Carnival, Medical Exams, and Turpentine

Over the weekend and the beginning of this week was the carnival holiday. During Carnival in Brasil most of the country shuts down. Many, many Brazilians head for the beach, others travel to various Carnival celebrations. The famous ones are in Rio de Janiero, Salvadore and Ouro Preto, first two not especially safe. Each year Carnival is held the four days before Ash Wednesday; these four days leading up to Ash Wednesday are a time to feast, dance, party and simply let-loose before the tranquil weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter.
Some theories say Carnival began as a pagan celebration in ancient Rome and Greece (ancient spring Greek festical in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine). The Romans adopted the celebration with Bacchanalia (feasts in honor of Bacchus) then there was Saturnalia, where slaves and their masters would exchange clothes in a day of drunken revelry. Saturnalia was later modified by the Roman Catholic Church into a festival leading up to Ash Wednesday. It quickly evolved into a massive celebration of indulgences - one last gasp of music, food, alcohol, and sex before Lent - before the 40 days of personal reflections, abstinence and fasting until Easter.
A good friend of ours went to the carnival here in Sao Paulo and sent me these pictures! Everyone says you should at least see it once, Joe and I have chosen not to go last year or this year mainly because of cost(tickets are REALLY expensive).




During carnival, Joe and I were invited to attend a churrasco (BBQ) at the nacional clube physica(national physical club) Very similar to a city park and pool. It had a playground, trails, picnic tables and a small water park. But before we could go into the water park you have to have a medical exam and be approved. Our best guess was they were taking precautions from spreading something. I guess I just assumed that the chlorine would kill anything. So we went through the medical exam, then they watch you shower off(unlike in the US where everyone skips this step), and then we had to walk a turnstile the hand a mini pool full of some sort of solution. After being treated like we were going to spread foot and mouth disease, we were allowed to enter the pool. It was fun once we got thru all of that.

On a side note, Joe and I have been working on packing and cleaning up our apartment, preparing to leave Brazil. We have been selling all of our furniture and appliances also. One of the things I have never figured out here is how to clean really well. And for those of you who are thinking that really shouldn't be that hard, then go live in one of the top 5 most densely populated cities and then let me know how to do it. And New York doesn't count! Detroit has more pollution. I have tried every cleaner in the stores, and I have resorted to bleach. None of them work. So yesterday I started using turpentine, and Eureka we have a winner!

Walking through devastation

This past week Sao Paulo has had many thunderstorms. Last weekend they were so bad that Saturday night many areas flooded, including our street. In the 14 months that we have been here we haven't experienced a storm like it. We aren't talking about a foot of water we are talking about entire cars underwater. Unlike the US, most people do not have car insurance. Sunday morning we woke up to blue skies, and a warm 75 degrees. But heading to the bus stop was less impressive. Everything on our street was covered in mud and silt(the slick mud) trees were down, a concrete wall had collapsed, and you could see the water marks on everything. It gave us an appreciation for those who went through Katrina first hand. Tonight we are suppose to have similars storms. Please pray for those in the city who do not have homes that they might find shelter. I have included a few pictures



For those of you who don't know what your looking at, the light in the middle is a cars flashers still going...underwater!