|
Brazilian Report Nr. 1
20.6.03 - off we go
After another short and dusty night in an
empty flat in the hot summery nothern hemisphere our last day in
Switzerland started with the gasman waking us up to write down our
energy consumption. - Okay that's now nothing special to write about -
but even if we wanted to send you this and other details in a last
Zurich-based email, it would't have been possible for our telephone line
was already dead...
Then a long a hectic day was lying in
front of us. The last items had to be trashed, the leftovers from the
carpets removed from the floor and the windows cleaned - as well as the
kitchen and the bathroom - nobody had the slightest guess why we had to
clean a flat that will be renovated after our goodbyes in a way that no
wall will be at its place again! And not only ours but 3 floors will go
under this reconstruction in late summer.
Anyway these things had to be done. With
Maha's car we had to move the last remaining and most important
furnitures to Altstetten ZH where we rented a room for storing our
"few" belongings (that made up two moving company trucks, one
van of Rolfo's, two "combies" of Pfiff's and two cars of Maha's...
all the trashed furnitures and other items left uncounted!). Okay -
these above mentioned important furnitures made up a matrace, a TV set
and a VCR plus some leftover boxes full of - whatever - in the end the
system of numbering and writing down the inventar of all the boxes broke
down in a hurry.
Noon time passed - our laguage to check
in and the ferrets in a small cage had to make its way to the airport.
Wow, no line to queue up and everything in the check-in worked out fine
(even with 15 kg overweight). We were only told to wait five minutes til
the lady which is responsible to check in our ferrets, came back from
the coffee break. And now the troubles started...:
After 20 minutes this person arrived and
told us, that ferrets are belonging to the rat family and are not
allowed in the airplane! - WHAT? Rats?? And the she even claimed that
she herself had ferrets and knows what kind of animals they are -
rodents! - Tripple ??? Are all our efforts to import them to Brazil in
vain? All the hundreds and hundreds of SFr. spent and letters written to
all the authorities in CH and BR in the last months good for nothing?
Unfortunatly she misunderstood Paty's comment that this means that she
is a monkey as well (even if monkeys and humans were closer related than
rats and ferrets). Anyway - things became stranger as she was phoning up
(as she said) the pilot and the other crew members - who in her words
were holding a conference about our little passengeres and decided that
they can't travel in the cabin. Her explanation became even stranger:
animals in the cabin have to travel in soft bags and not in plastic
cages. The latter ones are only for the cargo. When we told her, that it
was the Swiss check-in people on the phone that were telling us exactly
the opposite and that according to them we even bought this cage she
just answered: it's not possible for this phone number is secret and not
giving out to the clients (a 0800-number!). Yes, she definitly is a
monkey! Our seats were even already reserved including the ferrets and
that was written down in our ticket as well as in the Swiss computer.
But: Swiss is not Swiss! Since the grounding of Swissair the check-ins
on the left, the ones on the right side and on the very far behind of
Terminal A are made up all of different companies which don't know
anymore what the other is doing. Anyway: in the end the monkey (sorry)
said, that the pilot allows the ferrets only sent as cargo - but that
was the reason we were choosing Swiss, for they allowed beysubscribing
the IATA contracts, that we can take animals on board in the cabin and
we had it black on white. No chance with the monkey... She sent us then
to pay the cargo on another counter. Totally down and out we were going
there and told this new lady our saga and also she couldn't understand
the way they were treating us (a contract is a contract) - unfortunatly
she was not even not the cachier we had to go to but also not
responsible for anything (different company - but somehow also Swiss).
So we had to go to a forth person (the first check-in lady included) -
it was a Vietnamese guy who had to bear our story as well - and this
time it worked: one phone call to his boss who is responsible for the
airplane and the thing was done. We just had to buy another transport
box but now our little not-rats could fly with us in the cabin. BTW he
said: don't talk to this monkey-lady anymore, she's is not responsible
at all. After 3 hours we got finally what was anyway already written in
our ticket...
