The other day I went next door to see Flavia’s mother. As it was a weekday at 10.30am I was surprised to see her ten year old grandson Hugo there watching TV. They explained to me that he only went to school in the afternoons from 1.00 to 5.40. Older children attend the same school but from 7am to 11.40.

There are similar arrangement at the University where Flavia’s daughter studies, this depends on the course, demand, facilities etc Last year Jana attended in the afternoons and evenings while other students study in the mornings. This has the obvious advantage of using the teaching facilities much more intensively than in Britain. The other advantage is that it allows students to take either morning or afternoon jobs to finance their studies. These hours can certainly help the parents of younger children who want to work part time.

In Brazil there is the system of “Lei do Estágio” or the law that covers the work experience for those in higher education. Students are required to work part time in employment related to their degrees. It is a similar idea to the British “industrial year” but the students work for four hours a day and study during the rest of the day. They receive the minimum wage and insurance cover but no employment protection. This idea might not go down well with British students as the Brazilians do not have nearly so much time for beer, sex and rock & roll.

So far I do not fully understand the system but can see that it works in different ways. I have heard of estagiarios who refuse to do any work at all because they have good family connections. Others seem to work hard and learn a bit about the world outside of academia. No doubt some are treated as a source of cheap labour. The work is supposed to be supervised and relevant to the subject being studied but it is not always easy to meet the requirements of the employer and the university. It seems to be a system that would be worth studying in Britain. Certainly the idea behind the system is excellent even if it does not always work as well as it should.

The other striking difference in education here is the vast number courses for adults. Most civil servants and other public employees have strong financial incentives to study. Most people seem to be doing some sort of course to accumulate more points to enable them to move to the next pay grade. This does lead to a very well educated work force.

The problem is that a lot of the study is totally pointless. Flavia scours the internet for suitable courses. Recently she found an advanced course in Portuguese punctuation and accents (which can be very tricky) which gave credit for 40 hours of study. Being very well educated she and several colleagues signed up and paid for the course and took the tests after a few hours of revision. They passed and the cost of the course will be more than repaid by the salary increase. A few years ago she studied very hard for five years to obtain a law degree. One would think that The Appeal Court might find some way of using the law degree of one of its administrators. She is in the same job as before – but with a higher salary. It seems so wasteful.

We have just come back from Brasilia where we spent the May 1st holiday weekend. As soon as I have time I will write an article about it.

The wedding vows

On Sunday we went to the wedding of Heliana (Flavia’s cousin) and David an Englishman.  They are both PhDs from Reading University where they met.  This explained a table full of Brazilians who had also studied at Reading.  It is tough to get any PhD but it must be very hard to do it in a second language.

The ceremony took place at 11am which is unusual in Brazil, they are usually held on Saturday evenings. The church is on the Vitoria military base probably because Heliana’s late father was a General.  The officiating priest was the bride’s brother which made it all much more personal.  There was no organ so the music was by a trio of flute, guitar and violin who also played at the reception which was in a local hotel.

As so often happens when I look at people around the world I was struck by the similarities rather than the differences.  Most of what happened would be very familiar to anyone who has attended a middle class wedding in England or Spain.  The best about a Brazilian wedding  are that there are no speeches, the clothing is less formal and there was no heavy drinking.  In fact it was very similar to a wedding in Spain but without the noise and excitement.

It is Holy Week at the moment and as Brazil is a very Catholic country I was expecting a lot more activity.  Around here it is very much business as usual apart from the the very religious who go to church every day. Friday is a holiday and the beaches were full and Saõ Paulo had 248km of traffic jams.  I was expecting processions, penitents carrying statues and passion plays.  There are some of those reported on the television but it seems to be very local.  Not like Spain where the smallest village will have some sort of demonstration of their faith.  In fact it seems as low key as the British Easter.

We went to the cinema twice last week and I was not impressed with the quality of staff at the ticket desk.  I had my passport ready each time and was ready to prove that I was entitled to my over 60s 50% discount. Each time they issued to ticket without comment.  Ridiculous!  Anyone would think that I look 60 years old.

