the actual parade area, around sunrise. Yes, we had been up all night, waiting.


I have a video up on Youtube of the 'practice' singing in the bus. What I wanted to show here was the sheer volume of the actual procession and the energy needed. No, I don't know how many calories get burned, but trust me, it is a Lot! The bouncing on the feet is kept up the entire time, non-stop, along with the twirling and singing.



At the end of the procession, we danced out of the Sambadrome. We could only stop once we were out. We found ourselves looking out over the freeway and over the carnival graveyard. As dancers were leaving, they were dumping their costumes on a heap for the refuse and recycling people to come by and pick up. It looked sad, in a spangled, feathery way. A year's worth of savings and preparations lying abandoned on the side of the road.

The whole Sambadrome experience is something that everyone in Brazil should experience at least once. Many thousands do it year after year. As for me, I've had my once-in-a-lifetime experience and frankly, it will stay a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I enjoyed it once it really got going, though the endless waiting was a killer. I'm don't like noise and the noise of carnival was definitely not enjoyable. At least I can say I did it. It is a story to tell the grandchildren, if you know what I mean.

The main carnival points are places like Rio and Salvador, though it seems many are going to the beach towns to celebrate in smaller crowds. São Paulo isn't a touristy place at all. Outside of the Sambadrome, if it weren't for the tabloids and television, we'd be blissfully unaware of carnival. I think I like it that way : )

Technorati Tags: são-paulo,carnival,brazil

Digging into the past

I was talking to my brother the other day and I suggested, rather strongly, that he calls our mother to talk to her. She's old now and very frail. When my gran died, not that I'm saying my mom is about to die, I lost, with her, a lot of the old stories and family history. The same goes for Jorge's dad. When he died, all that was lost. Today, this makes me sad. My mom is our final link to the older generations. This photo is of the first page in our family Bible, which was handed down to the oldest daughter in each generation. As I was raised by my gran, the Bible came to me when she died, so it skipped my mom's generation.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail that linked to a page that had interview questions on for genealogy purposes. It reminded me of Kippy's blog on the subject too. 'Interviewing' our family members seems a little odd though, but, I think, depending on the person, it can be fun. I can't see myself ever doing a straight interview with an older family member... none that I know anyway. My mind does tend to ramble and rush around grabbing at straws when face with an intense conversation over the past though, so I think that having a list of questions one can refer to can well be handy.

I think that what I would like to do is interview the younger members of my family with these questions, or at least some of them. Ok, again, not an interview, but as a basis for digging into the past. Perhaps using an 'interview' format will make it less intense as well? Nah... if the past is intense, it is bound to be an intense process. I actually think a list of questions like this is great blog fodder too, encouraging writing one's memories. What do you think?

The list:

