Jorge put me onto this news article. Clicking on the image above will take you to the original article (in Portuguese).

Not very far from here (in relation to the size of Brazil), at Santo Antônio do Monte, 185 km  from Belo Horizonte, in Minas Gerais, this gorgeous dog saved a newborn baby. The dog, Xuxa, named after one of Brazil's celebrities, is a 'vira lata' or mongrel.... with a heart of gold. Her owner found her standing over a cardboard box in a vacant lot, barking incessantly.

Maria opened the box and found a newborn baby, still covered with blood with the umbilical cord attached. The little boy, now named João Gabriel, is doing well in hospital and will probably be adopted. The mother of the child has not been found.

As Jorge put it when he showed me the article.... animals put humans to shame. I know there are those that will say the dog was barking because of the smell of blood, but I do believe that it goes far beyond that. The dog sensed life. That little boy has a chance at life now. I can only hope his life continues to be blessed.

For even more heartwarming dog news, go to Irene's blog here. These animals are simply amazing!

A conversation I had today brought to mind something I have been reading and hearing of over and over from various sources... being grateful, not just grateful, but grateful for where I am. Now, I must tell you, it takes a lot for me to say this. Those who know me and know how I've felt the past number of years will know what I mean, so I'm not going to follow that thought here at all... it would defeat the purpose. This blog is of a personal nature, so reading it may well turn out to be immensely boring. I won't be offended if you glance and move on : )

It is well known that those who give thanks for what they have, somehow 'attract' more of the good. Whiners tend to get more of the negative... right? The key here is to use no negative words at all. Try it... it isn't as easy as it sounds. I'm not allowing myself to say something like, "I'm grateful I don't have...", as 'don't' is negative. Let's see how far I can take this exercise.

So... I'm grateful

... that I have a home that is bright and sunny... and waterproof.
... that I have my little family around me. I know where each one is. I can talk to them whenever I please.
... that we are all healthy. I look around and see wet noses and sparkly eyes. Ok... so the healthy thing covers the animals too : )
... that I trip over animals that love to rub up against my legs. Unconditional love is good, especially when I have treats in hand
... that I have treats to give!
... that I live in Brazil. Living here has gotten me one very dear friend, a godmother to my child, and a hoard of wonderful friends all over the world!
... for my computer and our normally excellent internet connection
... for the freedom to surf, explore, do research
... that I found my cousins after more than 30 years of silence
... that I can read on my favourite subjects, so that once I have moved, I can study and it will be easier to qualify
... that I have been given the time to prepare to move
... supper is smelling good ; )
... for my incredible sense of smell, which makes me check the supper before it... well... y'know ; )
... for my family's great sense of humour. It has helped though some... interesting times
... for the learning curve life threw me on when we made the decision to come to Brazil
... I have had the opportunity to broaden my horizons and look deeply into a different culture, way of life, different religions... a different way of thinking
... for the 'fertilizer' I am often surrounded with. It helps me grow


I am grateful that I am South African. I am grateful for who I am and what I am. My world comes with its little 'challenges', sure, but life is good.... right?

São Paulo is the economic center of Brazil. When São Paulo goes down, the whole country feels it. Last night, on the dot at midnight, our internet died. I cursed and went to bed, as the internet has been dicey for a few weeks now with super slow speeds at times.

We woke this morning to the news that the whole of São Paolo was down. News later came in that the downtime was statewide. Our internet downtime meant that everything was down. Think banks, police, airports, the works. On tv (great crime-prevention move there), they announced that no one was able to make official complaints at the police (what happened to paper and pen?) and the cops weren't able to release bodies from the morgue without internet (we needed to know that). Our news tonight tells us that Annatel, the governing 'body' for telecommunications in Brazil, is considering a R$50 million fine against Telkom if they can prove negligence. This should get interesting. Take a guess who'll eventually foot that bill... the users. Speaking of footing the bill. We just got the delightful news, too, that our electricity is going up by 8.26% next month. That should go down well.

Yesterday, we were out the whole day. We only got home at 9pm. Tat had a job in. I was really proud of her. She worked hard and performed well. The director, a crazy British guy, asked her why she hasn't considered going into acting. Born and raised South African, she has spoken Brazilian Portuguese fluently from shortly after we arrived here... without any hint of a foreign accent. For yesterday's work, she had to do a huge section in an American accent, then follow up with a section using a British accent. According to the director, she is authentic. Not bad for a kid who's never been to either the USA or Britain. She just listens to the accent and replicates it. That is some talent.


Now I need to catch up with some mail. 'Someone' apparently put the internet on hold for us, but forgot to stop mail while I was down ; )

Relating to my Picture Perfect blog

The "African" dancers. Their performance was very un-African, performed by Brazilian dancers who had never been to Africa. They had tremendous energy, though we kept expecting their straw outfits to catch fire against the candles.

