Stairway to nowhere

This is a stairway on my street. It used to go up to another street that runs along the top of the hill, but has long ago been walled up and blocked. Actually, there is a doorway with a large metal grate over it, with bricks walling it up behind it, so it seems it was sort of open after the initiall walling. There is another such stair way farther into the neighborhood that is in such a state that I don't even dare walk on it - full of holes, caved-in sections, and plants and trees growing out of every crevice. This one doesn't appear to be in too bad of shape, but I have not tried to investigate it thorally. The city is full of these funny little used-to-be-a-street-or-passage-but-was-blocked-for-some-unknown-reason things. Does it add to the charm? You be the judge.

Yeah, and old picture, deal with it

Due to the new "shopping" opening up on the other side of Tancredo Neves, Iguatemí is expanding. It has already been stated that there will not be enough parking for this new mall, nor will the traffic flow be lessened or helped by the numerous road renovations and expansions and confusions near by. So to compensate for the future competition for consumers who have little or no money, a new and improved parking ramp is being built to lure them by want to easy car access. Never mind that Iguatemí is still trying to fight the city to allow them to charge R$5 per car per park....

Pop

This is my dish towel. In case you can't tell, that is supposed to be a chicken on the top, and underneath is a nice row of eggs waiting to be eaten in their little egg holder cups. I remember when I was a kid, I loved having a hard boiled egg to eat for breakfast in that little cup. I thought it was so cool. Now they seem to be obsolete; I'm sure no one gives them as wedding presents anymore, and I had not seen them in stores in a long time. I have no idea if they have ever existed in Brasil, but they at least exist here in memory in my kitchen. When I first moved here, I thought this towel was so strange, and was baffled by the "Engrish" on the bottom of it. So much in fact, that I believe I already wrote about it once in my other blog. Eggs are Pop? In Michigan, pop is a carbonated drink, which made it even more funny to me. There are many other great examples of English here, perhaps I will begin a series...

Rain brings out all manner of creatures

Today we have some rain photos. It has been raining pretty much everyday since last week. It looks like it's going to continue to rain all the way through Carnaval which officially started in Bahia on Wednesday night.

First, a photo I took earlier and forgot to post. The rain seems to put everything on the move here, so I was only somewhat surprised to see a frog resting quietly in the cats' water bowl first thing in the morning. Actually, judging from the amount of water on the floor around the bowl, I suspect Lela was trying to get it out of there for some time, but some how proved unsuccessful. It's hard to see from the photo, but he (she?) has a lovely bright yellow speckled with black spots under the back legs that my husband insists is the poisen he (she?) carries for protection. We poured the bowl out in the garden, and the frog hung out under a cactus for another 10 minutes before disappearing.




Carnaval has begun in Bahia, more specifically here in our condo. Last night someone threw a Carnaval themed birthday party that lasted at least until 2AM, which is when some woman went screaming/laughing by our front window and woke me up. We get to "participate" in all the parties because we are right next to the pool, so we can either sleep through it, or roast with all the windows closed (although this only muffels the sound). The confettie and streamers are all over this morning, sticking to walls and sidewalks in the rain. There is even quite a bit of it in the pool, along with these strings of balloons so common at parties here. Rain won't ruin anyone's parade at this time of year.

What is it?

I just don't know. This strange construction seems to be made entirely of cement and is being erected inside a nature preserve in Busca Vida. This picture just doesn't do it justice. It seems to be a boxcar in the style of Frank-Loyd-Wright-meets-Salvador-Dali-kind-of-esk. There do no seem to be any roads to it and we didn't see any movement indicating an inhabitant. I have no idea what it's doing there, since I thought no one was allowed to build on or walk around in these federal preserves....

It's 78% of what you breath

Pick your non-poison. Air, like in the States (at least in some places) is free, but Nitrogen will cost you up to R$2 extra. Supposedly it will make your tires last longer by not allowing them to heat up so much while driving all over this hot hot city in the summer - an important detail where potholes the size of the car itself are not so "news worthy" as they should be. Sounds like a good deal, right? But how much longer will your tires last? No one seems to know. Another important point - no mixing allowed: once you choose N2 as your preferred gas, you have to stick with it. If you happen to be low and go to a station that doesn't have nitrogen available, you'll have to completely drain your tires and refill them with air. The infrequency N2 pumps in the city is what prevents us from putting it to the test.