1. What is your full name? Why did your parents select this name for you? Did you have a nickname?
2. When and where were you born?
3. How did your family come to live there?
4. Were there other family members in the area? Who?
5. What was the house (apartment, farm, etc.) like? How many rooms? Bathrooms? Did it have electricity? Indoor plumbing? Telephones?
6. Were there any special items in the house that you remember?
7. What is your earliest childhood memory?
8. Describe the personalities of your family members.
9. What kind of games did you play growing up?
10. What was your favorite toy and why?
11. What was your favorite thing to do for fun (movies, beach, etc.)?
12. Did you have family chores? What were they? Which was your least favorite?
13. Did you receive an allowance? How much? Did you save your money or spend it?
14. What was school like for you as a child? What were your best and worst subjects? Where did you attend grade school? High school? College?
15. What school activities and sports did you participate in?
16. Do you remember any fads from your youth? Popular hairstyles? Clothes?
17. Who were your childhood heroes?
18. What were your favorite songs and music?
19. Did you have any pets? If so, what kind and what were their names?
20. What was your religion growing up? What church, if any, did you attend?
21. Were you ever mentioned in a newspaper?
22. Who were your friends when you were growing up?
23. What world events had the most impact on you while you were growing up? Did any of them personally affect your family?
24. Describe a typical family dinner. Did you all eat together as a family? Who did the cooking? What were your favorite foods?
25. How were holidays (birthdays, Christmas, etc.) celebrated in your family? Did your family have special traditions?
26. How is the world today different from what it was like when you were a child?
27. Who was the oldest relative you remember as a child? What do you remember about them?
28. What do you know about your family surname?
29. Is there a naming tradition in your family, such as always giving the firstborn son the name of his paternal grandfather?
30. What stories have come down to you about your parents? Grandparents? More distant ancestors?
31. Are there any stories about famous or infamous relatives in your family?
32. Have any recipes been passed down to you from family members?
33. Are there any physical characteristics that run in your family?
34. Are there any special heirlooms, photos, bibles or other memorabilia that have been passed down in your family?
35. What was the full name of your spouse? Siblings? Parents?
36. When and how did you meet your spouse? What did you do on dates?
37. What was it like when you proposed (or were proposed to)? Where and when did it happen? How did you feel?
38. Where and when did you get married?
39. What memory stands out the most from your wedding day?
40. How would you describe your spouse? What do (did) you admire most about them?
41. What do you believe is the key to a successful marriage?
42. How did you find out your were going to be a parent for the first time?
43. Why did you choose your children's names?
44. What was your proudest moment as a parent?
45. What did your family enjoy doing together?
46. What was your profession and how did you choose it?
47. If you could have had any other profession what would it have been? Why wasn't it your first choice?
48. Of all the things you learned from your parents, which do you feel was the most valuable?
49. What accomplishments were you the most proud of?
50. What is the one thing you most want people to remember about you?

Thank you to Eileen for referring me to Geni.com, a super, fun, and easy site where the entire family can interact to build the family tree.

Technorati Tags: history,stories,interview,family

I learnt today....

(photo swiped off Tat's pc, taken by her in our old garden)

...that little things can add up to make it a good day. I am not at my own pc. My video board's fan is dying fast and very noisily, so Jorge has taken my board in to try to find a new fan. But... in the meantime, I went to shop for our meat for the week. Our supermarket has some really good specials on Wednesday morning. So... the little things...

• I saw our favourite dog on the road into the village, Phantom (our name for him because of his black and white comic face), playing ball with his owner. He stopped playing ball to greet me. Ok, he barked. I say, he greeted me, so don't tell me otherwise.
• When one of the butchers recognises you out of the crowd, in spite of being very busy and smiles and greets you
• I didn't turn and slap the woman behind me for repeatedly shoving her shopping basket up my rear. Three cheers for self control ; ) 
• Getting to the cashier to find that, in spite of being prepared to have gone over budget, I was under my budget enough to dash back into the store for some dessert for tonight
• When I asked if the cashier minded if I dashed in to get one more item, he smiled instead of scowling and there was no one behind me in the queue (I had left the monster queue at the butcher)
• I was so proud of myself for being within budget, that I smiled..... and lo and behold... people smiled back ; )
• The sun is shining. It is a bright day with clear blue skies (ok, I'm sweating like a pig and humidity is super high, but...)

Oops! I just remembered. I need to get laundry down and do supper, as I won't be around at supper time. Pity is that I can't work on the photos today either with my pc out of commission. I am teaching the two groups of teens today. I keep wondering what they are saying behind their hands *rolls eyes* Hope you're all having a splendid day!

Technorati Tags: thoughts,happiness

A quick blog

There is such a thing? A quick blog?

I have the morning off today, so I'm wading through housework and doing a photo restoration job I need to complete, in snatches, before Friday. I learned this week that one of the local photo printing places (not the place that charges the equivalent of US$200 per photo) has had a major promotion going for 'photo restoration'. My deal is to now undercut their prices and give better quality. Hey... if I earn 10 bucks per photo, at least it is a 10 I didn't have before, right?

I got a job in. The cleaning lady at Tat's work saw my flier and asked if it is very expensive. Of course not! ; ) The original is a tiny 2 x 3" photo, but luckily I got to scan it, so it is high resolution.

I have a couple of other photos to work on, which are actually a bit harder, as their resolution is very low, but they're doable. I just hope I can get a printable quality out of them. This is great! I am enjoying keeping busy, but I miss my friends here.

