Life in Sao Paulo

I'm now travelling along the Northeast coast of Brazil with my Dad since leaving Monte Azul on 19 Feb, but wanted to post something about what I got up to in Sao Paulo when I wasn't doing my 8-5 job in the office at Monte Azul.

Generally I spent weekday evenings chatting to Dona Lindalva's family and the other volunteers, on facebook and skype and looking into travelling around Brazil and Argentina. Apart from my first weekend in Sao Paulo, every weekend was very busy - even though very little was planned in advance!

Here's a run down of my weekend (and some weekday) activities...

Sun 15 Jan – Parque Villa-Lobos - in the rain! - with Raphael and Sophia; we had an interesting discussion about prisons in Brazil (they are horrendous).

Fri-Sun 20-22 – Ilhabela with Jeremy, friends and family

Tues 24 – lunchtime meeting with Darrin at FK partners in Vila Olimpia to discuss CFA teaching, which I want to do every now and again so that I don't forget what I learned!

Weds 25 – anniversary of Sao Paulo (established 1554) – 458 years old; we all got the day off work (it's a 'feriado', or public holiday). There was a midnight tour of the historical centre of SP on the Tuesday night, which was followed by a film showing in an old cinema in the city centre at 3am. Don't think this kind of thing would ever happen in the UK!

Thurs 26 – lunch with Sergio, who leads the Valuations team at EY which I'll be joining in April, and Otavio, one of the senior managers in the team. We went to a steakhouse near the office which served excellent steak.  In the evening I had a skype chat about the culture of Brazil with Christine, a student in the UK who is making a documentary about the cultural differences between the UK and Brasil (more on this below).

Sat 28 – Pinocoteca do Estado with Tharsi, who Silvia, my Brazilian friend at the BoE, put me in touch with. The Pinocoteca is an art gallery with mostly Brazilian art. Really enjoyed it. 

Sun 29 – 'Churrasco' (BBQ) for Lindalva's oldest son's 35th birthday. After the churrasco, Jeremy took me and two other volunteers (Jose and Leo) cycling in Ipirapeura Parque followed by drinks in Vila Madalena – a bohemian part of Sao Paulo with lots of bars and samba schools.

Fri 3 Feb – Integracao meeting at Monte Azul. This is a monthly meeting with everyone who works for Monte Azul – about 250 people in total. The day started with breakfast and people were split into groups to discuss the ideas of Rudolf Steiner before presenting back to others on what they had discussed. I was in the 'Arte' group and our presentation was VERY improvised.

Sat 4 – Tom Ze (well known Brazilian singer and comedian) concert at Villa-Lobos Parque followed by Acaraje (food from Bahia) at Benedito Calixto market near Faria Lima. Dinner with Jeremy, Tom and Olivia at a very nice Italian restaurant called Othello, followed by drinks in a dodgy part of town at a bar called Barra Funda ('deep bar'!).

Sun 5 – Lindalva taught me how to make her bread, with lots of grains and seeds.

Tues 7 – Discussion on Waldorf things at Ute's house (Ute founded Monte Azul in the 1970s).

Weds 8 – Went to a lecture at the Anthroposophical Institute in Santo Amaro (15 mins away by bus).

Thurs 8 – A mini 'festa da despedida' (leaving party) for me at a bar near to my boss's house. Arranged at very short notice (the same day!) as my boss was going to her home in Bahia and wasn't going to be back before I left Monte Azul).

Sat 11 – Went to the Weleda shop in Santo Amaro (next to the Anthroposophical Institute) in the morning. Burns night at the British Council; really enjoyed this - lots of Scottish country dancing, speeches, toasts and conversation with other Britishers.

Sun 12 – went to see Adriano and family in Santos. 

There was very heavy rain in the afternoon and a lot of flooding on the roads. I stayed the night at Adriano's sister's house and went back to Monte Azul on Monday morning.

During my last week at Monte Azul I got out of the office and did a 'Rodizio' or rotation around the different areas in which Monte Azul works.

Monday 13 – Infancia Querida at Peinha. I joined the group of children aged about one year and they were so cute – there were only 5 of them – Agathe (who really liked to sit on my knee), Kelly, Gustavo, Daniel and Bruno. Adorable! If I'd been working at Monte Azul for longer I would have helped in this area.

Tues 14 – day trip with other volunteers to Horizonte Azul – this is similar to Monte Azul but in the countryside south of Sao Paulo, and it has two farm gardens.