Every year, we would go to the South African Consulate Function in April. It was usually a rather grandiose affair, but on this occasion, they had outdone themselves. Food was French style, ie. more artistic than designed to sustain, with an appetiser of Carpaccio of Ostrich, a rare meat here, but fairly common in South Africa. Wine flowed freely the whole evening. Designer gowns, flashy jewelry, and fancy cars abounded. The venue was an upmarket Bingo hall, Imperatriz. The building was palacial, done in an African style, with dark African warriors lining the walls, huge tusks curving up towards the ceilings, which were lit with myriads of tiny lights. The entrance hall boasted enormous statues of elephants and giraffes.

The place and the event epitomised extravagance to me in every sense of the word.

Lindiwe Zulu, the South African ambassador to Brazil broke out in song during the speeches. I think the chap standing behind her looks somewhat uncomfortable. As you can hear by the background noise, the song was a hit, especially among her fellow Xhosa's.

The "African" dancers. Their performance was very un-African, performed by Brazilian dancers who had never been to Africa, and the ambassador was angry. A few nasty office memo's flew around after the event.


Apologies for the video quality with this last one.

It seems some can't view the Youtube videos. They can also be found here:
"African" dancers
Ambassador singing

Visit Picture Perfect to view more examples of Extravagance or to join in the fun.

First the whine.... Well, the end of the whine, at least. In case no one noticed, I was absent for a while. My last blog was a rather half-hearted attempt at Picture Perfect what seems like an age ago. Looking at that photo and the one I have here makes me want to toss the camera or at least let someone else take over the shutter. The last photo's excuse is that it is a very old scanned in photo. This photo has no excuse, but it still illustrates the point.

I was having a chat with a friend last night when I needed to pop off to the kitchen to deal with the cheese. It was one of those meals. I thawed what I thought was stewing beef, but, once thawed, it turned out to be mince, or what some of you call ground beef or hamburger. Where on earth does that come from anyway?? No connection at all. This brings me around to the point of this blog.... words.

A Brazilianism for you... They don't grate cheese here. Some of you would call that shredded cheese. Cheese is offered whole or sliced, more often sliced. I prefer sprinkling grated cheese on my food. One place that I found did 'grated' cheese, actually minced the cheese..... erm... what some of you would call 'ground', as in the 'ground beef'. Ever seen minced cheese? It looks like worms. Seriously not appetising.... but back to the words thing...

While having this rather confusing conversation, I came to the conclusion that British English, South African English and American English are three different languages. In South Africa, we speak British English, for the most part, though there's a healthy addition of localisms that would confuse the best of you. For us, for example, a traffic light is called a 'robot'. Words like 'bakkie', 'biltong', 'boerewors', and 'lekker' abound. The Americans take the prize though.

The cheese I have photographed is, what I would call, 'grated'. Americans call it shredded. I use a grater to grate cheese. The grater slices off slivers of cheese. Shredding is a different process, to my knowledge. Our cat shreds paper. I think she'd make a mess of cheese, if caught on a fussy day when she deems cheese inappropriate for diet. Then there's the mince, or 'ground beef'. I don't know about you, but I grind pepper and other spices, either in a grinder or with a pestle and mortar, or we grind flour in a mill. Grinding beef would be rather hard to do. We won't go down the hamburger route. According to Webster's Random House, 'hamburger' is ground or chopped beef. 'Chopped'? That would take forever! I tried to understand... honestly I did. I looked up 'grind' and found no beef. How is your... uh... finely processed beef actually processed? Is it processed with an odd-looking machine with a funnel thing at the top and holes in the front, producing, dare I say, 'meat worms'? Now before I'm accused of word prejudice, Webster's Random House is American, giving British 'alternatives'. 'Mince' according to Webster's is also, finely chopped. Ah.... I give up! I'm not one to mince my words.... Gee... that was bad... Bad, bad pun..... really bad... *slinks off again*

Leaving South Africa... (I'll try to keep this short)

The why's and wherefores go back quite a few years, so bear with me. We had immigration plans as far back as 1987. We were actually on our way home to Port Elizabeth (south eastern SA) from visiting the consulate in Pretoria (northern SA), when we had our accident, putting paid to any plans for many years.