Oh, remember our infamous potholes when it rains here? This one was not in São Paulo, the city, but fairly close and still within state lines.
http://noticias.terra.com.br/transito/interna/0,,OI3578452-EI11777,00.html
Click on the top link to view a photo slide show, which will give you a good idea of what they're dealing with here. The driver was alone in the vehicle and died in the fall. That crater that opened up was over 10m (around 32 feet) deep!! Apparently, there was a water pipe below the road.

Ok, let me get back to work : )

Technorati Tags: são-paulo,photo restoration,work,crater

A quick blog

There is such a thing? A quick blog?

I have the morning off today, so I'm wading through housework and doing a photo restoration job I need to complete, in snatches, before Friday. I learned this week that one of the local photo printing places (not the place that charges the equivalent of US$200 per photo) has had a major promotion going for 'photo restoration'. My deal is to now undercut their prices and give better quality. Hey... if I earn 10 bucks per photo, at least it is a 10 I didn't have before, right?

I got a job in. The cleaning lady at Tat's work saw my flier and asked if it is very expensive. Of course not! ; ) The original is a tiny 2 x 3" photo, but luckily I got to scan it, so it is high resolution.

I have a couple of other photos to work on, which are actually a bit harder, as their resolution is very low, but they're doable. I just hope I can get a printable quality out of them. This is great! I am enjoying keeping busy, but I miss my friends here.

Oh, remember our infamous potholes when it rains here? This one was not in São Paulo, the city, but fairly close and still within state lines.
http://noticias.terra.com.br/transito/interna/0,,OI3578452-EI11777,00.html
Click on the top link to view a photo slide show, which will give you a good idea of what they're dealing with here. The driver was alone in the vehicle and died in the fall. That crater that opened up was over 10m (around 32 feet) deep!! Apparently, there was a water pipe below the road.

Ok, let me get back to work : )

Technorati Tags: são-paulo,photo restoration,work,crater

CCN

Back home, the car license plates always had an abbreviation that told the world which town you're from. CCN was the abbreviation for Uitenhage. As with all things, we'd add to it, jokingly. CCN, for example, stood for (in our humour) "Courtesy costs nothing", just as CAW (for the town, George) stood for "Cold and wet". Port Elizabeth's (my hometown) number plate was CB, which we maintained stood for "Come back", as those who left the town invariably returned. The car pictured here was our 'old faithful'. The odometer had ticked over twice. We did over 250 000km in that car. It was eventually sent to happy driving grounds when a newly installed exhaust fell off on the freeway, which inspired the cops to take a closer look at the rest of the car. Let's just say that car had been through the wars and more. We loved our canary-yellow Toyota : ) This photo was taken at Yellowoods, outside PE (Port Elizabeth). The park was named because of the abundance of Yellowood trees growing there.

Hm... now why was I going on about number plates? Oh yes! I went to the supermarket, which was overflowing. Queues for everything going on for miles upon miles. I had a basket with a few items, bread being the bulkiest. The 'express' queue wove itself up and down a couple of isles, so I scrapped that idea and parked myself in a queue with a couple of trolleys (carts to you). My mind was drifting over the week and I wasn't paying much attention to the people around me until a man in the next queue who had two trolleys tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if that was all I had. "Yes," I said and he offered to let me go before him. That was so nice. It is rare to encounter that here. It made my day.

Kippy suggested I blog about a typical day teaching. That is something of a misnomer. 'Typical' doesn't exist in my teaching world.