And what do we learn from all that:
Patience and never giving up is important in any situation no, not only:
2/3 of the money of Swiss must have been spent in burocracy and
cordinating their different sub-companies :-)
Bringing the car back to Maha through a
huge traffic jam down the Winterthurerstrasse and arriving home finally
we only had 2 hours left to clean the rest of the flat, take a shower
and get ready for leaving before the housekeeper arrives to take back
the appartment we have been staying for 5 years. But no time for
nostalgia. Saying goodbye to the neighbours and giving them our last
remaining food, putting out the last 6 trashbags and arrange the last
things with the people from the restaurant downstairs - they got our
cleaning things :-) and the shower we had to take when the housekeeper
was already here and the things not packed yet. Bloody airport-monkey -
she stole too much time and now our itinary was topsy-turvy... Okay,
after a few complaints about the not-dustcleaning of the basement (?)
and that we didn't screw apart our windows to clean inbetween (they will
be replaced anyway!) we were thrown out of our ex-flat not really
dressed and made up for the trip. The hand-laguage we had to finnish
packing in the stairway!
And off we went! The last time seeing the
Caliente Tram passing by - und tschüss!
At the airport again - nobody stopped us
and at the bagage control Pikku and Raja were drawing a lot of attention.
One security guy even said that just recently someone else was bringing
two ferrets. I thought according to the monkey that ferrets were not
allowed in the cabin and this is Terminal A which is only Swiss...
anyway the things worked out til we (finnished and nervous from the
whole day) sat down in lounge finally to board - and (shock, fear, wet
sweat!!) their was a calling out for "Markus Roth departing to Sao
Paulo who immediatly had to contact the Swiss counter" - Shit,
everything in vein! The monkey's revenge, the ferrets were not allowed
finally... Trembling on the whole body I went to the counter, Paty in
tears was waiting with the ferrets at her place. Bugger, just now when
the people already started to board. and line became smaller. The
boarding lady then called Swiss and they gave her a number she had to
dial further on for another connection. Sweat, fear, the nerves breaking
I awaited expecting the worst - and got the line. I was maybe 2 kg of
sweat lighter when the voice on the other side was not belonging to the
monkey but - PFIFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was so nice to come to
the airport to say goodbye and just missed us, so he wanted to talk at
least on the phone. So great!
Board - off and away, fast!!!
21.6.03
We've arrived! After a long and sleepless
night (not for Pikku and Raja, the were sleeping like stones) tight down
for 12 hours in an economy-chair we made our way to Sao Paulo! First
thing to do was queuing up for half an hour at the health check (SARS is
also a topic in BR, especially because they don't have cases yet), then
standing in another line for immigration and finally check through the
laguage at the declaration. Now the moment of clarity came - what were
all these papers worth we collected in the last months for the
importation for the ferrets! A lot as it seems, after only 10 minutes we
were through. 7am and out of the airport after having our first guarana
and empada de palmito (a small Brazilian snack) we were picked up by
Paty's parents and now we are here in Osasco SP. The weather is cold,
foggy and humid. Brazilian winter is like November in Zurich. So the
ones who will come: September is definitly better!
For sure all the neighbours wanted to see
us again (especially Paty as their old schoolmate), we exchanged photos
and were enjoying the world famous calor humana for the first time again.
In the afternoon the first BBQ awaited us and soon we fell asleep for
more than 4 hours for the first time since two weeks.... and thanks to
the jet-lag and because we are not used to a lot of sleep anymore these
lines are written at 6am... just to say:
Bom dia do Brasil!!
Table
of Contents
Brazilian Report Nr. 2
22.6.03 - No ferret stories included!
The weather gets warmer - too warm for
winter here, but who cares? For sure not us :-) Today was a kind of
welcoming and introducing day - more kind of human zoo in the case of:
"look who's back from Switzerland and this is her new husband."
But first (after my first car-drive in the wild streets of Osasco - it's
not so bad indeed, especially with some experiences in the Ticino or
Italy :-) )we could visit our new home we will move to in one or two
weeks from now. Paty's grandma just let the kitchen renovate and there
is space enough for the three of us (including our stinkies who live at
the moment in Paty's room while we two share the free one of Rodrigo).
Also some double-level-beds for visitors are available!