Smart FUZZY!

I have no anicdotes to go with this photo, only to say I took it on Paralela (our sort of highway in the city) on Sunday and thought it was quite funny. And the fox is cute too, even sideways...

Beware of snake!

Just on the outskirts of the city, one can easily find poisonous snakes - usually coral snakes to be exact. They are usually the main reasoning behind the trimming of grass and maintaining of landscaping, lest you be walking through your "natural" yard one morning and step on one, resulting in death. It's also a good reason not to just go walking into someone's private property if it's not regularly maintained. This sign is one of several strung up around some beach front property that appears to owned but not lived on - "soon to be developed." Between this and the barbed wire everywhere, I can only assume they mean to keep out squatters or others who might think "hey, let's go check this place out because no one lives there." The question remains as to if the owners mean to warn against wild snakes that might be in the property or a snake they put there themselves to protect the property, because the wording here "careful snake" (or more colloquially "beware of snake") is similar to the "cuidado cãe" (more less the USA equivalent to "beware of dog").

Razor tip sharp

A sweet even scale of notes coming from a simple pan pipe signals the arrival of the knife sharpener (the "call"). This guy wheels his sharpener around the neighborhoods, sharpening your scissors, your knives, your machetes, anything metal that needs it. For about R$3 an object, you can make all your cutting and slicing and hacking apparatuses like new. This is a lot less than buying new scissors and knives and machetes. The sharpener is a foot pedal contraption that must work somewhat like old sewing machines and that any freshman engineering major could probably build, yet I could not explain it to you (you know us language people...). For a video of my knives and scissors being sharpened click here.

Um, dois, tres!

Like we have seen before, you can buy just about anything you have a hankering for on the street. This is Tonho and he is a "historia" as my husband would call him, meaning he's been around a long time. You want to know anything about Salvador, he could probably tell you; he has been walking the streets selling pipoca about 18 years or so. He remembers our neighborhood before it was populated, he remembers the old indian who had a bar around the corner (who cursed the land when he was kicked off and no shop has survived there since), he remembers when there when the Centro was actually the centro and not on Tancredo Neves... He walks the streets with a large bike horn attatched to his cart (bike horns are the "call" of popcorn - every vendor has a song; see Capelinha for another example), honking away, keeping an eye out for crazy drivers with his sideview mirror. He sells three types of things - popcorn with molasses (just like carmel corn!), plain popcorn, and candy in his divided mobile store. Should you want to buy something, you need only yell "Pipoca!" when you hear the bike horn.

Good Omen

This is by far the coolest thing I have ever taken a photo of, in my opinion. I wish I could have taken a photo of the actual event, but evidence is good enough.

These two paths here are the tracks of a sea turtle that came ashore and layed eggs sometime after 2 AM on New Years day, right in front of the house we were staying at in Busca Vida (and passed right over where I had fallen asleep with Ju earlier in the evening - good thing I moved, lest she had been scared off). The one on the right is the path in and the one on the left is the path out. Where the two converge is the laying site.

A TAMAR (the sea turtle project in Praia do Forte) guy came riding by on his bike, saw the paths, told my husband the story (I was still sleeping), checked the eggs and marked the site with this pole.

I remember reading somewhere that when the ships of the Conquistadors appeared on the horizen, the Aztecs could not see them because they had never before seen a ship, so the object didn't appear to them (not sure how we can validate this claim) - the lesson is that things when one has not experienced a thing before, one has a hard time seeing it for what it is. Case in point would be when I noticed all the poles up and down the beach here. They are everwhere in this area (the TAMAR guy says this is because no one here bothers them, unlike in Guarajuba or Praia do Forte, so this is an ideal place for sea turtle eggs), and despite having wandered this beach before, I had been completely blind.