The students I used to have were interesting enough. I taught most of them for a few years, though I did have students who didn't last, such as R. Now he would arrive at my class (at his offices - all my students back then were taught at their places of work or at their homes) and within moments, he'd be fast asleep. Now I know that I'm not the most charismatic person I know, but... ! It turned out that he used to go to nightclubs (this is during the week) until 5am, Sleep an hour at home, go to work, then catch up on sleep during my class, which was during the lunch hour. Then there was C. She was sweet. She's Japanese, but born here. She had a book on business English, which we were making our way through, but we didn't make much progress. Our discussions were just too interesting. We became fairly good friends. I was sorry to stop teaching her when we moved out here, but to start her class at 7am, I'd have to leave home at around 5am *shudder* I'm not a mornings person. Then there was L and her kids. I've mentioned them before. I started out teaching her at work, but she asked me to teach her privately at home and take on her kids too. Their English was far in advance of the English they did at school and she wanted them to learn more advanced English in a fun environment (translate that to 'surrounded by the toys and games'). The condition was that Tat goes with to speak English to them while they play (yeah right... show me kids who'll, unsupervised, speak a foreign language while playing). I was to teach the mom first, while Tat 'taught' the kids, after which I'd teach the kids using books. They loved lessons I'd create from the Goosebumps and Hardy Boys series. It was for them that I created a Scrabble set... no board, just the letters, made from card with points, with which they had to make words in Scrabble style. The rule was that they had to use the dictionary, so they'd learn new words. The mom would sometimes give us the most divine Creme de papaia with Licor de Cassis in summer as a snack. Omg! Delicious. That, alone, would have kept me going back there.  Creme de papaia is basically papaya blended with vanilla ice cream. Over this, you pour Licor de Cassis. The kids had theirs with Groselha, a syrupy 'juice' made from a local fruit. I had a lawyer, a financial director for Playland (the local amusement park... he stopped because he was always travelling and just couldn't keep up), a psychologist specialising in bariatric surgery cases who needed English for overseas conferences, a group of engineers who were working on the of our underground system, a handful of computer programmers, and a couple of housewives who were just looking for something 'more' in their lives.

My students and classes are very different now. I'm teaching at a school... no more traipsing around to students, though the co-op I'm registered with wants me to go back to teaching business English at the companies. My schedule doesn't allow for that though. So far, I have R. He is a tax accountant with an English bank. All their courses are apparently in English, so he needs to study. He's a quiet sort of chap, but interesting to talk to. He's intermediate and is working through a book that involves discussion, listening (we listen to recordings on cd and he answers questions on them), grammar and vocabulary exercises and so on. The class lasts an hour and is before work in the morning. I have two groups I teach using what they call open conversation. The book is a series of images in subjects and we are to have two hour long discussions of those images... not as easy as it sounds. What do I know about verbs related to rock climbing and ice hockey? The one group is a group of teens ranging from 15 to 19 years, except for one talkative chap who is 38. Their English is fairly good though. Then I have F who is delightful. She is so enthusiastic and I love teaching her, if for no other reason than she showed me how to use the DVD player *blushing* Here I was, (I don't own a TV and haven't had one for over 15 years) faced with a TV and slimline DVD player... and a video player. There were at least 5 remote controls. Help! She has both video and audio in her classes to improve listening skills. The rest is discussion. She asked to be taught by me because she wanted the challenge of hearing a native speaker, as opposed to a local teacher. Her classes are at night. She works in marketing. I suspect that one of the teens I teach is her son, as he studies at the same school. Then I have M who is sweet enough, but getting her to stick to English is tough. The moment she is 'lost', she breaks out in very fast Portuguese. When I got her as a student, I didn't know that she had already started the book we're on, so I prepared the first unit. I got to class and ended up having to 'wing it' when I discovered she'd already done that. I embarrassed myself this Saturday though (I teach her on Saturday afternoons for 2 hours, right after my teens, who are also for 2 hours), as I had just moved on from the teens. I hadn't had the book to prepare the lesson from this week, as there is a shortage of books in the school, so I rushed into her class, opened the books I'd just been handed, saw the unit I didn't recognise and proceeded to teach. She said nothing. It turned out that it was one of the lessons she'd already done before getting to me. Ugh. No problem... consider it revision. The school's director thought it was amusing and said, when I lamented that M didn't tell me she'd already covered that, that this student was one I could throw anything at and she'd quietly take it *sigh*

I have two sets of groups waiting that I haven't met yet. The schools here start tomorrow for the year. On Friday, Carnival week starts, during which time, nothing functions. Only after that will we get on with actual school and life will settle into a routine of sorts.