As usual I am a bit rushed and will add the pictures later.  We are off early tomorrow morning for our second Torta Capixaba A traditional Easter fish dish. It is delicious.  One of the ingredients is heart of palm. Rather than coming in small cans you buy a tree trunk around one metre long.  I have not seen how this is prepared yet.  At this time of year street sellers have mounds of palms stacked up and plenty of customers buying them,

I was a bit premature last week when I said that you should register to
be able to add a comment to the blog. There was a glitch and the emails
with a password were not sent. This has been fixed but anyone who has
not received an email should either register again with a different
name or email me asking for a new password.

So I am back in Brazil again, this time for six months. On my last visit the blog petered out – partly because it was becoming a chore and partly because some people thought it was unreasonably critical of Brazil. In fact others thought that it was an advert by the Brazilian Tourist Authority so I reckon that the balance was about right.

This time I will try to add to the blog at least once a week rather than twice. There will be some personal stuff but I will try to keep it all fairly general. The plan is to comment on anything in Brazil that strikes my fancy. The country’s affairs are not well reported in Europe and I hope to give a view from a European perspective. As this is my first week I will be more personal than usual while I find my feet in the Brazilian way of life.

Back together

The journey was about as good as you can hope for. I flew TAM because they had the best deal.  My previous journey with them was full of problems but this time everything worked perfectly.  My luggage was a few kilos over the limit but the checkin at Heathrow did not mention it. In São Paulo they tried to charge me R$72 extra which they finally waived.  It took 21 hours door to door which was very tiring.
It was very good to see Flavia again after three months apart. Skype is very good but but no substitute.

My first impression was the weather.  It is fairly humid which intensifies the feeling of heat. The actual temperature is around 28/32C which is much less than in Málaga in the summer. In short the heat is not a problem for me so far and it is going to get a bit cooler as the summer is now over.  Of course the rain is another thing. It has often been quite cloudy and most evenings there has been heavy rain, often accompanied by thunder and lightning.

Some of the guests

The Sunday after I arrived was Flavia’s birthday and she held a churrasco (barbecue) in the grounds of her apartment. There were twenty people most of whom I already knew and it was good to see old friends. It was very nice to have a maid and a cook to do the hard stuff on the day. We will be eating the left over food for the next month. Sadly we have finished all the beer.

My proxy server in the UK was running well but is suffering from some sort of glitch which needs sorting out.  It allows me to access BBC iPlayer which only admits people who connect via a UK computer. It can also access all sorts of other UK sites which have the same policy. This is another plus for Linux as it is very easy to do and is free.  Talking of computers (again) I have spent a couple of days re-installing Windows Vista Home Edition on Flavia’s computer. It is my first good look at Vista and it really is as bad as its reputation. I will also add Ubuntu Linux in the hope that she might be tempted to see how a proper operating system works.

Only three candles?

On Sunday we attend the wedding of Flavia’s cousin who is marrying an Englishman so there will be an unusual concentration of Brits in Vila Velha. It will be interesting to see how Brazilians celebrate weddings.  The first good thing is that the male guests are not required to dress like waiters.

To close here is a nice thing about life in Brazil. Since my last visit I had my 60th birthday; this gives me all sorts of concessions here. Post offices, banks, lottery shops, chemists etc must either allow me to go to the front of the queue or have a separate queue. Also people who are handicapped, pregnant or with very young children have the same rights.  Another bonus is that I receive half price entry to cinemas, museums and various other tickets. All I need is someone who gives half price hair transplants.

On a technical note I have been forced to make people log in if they want to add a comment.  This is because I was receiving over 20 spam comments every day all of which have to be manually deleted. If you want to add a comment please register a name and email address. You can fake both and remain 100% anonymous if you want.

The first few times I went shopping here I was rather puzzled by the price labels for items like shoes, clothing, electrical goods etc. Often they seemed very cheap and sometimes extraordinarily cheap. Finally I realised that the amount was not the actual price but the monthly installments.