Weds 15 – Cozinha (kitchen) in the morning – I peeled many carrots and a lot of garlic; Nossa Ciranda with children aged 7-8 in the afternoon – we had lunch, a snack, and the children played, drew and walked round on stilts. They were extremely noisy – I've never heard anything like it and I don't think I could have worked with them for long!

Thurs 16 – Cozinha (in Peinha) – they had a very good cubing machine, which I used to cut quite a few different vegetables; Caminhando Juntos with special needs adults in the afternoon.

Fri 17 – Paderia in the morning – just cleaning really, as they weren't making much bread due to Monte Azul being closed for the next few days for the Carnaval weekend. Infancia Querida with 3-4 year olds in the afternoon. Some very cute children again!

Sat 18 - My 'festa da despida' at Casa Lindalva. About 10 people came - volunteers, Ute and Lindalva's family and everyone brought food from different countries.



Went to a Carnaval procession in the evening (a whole story in itself - it involved a lot of waiting for things to happen).

Some observations on things that have made an impression on me...

• People are much more spontaneous – I didn't plan my weekends generally but was always busy as things just came up. This has pros and cons of course!
• In my experience, groups of people are very inclusive of everyone – I got invited along to things and I was made to feel included even though I didn't know most of the people there.
• There's generally a lot of rubbish on the streets; Adriano's nephew told me that if he was President of Brazil he would clear the rubbish from the streets!
• The pavements have lots of obstructions (uneven paving or no paving, posts) – it's often easier to walk on the road.
• Dishes are washed in cold water
• Lettuce is cleaned with chlorine (do we do this in the UK?)
• Electricity is very expensive; all of the cookers are gas
• The boys in the class I went to in Monte Azul were much more disruptive than the girls; they also drew figures with guns and people being shot which I thought was interesting.
• Valentines day is not celebrated on 14 Feb – in Brazil they have Dia dos Namorados, which is on 12 June
• Name tags seem to be more acceptable than in the UK – I saw a guy in the supermarket with 'deficiente' on a name tag around his neck, and Adriano's nephew said he needed to wear a name tag at school so that teachers didn't forget his name 9a bit worrying!).
• The rain causes many more problems here – children leave school early if it looks like it'll rain; sometimes school is cancelled (eg.due to leaks) 

One final picture...

Ilhabela - Jan 20th-22nd

Ilhabela (Beautiful Island) is about 4 hours South East of Sao Paulo. It has lots of mountains, waterfalls and beautiful beaches and about 85% of the island is a national park. Building is only allowed on the West Coast, facing into the mainland. There's a beach on the eastern side of the island which you can only get to by boat or by 4-wheel drive car along a track that goes through the centre of the island. Ilhabela is very popular as a weekend and holiday place for Paulistanos (people from Sao Paulo), like my friend's family who I went to stay with. 

We left Sao Paulo on Friday afternoon and came back on Sunday.  There was a lot of traffic leaving SP, so we arrived quite late on Friday night, but we had a full day on Saturday and the weather was great. We went to small (and quiet!) Veloso beach first for swimming and kayaking, then to Curral beach for Lula (squid) and cerveja (beer) at Papagaia bar. The options were squid with garlic or deep fried - I tried both but thought deep fried was best!

We played a couple of games of badminton when we got back to the house. You have to watch out when you're on the grass as there are these horrible bugs called 'borrachudos' which live there and bite you if you don't put on copious amounts of insect repellant (I had none on when I started playing badminton and it didn't take long for me to get a good few bites on my feet and legs!). 

My friend's family is English-Brazilian and it was nice to do some British things eg. drink tea in the afternoon, mixed up with other traditions - we had brownies (in true American fashion) with the tea and, in keeping with Brazilian tradition, we had a 'churrasco' (barbecue) in the evening.    We were invaded by bugs partway through the barbecue, which turned out to be quite funny - particularly when trying to get rid of the bugs with a tennis racket type thing which fried them on contact (not sure about the morality of this). 

We went snorkelling in the morning on the Sunday – there were a couple of turtles but I wasn't fast enough to see them sadly. Couldn't flip the flippers fast enough. Then we headed back to Sao Paulo, stopping for lunch at a restaurant which served traditional food from Minas - heavy food with lots of meat, beans, rice, mandioca but perfect given that I was really hungry following the snorkelling.