Mobile store

If one wanted to leave the house and spontaneously go to the beach, without so much as a bathing suit, it would be fairly easy to find anything you would need being sold by vendors - bikinis, cangas, food, water, sunglasses, sunscreen.... Many people make their living walking around looking for customers. This rule actually can apply all over the city and the stores come to you both on foot and by vehicle. There is a woman in Pituba who sells hammocks, usually camped out behind Iguatemí, but if you so desired you could buy one from this guy, whose noise polution announces his arrival. It is a common practice to drive a vehicle around with a giant speaker, announcing your products and prices, or if you are politcal candidate, your views and to throw mud at your competition. I didn't really pay attention to what his prices were, but I imagine they might have been on the high side, considering the neighborhood he was driving through is mostly private houses.

Capelinha! Olha o sabor de fruta!

This is a rather nice shot of the roadsides of Salvador. It is not unusual to see livestock with in city limits - chickens and roosters run domesticated near favela areas. In the areas that still have green space in the city, there is often horses grazing at the side of the road, usually not tied up or monitored in any way. They seem to know someone will come for them eventually and just stay put.

This guy is selling popsicles, but not just any frozen treat - within the depths of this cooler is Capelinha, a frozen fruit puree that puts Dole strawberry to shame. The most common favorite here is the Amidoim (peanut) flavor, but they come in a range of flavors including Morango (strawberry), Côco (coconut), Goiabab (guava), Cajá (no idea), Acerola (no idea, but one of my favorites), and Açaí (a purpley healthy tasting thing from the Amazon). This type of vendor also has a song he sings (most vendors have a sound or song that allows you to recognize what's comming long before they appear), saying something along the lines of "Look! Capelinha! Fruit flavor!" This is one of my weaknesses for Bahian food - I cannot resist the sabor de fruta!

Garrafamento chato

Is it the engineers' fault? Is it the fault of building a city without urban planners? Is it our healthy economy that allows so many people the luxery of having a car? Whatever the cause, there isn't really a time you don't find this kind of traffic during a normal day. Only in the middle of the night is the road clear. And it's not just the cars - the buses are also standing room only. For lack of sidewalk , cyclists and motorcycles fly between the semi-stopped lines of cars, weaving in and out of traffic, beating the wait by a long shot. If it weren't so dangerous (would you ride a bike on the road where people made left hand turns from the right hand lane and seemed to think the white dashed lines were for decoration?), I would consider taking it up. Almost everywhere in the city has a maximum of two routes to get there. Most of these routes are shared between objectives. The other option for this route (from Rio Vermelho to Pituba) is to take the Orla, which runs the length of the ocean and is the main route to almost everywhere in the city. Although a prettier option, it's not very practical for that reason.

A job nobody wants

I know I have seen these people in the States, the lucky construction worker with the job of waving the flag at the oncomming motorists, warning them that there is construction going on. Apparently here in Salvador, they don't even want to bother paying someone to do this, so they put up these nice little wooden men to hold the flags. They even paint them in the worker's uniform and give him a real flag to hold. This one in particular has a severly shortened arm, I think because the traffic here was so tight it was in danger of being (or had already been) hit by a passing truck or bus. There are several of them along this route, guarding the ever present project of the Salvador Metro (begun over 10 years ago I believe, and still no where near being completed), an L type of public transportation desperately needed in this city.

Coffee on wheels

When one moves to another country, one never thinks about all those conveniences you thought you wouldn't notice had gone missing. One of my great losses was the coffee shop. Every morning I would get a Coconut Latte on my way to a 9 AM class, drinking through my lecture or teaching between sips. Even, gasp, sneaking in sips between on air breaks while DJing at The Impact. In Sampa, I am told, there is a great pleathura (did I spell that right?) of all things American, including our college town study houses, but here in Hickville Bahia, we are not so advanced. But hey, we can still get coffee just about anywhere, even without the Starbucks on every corner. Our coffee, and I mean coffee - not latte, can be found on these interesting rolling apparatuses in caraffs of all shapes. Sold in little plastic shot glasses (think Jell-o shots), you can get it in both black and with milk. These guys are all over, and their coffee carrying shops are usually on wheels. You can't see so well because this picture was taken in a moving vehicle, but there is a steering wheel in his right hand that he uses to steere the coffee "truck" around (this would be why he's on the street, since the side walks weren't really built for things with small wheels). In fact, often times you will see these things actually painted and built as miniature semi-trucks carrying coffee, and usually a radio. This guy is like a middle - class style, not so fancy. Hooray for the fillers of the "need a shot of EX-presso" urge.