There! Have I made up for my lack of blogging during the week? ; )

Technorati Tags: courtesy,teaching,license plates

The working world

It seems that I'm back in the world of English (ESL) teaching in full force now. I went today to register with the 'corporativa' (co-op). Hearing 'corporativa' all day made me think of "Corporasie stories". Remember that series? It was a South African tv series way back when. The 'corporativa' here seems to be some sort of a union type of organisation. I don't rightly care what they are. They are organising a bank account for me. Heck, I don't even need to go into the bank to get it. The girl from the 'corporativa' fetched myself and my translator (Jorge) from the School and drove us back. She offered. She said it was too unbearably hot to walk and bus back. She had a point. The car was like an oven. Trust me, we were grateful for the ride.

I'll be teaching every day, it seems. Not all my students are back into 'school' mode yet, but Monday to Saturday will be the norm, with classes in the morning before the working day, in the afternoons (those would be the kids after school), and in the evenings, ending at 10pm. Then there's Saturday morning and afternoon. Next time you hear me complain about lack of work, please kick me. The 'corporativa' wants me to go back to private teaching where I go to the students' companies. That will mean going into the city in the evenings by bus. It will also mean more money, but I'll be taking a very late bus home every day. I'm fairly keen to do it, but the idea of all that travelling isn't appealing.

Tat was chatting to George tonight. Their chatting sent me on another trip down memory lane... the parts I don't usually explore. He got me thinking about my mother, who is now an old lady in a wheelchair with Parkinsons, still as feisty as ever from what I hear. And Christmases. Funny... with both my brothers, my gran's cooking is what seems the most memorable. It has been interesting comparing each 'child's memory. I need to upload more photos for them to see, not that I have many. I wonder where all the photos went. Jim, my grandfather, always had his camera on hand in its brown leather case. When not in use, it hung behind my bedroom door. I would fiddle with it in secret. I'm surprised it worked.

Oi... I'm tired and rambling. I'm off to bed. My social life has come to a grinding halt. I'm now having to make myself useful. Omg... that takes work! ; ) Oh and the photo? That was the two Japanese kids I taught. The condition of my teaching them was that Tat would go with to speak English to them while I taught the mother. Needless to say, that particular English never happened. I taught the kids for some years... close to 4 if I remember correctly. Ugh... I'm starting to ramble again...

Technorati Tags: teaching,work,english,memories,ESL

It's raining again

Ok, so you probably won't understand the video. Part of this was filmed right at our old home.

Technorati Tags: rain,são-paulo,brazil

Masp

The morning dawned hot, with warnings of rain. We've had heavy downpours in the afternoon every day so far. This, to me, is typical São Paulo weather... hot as blazes, then 4pm, the heavens open, until around 6pm, at which point someone up there turns the tap off and the city drains until the next day.



Jorge headed into town with me. My plan was to go to the antiques fair on Avenida Paulista to distribute my photo restoration fliers. The antiques fair is held in the shadow of the monolithic Masp, an art gallery that I keep threatening to actually visit. Reflected in the glass in the above photo is the crafts fair that Masp looks out over. Masp is a well known landmark in São Paulo. It has two huge red 'feet' standing in ponds. The actual gallery is a couple of storeys up.

Ah... there comes the rain now. Hm... I love the smell of rain.

Delivering fliers were, as Jorge put it, like fishing. Wonder if there'll be any catches. It's too soon to tell. It turned out that we couldn't hand them out in the antiques fair itself, or security would stop us. I wanted to hand them out at least until we were stopped. I ended up handing them out in front of the fair, to passers by. The trouble with that was the jaded Paulistano's who decline fliers, politely of course. The most disheartening part was seeing one of my fliers thrown on the ground and trampled. We then crossed the road to the crafts fair where I managed to hand out a few before we gave up and headed home.

On the bus ride home, we were desperately wishing for rain... anything to cool off. As the bus meandered home, there was a church on a hill off to one side. Sliding down the grassy hill on scraps of cardboard were a group of brown skinned boys. The white-toothed grin the one presented us with as he reached the bottom made me grateful it wasn't raining. They were having so much fun.

I think we'll just have sandwiches tonight. It is far too hot to cook.

Technorati Tags: paulista,photo-restoration,masp,cl photo studios