The second trip was leading us just down
the road to the other grandma and some of her grandchildren to show us
around. And last but not least we took a visit to the beautiful newly
renovated home of another aunt and her family. It's there where we had
our second BBQ for the weekend. For the ones who shouldn't know: the
Brazilians are real carnivores and they are the happiest if they can
throw every piece of everything that was running around in the farms
once on the grill :-) No wonder: meat is extremely cheap and available
in a extremely good quality. But for sure it's not all that makes a
dinner - there is another very important thing: beer. Wine is not easy
to get and if then - better let it be... Okay, we started to fill up our
stomachs and talk a lot about the way and costs of life in Switzerland
and here. Everything is much much cheaper here, just to get an idea:
-
1kg of good meat is about 2-4 SFr.
-
the monthly rent of a house with 4
rooms, garage for 3 cars and garden in a better neighbourhood less
than 1000 SFr
-
and all the drinks, meat, salad and
things we 10 people were eating in the meantime was bought for 40
SFr.!)
-
On the other side no wonder the
minimum salary in Brazil is a lousy 120 SFr., the average for "people
like us" about 1000-1500 SFr. So things have to be cheap though.
Rodrigo had to go back to the university
(he is studying a few hundreds kilometres from here in another city) and
Paty's mother, a cousin and her boyfriend were joining us for a
digestion walk in their neighbourhood to visit a place we could rent for
our wedding in September. It's very beautiful with pool (unfortunately
not to use, only decoration), bar and space for 200 people in a garden.
There would be a dozen waiters serving us and the guests with a big menu
(no grilling! :-) ) and a DJ will make the people dance. Next Saturday
we can witness a wedding there to get an impression how the place will
look while in use. It's not cheap, but very lovely. The way back we
walked through a quite rich neighbourhood with exclusive villas and
private guards. We felt nearly like on the Zürichberg.
A word to the infamous safety facts: it's
not as bad here as the reputation and Osasco even seems to having got
better since last year. You can survive and the behaviour of the people
also show that. Clear, it's not Switzerland and a walk alone in the
center or a poor neighbourhood at night is maybe not the thing we would
request to visitors, but it's also not that you are persecuted by
begging children and have to crawl under the gunfire of the Mafia
against the police as the media in Europe sometimes try to show. Hmmm
Rio is maybe another story and even the Paulistanos are afraid to go
there - also a bit of a wrong picture in mind for it's not worse than
Sao Paulo, but at least here you know more or less where to go and in
Rio everything is more mixed. But: nobody has to bear bad experiences
who comes here, as long as he doesn't dress with socks and sandals and
wears the big camera on the fat belly walking in a favela and fighting
with a drug dealer (that's what happened to the Swiss that was shot last
year in Rio).
23.6.03
A quite day - finally!!! We could sleep
long, the parents were working in the morning and we had some peace and
rest for us. So the only thing we did was some shopping around the
corner and some phone calls to get information about health insurance,
Portuguese courses and translations of the papers that will turn me into
a Brazilian permanent visa holder :-)
Ah yes, the language: without Portuguese
it's not easy for foreign languages are as unknown commonly like in all
big uni-language countries, but with the knowledge of some French and
Latin it's possible to learn - and at least not so far away as Thai or
Russian. And I think by reading comics, watching TV and try to make some
conversation with the family I make big progress - but a course is for
sure a good idea.
At the very time is another football game
on (some international championship held in France). And every time the
Brazilians make a goal you here and see fireworks outside - unbelievable!
Another game that takes these people's passion is volleyball - the
national league contest that is on these days fills stadions bigger than
the Hallenstadion.
And now we are cooking some pasta with
tomato sauce (no meat :-) ) awaiting our friend Andrea to visit us - and
we can use English again not only for writing emails :-)
Table
of Contents
Brazilian Report Nr. 3
24.-28.6.03 - Visa
A38
Much time was flying by here in Brazil
since our last signs of life and we were a bit too lazy to write. But
that doesn't mean we were only sleeping - there was also a lot of things
to do. And these we can present you in a short third report.
First we have now a mobile (just easy
card - so it's unfortunately a bit expensive to phone abroad but at
least for some SMS it's good). The number is 0055 11 8146 4168. Was not
even so difficult to get and fortunately the old Nokkia was compatible.