The new "Shopping"

Some of you may remember my post on the old "this week in Bahia" site about the new mall going up in the Pituba area, near Iguatemí. Well, a little over a year later, here it is, almost finished! It boasts to be the biggest mall in South America. Iguatemí had this title for some time as well. It's supposed to be the huge competition "shopping" to Iguatemí, being built literally around the corner and within site of our beloved gi-ganti-mall (we call this kind of thing a "shopping" instead of a mall), in which I have gotten lost more than once, and the giant church across the street from it (also lovingly know as "God Shopping"). Nothing in particular has been done to deal so much with the traffic flow around this area, except to add this new overpass, which I believe will lead directly to the mall and be horribley congested most of the time. For anyone who has ever been here, you know that the area in front of Iguatemí is not the best place to be in a car, and you are likely to sit there for a minimum of of 15 minutes during a heavier than normal traffic time. Access to this exclusive road will come from that same vein of traffic, since we never make more than one route to each destination. Unfortunately, adding a lane is not an option, since all these roads are at least 5 lanes wide already. And we say Brasil's economy is suffering - yet we still have money to spend in the giant shoppings!

What's all that white stuff?

What's with the half painted poles, you might ask? So they stand out to those driving on the road, incase one should veer to the sides - whoa! A big white POLE! The bottom 5-6 feet of most concrete lamp posts, and other side-of-the-road objects are painted white here. This includes these huge rocks. Some rocks don't even need to be close by the road to become hazzardous to our motorists apparently, I have seen them painted white as far as 100 yards off the road, although this may be more for asthetically pleasing reasons than for safety. Not that white stays clean very long in a city with all this gook floating by in the wash-out rains plague us May through August, as well as of late. Most of the time, you see the nice white paint that fades into grey/brown dirty on the bottom 3 feet. These rocks appeare to be freshly painted, and therefore stand out. I would surely not hit them, if I were a crazy careless driver.

Super speed ants

Not that you can tell from this photo, but these ants move faster than any you will find in the States. You need not wait more than 1 minute for them to find any kind of food you have in their vicinity (they really like cat food) and will clear the area of it in under 5 minutes, taking it to their nest which I suspect is actually deeply embedded in the wall of our veranda. At one point on my way home I came across a plant whose flowers resembeled small roses, and that just happened to have some nice seeds comming from one of the buds. I brought them home and planted them, and low and behold I have grown an aphid magnet! To the ants' delight. Slowly but surely the sticky residue from my resident parasites is turning all my nice white rocks green. I think this plant is about to go bye bye.

My lunch

Rather than throw in random shots on the street, seeing that I didn't actually go anywhere today, here is a nice shot from home. Hmm, what's all that yellow stuff? No, it's not curry (I'm allergic you know) - it's dendê! Palm oil, the main main staple of all foods Bahian. Without it acarajé, abará, and the Brasilian version of Montezuma's revenge would not exist (I'm taking votes on names for it - be sure to participate). This scourage of the digestive tract is a heavy heavy yellow/orange oil that come from crushing up those little red berries on African palms. It also makes us all fat, since we like to use it so much in so many dishes. This one I ate today, on my nice gasoline sign table, is called muqueca. It's usually made with tomato (none of that here, I'm allergic), green pepper (also not present for the same reason), onion, some kind of meat or fish, and tempero verde (a garlic and green herbs mix we use to season everything). You eat it over rice, which I did here. Also on my plate is a goolash type thing called pirão made from some of the caldo (juice, gravy, etc whatever you want to call it) from the muqueca, and below it is pumpkin, also a typical favorite here. That wierd blackish thing near the top of the plate was what Neta called "chicken surprise" - chicken with plantain bannana in the middle, and it was actually pretty good.

An interesting thing to note - all this European influence makes us eat with a knife in the right hand and the fork in the left. Not how I grew up eating, but much more efficient, I have to say. It should really be adopted in the States, where people are less inclided to wash their hands before they eat, but end up putting their fingers in their food to get it on the fork.