A pair of shoes might be marked as costing R$30. Closer inspection showed that this was to be paid over three months. Sometimes a cash price of R$90 might be displayed in smaller letters. A TV might be priced at R$100 and a much nicer one priced at R$110. You have to work out that the first one has six installments totaling R$600 while the other has 10 installments making the cost R$1100.

It is all a bit confusing. I was amazed that things like medicines and quite ordinary clothing could be bought like this. Probably some items are discarded or consumed before they are paid for. The payment is usually by credit/debit card and the monthly statements will say something like “this is the third of six payments”. I guess that the trader can receive a lessor full payment quite quickly and the credit card company provides the finance. Strangely the traders rarely offer a discount or advertise a lower price for cash. Often they will take a series of post-dated cheques – the only security for these seems to be that you write a phone number on the back.

Credit cards are accepted far more widely than in Europe and are used extensively. Quite small restaurants, market traders and other small businesses routinely have wireless card verification systems. Supermarkets all accept credit cards. Unlike any card I have ever had the cards are both credit and debit. When you offer the card they always ask which you want to use. The answer is always credit.

It is only in recent years that personal credit has been easily available in Brazil and there has been spectacular growth. This has fueled the growth in the economy and is part of reason for such a successful economy. I cannot help wondering how Brazil will cope with the next down cycle in the economy. Everything is wonderful now with commodity prices breaking all records, exports of minerals and agricultural products booming and production of oil and ethanol gasoline substitutes making the country almost self sufficient for energy. I am not the only one wondering about this.

There will come a time when the markets realise that the banks have vast sums invested in consumer credit that are not likely to be repaid. The story of “The Emperer’s New Clothes is repeated endlessly around the world. The US savings and loans crisis of the late 1980s and the current American banking crisis which is badly affecting the British banks which bought their mortgage books were both due to insane lending policies. The Spanish banks rather cleverly avoided them only because they were busy digging their own hole in which to collapse.

There is no reason to believe that Brazilian banks are any less blinkered that their overseas cousins when it comes to favouring short term profits at the expense of the long term. There is still plenty of scope to make money investing in Brazilian banking shares. Reality has never mattered when investing, it is only the perception that counts. At some stage someone will be heard shouting that the emperor has no clothes, the market will instantly realise it is true and the share prices will collapse.

The trick, of course, is to to have sold out the day before the collapse. By then it might even be a good idea to invest in an American or European bank.

Manioc in the market

It is also called cassava, mandioca, cassava or, in Brazil aipim. It is a staple food here and is incredibly versatile. In London is is available in the areas where there are people of West Indian or African descent. I have often seen it but not did know what it was or how to cook it. Maybe i can start a new foodie fashion in the UK.

The British eat cassava without knowing it as it is used to make both arrowroot (for thickening sauces) and the milk pudding tapioca.

The manioc plant

Manioc has a very high starch and calorie content but is not rich in vitamins. It is gluten free which is a major advantage as so many people seem to have allergies. In Brazil every food label is marked as either containing gluten or not containing gluten. It is very easily digestible. Depending on the country it is grown and the particular strain of the plant there can be high levels of cyanide in manioc and then it needs careful handling. The leaves cannot be eaten raw due to the presence of cyanide but they are a good source of protein. I have not heard of Brazilians eating the leaves.

Fried The boiled chunks are dropped into hot fat for a couple of minutes.
There are many ways of preparing manioc and these are some of the ways I have eaten it here:

Boiled After peeling and cutting into chunks around five to ten centimeters long it is boiled for around 20 minutes and served much like boiled potato. Tough internal strands running the length of the root must be removed.

Mashed Take the boiled potato above and mash it. It is very good combined with mashed potato.

Manioc cake

Farofa Is lightly roasted coarse flour. It is sold already prepared and looks similar to bread crumbs. It is added to all sorts of meat and bean dishes. As street food, cooked kebabs are dipped in a yoghourt dressing and then farofa sprinkled over.

Flour It is used as as a thickener for soups and sauces.

Bread I have not tasted it yet but it looks good.

Bolos de Aipim are cakes and are guaranteed to send Flavia into ecstasy.

So if anyone reading this has any recipes or favourite dishes please tell us about it.