In 1994, Jorge was retrenched on the grounds of affirmative action. The company, a Zimbabwean company, wanted to put managers in that were more in keeping with the new government policies. Top management went first. No one would employ a white manager after that. Affirmative action was the 'word of the day'. To say it made us angry, is probably an understatement. Jorge had worked really hard to get where he was. First thing we lost was the car. It was leased through the company. We had no savings (ah to be young and foolish). We only had our land. We lived off the land. Fortunately, we love farming and we did pretty well from our efforts. Jorge did odd jobs at first. We had wonderful friends supporting us and referring us. I went out and got a job after being at home for many years. Between the odd jobs, my new job and my sewing, we managed. From his 'odd-jobbing', Jack of all Trades was born. We contracted out to factories and restaurants, doing building and maintenance. We did private homes too. Tat and I went through parking lots and shopping centers handing out flyers promoting the business. It was fun :) Work came in and we were happy. We bought a used van and one of our clients did the signage. This kept us going for some time.

Roll on 1997... We were on our way home when a loud bang rocketed through the bonnet of our car, one we inherited from Jorge's dad who had recently passed away. A hole was shot in the engine casing. I didn't even know it was possible!! That put that car out of commission. Jorge and a friend rebuilt that engine as cheaply as possible, but as one thing was fixed something else went wrong with it. Then our very necessary van packed in with one of those faults that the fine print in the contract never covers. Gosh, we were fools! The cost of repairing the fault would have been almost the same as buying another van. With that and the death duties from his father and the car giving trouble... it all added up and we were in trouble. The business required a van. I was working, but that covered the monthly bills and not much more.

Jorge made one of those long-thought-out-split-second decisions. Bearing in mind, his dad had recently died, so the estate in Brazil was now an issue and as Jorge said at the time, "After all, we have nothing left to lose" - ah... we would still have our time of wanting to take those words back. Within 2 weeks, he was on the plane to Brazil. The plan was for him to find work here, then bring the family over. I was to do the whole immigration application process, as I was the only one that didn't qualify for residency on the basis of his citizenship. We put our furniture into storage, Tat and I moved in with a friend (on hindsight, not recommended... at all).

10 Months later, Jorge was still struggling, not able to get a job. It costs R$5000 and a course to have his engineering qualifications recognised here. I decided that the family needed to be together. I sold what I could, which got me virtually nothing, as so many South Africans were leaving the country at the time and selling up. Through a friend, we got a good price on our tickets to Brazil, but we had to leave right away. There was no time to go through the storage facilities. I left the remainder of our goods there for a friend to sell, pay off our bills and dispose of. Our personal effects that we didn't have time to collect.... well... who knows what happened to those.

So we left. Would I do things differently if I had the chance to do it again? Of course, but at the time, we made our decisions with the information we had and based so many of them on emotion. To answer the question of why we can't go back, I need to touch, once again, on politics. Jorge was a naturalized South African, having grown up there and worked and paid his taxes, etc. South Africa's esteemed new president decided in his wisdom that any South Africans who leave the country for more than 5 years, unless they're born there (gracious of him, I'm sure), would lose their naturalization. To go back, Jorge would need to apply for permanent residency the way I had to for Brazil.

Ah... this has been too long already... and its not that exciting, I would think. Writing it just brought to mind again how one is so inclined to make really stupid decisions when you're ruled by emotion. I learnt about immigration the hard way. The next move will be very different, I assure you. We have gathered far more information than we will ever need and have made Plan A's, Plan B's and backup plans to those too. We don't expect to use any but our initial Plan A, but we hope we can say we've learnt by our mistakes.

I will leave the "Where to now" for another blog ;)

Leaving South Africa... (I'll try to keep this short)

The why's and wherefores go back quite a few years, so bear with me. We had immigration plans as far back as 1987. We were actually on our way home to Port Elizabeth (south eastern SA) from visiting the consulate in Pretoria (northern SA), when we had our accident, putting paid to any plans for many years.

In 1994, Jorge was retrenched on the grounds of affirmative action. The company, a Zimbabwean company, wanted to put managers in that were more in keeping with the new government policies. Top management went first. No one would employ a white manager after that. Affirmative action was the 'word of the day'. To say it made us angry, is probably an understatement. Jorge had worked really hard to get where he was. First thing we lost was the car. It was leased through the company. We had no savings (ah to be young and foolish). We only had our land. We lived off the land. Fortunately, we love farming and we did pretty well from our efforts. Jorge did odd jobs at first. We had wonderful friends supporting us and referring us. I went out and got a job after being at home for many years. Between the odd jobs, my new job and my sewing, we managed. From his 'odd-jobbing', Jack of all Trades was born. We contracted out to factories and restaurants, doing building and maintenance. We did private homes too. Tat and I went through parking lots and shopping centers handing out flyers promoting the business. It was fun :) Work came in and we were happy. We bought a used van and one of our clients did the signage. This kept us going for some time.

Roll on 1997... We were on our way home when a loud bang rocketed through the bonnet of our car, one we inherited from Jorge's dad who had recently passed away. A hole was shot in the engine casing. I didn't even know it was possible!! That put that car out of commission. Jorge and a friend rebuilt that engine as cheaply as possible, but as one thing was fixed something else went wrong with it. Then our very necessary van packed in with one of those faults that the fine print in the contract never covers. Gosh, we were fools! The cost of repairing the fault would have been almost the same as buying another van. With that and the death duties from his father and the car giving trouble... it all added up and we were in trouble. The business required a van. I was working, but that covered the monthly bills and not much more.

Jorge made one of those long-thought-out-split-second decisions. Bearing in mind, his dad had recently died, so the estate in Brazil was now an issue and as Jorge said at the time, "After all, we have nothing left to lose" - ah... we would still have our time of wanting to take those words back. Within 2 weeks, he was on the plane to Brazil. The plan was for him to find work here, then bring the family over. I was to do the whole immigration application process, as I was the only one that didn't qualify for residency on the basis of his citizenship. We put our furniture into storage, Tat and I moved in with a friend (on hindsight, not recommended... at all).

10 Months later, Jorge was still struggling, not able to get a job. It costs R$5000 and a course to have his engineering qualifications recognised here. I decided that the family needed to be together. I sold what I could, which got me virtually nothing, as so many South Africans were leaving the country at the time and selling up. Through a friend, we got a good price on our tickets to Brazil, but we had to leave right away. There was no time to go through the storage facilities. I left the remainder of our goods there for a friend to sell, pay off our bills and dispose of. Our personal effects that we didn't have time to collect.... well... who knows what happened to those.

So we left. Would I do things differently if I had the chance to do it again? Of course, but at the time, we made our decisions with the information we had and based so many of them on emotion. To answer the question of why we can't go back, I need to touch, once again, on politics. Jorge was a naturalized South African, having grown up there and worked and paid his taxes, etc. South Africa's esteemed new president decided in his wisdom that any South Africans who leave the country for more than 5 years, unless they're born there (gracious of him, I'm sure), would lose their naturalization. To go back, Jorge would need to apply for permanent residency the way I had to for Brazil.

Ah... this has been too long already... and its not that exciting, I would think. Writing it just brought to mind again how one is so inclined to make really stupid decisions when you're ruled by emotion. I learnt about immigration the hard way. The next move will be very different, I assure you. We have gathered far more information than we will ever need and have made Plan A's, Plan B's and backup plans to those too. We don't expect to use any but our initial Plan A, but we hope we can say we've learnt by our mistakes.

I will leave the "Where to now" for another blog ;)

The photo was of Tat, age 9, before our move to Brazil. Jorge (my husband for those not 'in the know') was already over here, trying to get tenants out of the house, so that we could move in. This photo is symbolic, I think. Tat was wearing her Brazilian Pica Pau outfit (the character on the front is well known in Brazilian cartoon world), with the backdrop of the miniature SAA planes in the theme park on Durban's beachfront. It was taken on a really hot Durban day. The silly child insisted on leaving the hotel room barefoot and was smiling in spite of the fact that her feet must have been in agony on the hot concrete.

I am often asked "Why Brazil?" when the rest of South Africa fled to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, UK, Holland.... everywhere but here. I usually avoid answering, as its one of those responses that have a Russian doll effect... or 'peeling the onion'. You uncover one reason and have to explain the reason below it.

In a very large Brazil nut shell... Jorge's mom is Brazilian. His dad is Lithuanian. Jorge was born in Brazil and his family emigrated to South Africa back in '66, so Jorge was raised pretty much South African. I am, of course, South African to the core. When they left Brazil, they left a house behind. This house was the source of major controversy for many years. His parents split up. As good Catholics, they would never have dreamt of a divorce, though neither ever went to church. She returned to Brazil. He stayed in SA. When he wanted to sell the house, she refused. Then she'd want to sell and he'd refuse. Then there were the tenants. Here, if you take up residence, the owner has to pay you compensation to move or you can, after a certain number of years simply claim the house as your own. Tenants are also free to do just about anything with a house - bad news for property owners if there is no contract. The house was pretty much 'claimed' and thoroughly wrecked. I'm going to cut out a lot of why's and wherefore's at this point (subject for another blog one day). His parents eventually died within a month of each other, on opposite ends of the ocean. Hate can be a strong bond after all. Jorge inherited the house.

We had immigration intentions then already, though Brazil was far from our dream destination. We decided to come over here, sort out the property, sell it, and move on to our final goal. We had nothing left to lose in SA - or so we thought (yet another blog subject of its own).

So there you have it. We moved into the house here, got the tenants out, sold the house after 7 long years of struggle and are finally ready to move on. It took thousands upon thousands to clear the legal mess and make the house barely liveable.

And, no, moving back to South Africa is not one of our options at this point. Of course, there is a lot more to be said on the subject, but I don't want to bore everyone :)