Then we went to a hairdresser's - we both
needed it. Küsel for a nicer haircut (finally) and Paty also for some
fine coloration. It was a Chinese hairstylist and it's an experience! To
wash the hair you lay down like in a kind of bed (not like the normal
guillotines), after the washing they make a massage on the neck, the
back and the head before they start their real job with your hair. And
all for 50.- both together incl. color. Okay, they are maybe by far the
most expensive here, but it's worthwhile and for this price not only one
could have cut only the top of the hair in Switzerland :-)
Okay, now you remember the Terry Giliam
movie "Brazil"? I guess it has its name from the bureaucracy
here that is even worse than possible and maybe even surpasses the Swiss
one. The question is: how to enrol for a permanent visa as a foreigner
married to a Brazilian? This visa you need for the kind of "AHV
Card" you need that you can work, open a bank account, or use
cheques (is still a very common mean of payment here). What do you need
for that? We have to bring the following papers to the foreign police
here:
-
2 copies of the Brazilian
transcription of the wedding certificate
-
The filled out form DPF34
-
2 photos of the husband and 1 of the
wife
-
The authentic copy of ALL the pages in
the Swiss passport and ID
-
Also the copy of Paty's ID
-
A criminal record from Switzerland,
translated into Portuguese by an official person from the state
registered in the BR consulate in Zurich.
-
A prove that we live at Paty's parents
place as long as we don't have a house of our own. That can be a
water or electricity bill
-
A declaration signed by two witnesses
in BR that are not relatives of us - what it includes and what it's
for we don't know yet
So now only for the first thing - the
transcription of the Brazilian wedding certificate - we had to go to the
1st cartorio (Notariat or Gemeindeschreiberei). It's just like a
corridor or a garage on a busy street in the centre of Osasco. There is
also a 2nd, 3rd etc. cartorio but it had to be the first. Before all
that we had to go to the consulate in CH to register and translate our
Swiss certificate. This was only one item to bring to the cartorio here.
The other things they requested were:
-
A copy of the certificate mentioned
above
-
A telephone bill or something else
that proves that we are really living at this address
-
The copy of Paty's ID and this kind of
AHV card
-
A copy of a new birth certificate of
Paty (had to be done first here over night)
-
All these copies have to be
authenticated and the signatures proved with a dozen of stamps and
signatures
So now we could enrol for the
transcription of our wedding certificate in Brazil. That will take about
one week. Then with this and the other papers mentioned above we can go
to the foreign police in Sao Paulo (30 km from here). Two days later we
will get a paper with that Küsel can get all the Brazilian documents,
can work etc. It's only provisorical and NOT the visa itself we are
enrolling for, the "national ID for foreigners" - this takes
about 6 months...
Yesterday we went to the Carrefour - the
biggest supermarket here (so about 5 Coop shops - alone the bread
shelves are 20m long) and got out with a careful of things we need at
Paty's grandmother's house to live there (it's still empty for she has
been travelling for a long time and doesn't cook there anyway), like
cleaning stuff, food, drinks, pyjamas, pillows etc. etc. - and a bill
that Reiher would be proud of: more than 1 meter long :-) But
fortunately not too expensive (about 170 SFr.). The fruits and
vegetables we buy anyway in the colourful and loud open market close to
our home, that's more fun anyway...
Rodrigo is back home again from the
university and we rented about 5 videos to watch (for only 5.-).
Unfortunately we don't have cable here and the 5 local channels here
show only soap operas and "bloody news" in the style of Tele
Züri or "Kinder- und Hausfrauenprogramme" - anyway a good
initiative to stop watching TV (gell Pfiff :-) ).
BTW: apart from some London fog during
the night and in the morning the Sao Paulo winter starts to get
extremely hot! In the mountain area it's about -3 degrees - maybe we
should move there for a while :-)
The only bad thing is that Raja is losing
a lot of fur and gets bold - maybe the result of the clime change. Pikku
is totally okay and fat as ever. Monday the vet will come home to check
them.
Table
of Contents
Brazilian Report Nr. 4
29.6.-7.7.03 - Paulistanos
And finally another episode of the
Brazilian Report. Many days passed but not so much happened to fill
another page or two. Unfortunately we still don't have a camera (digital
ones seem to be much more expensive here than in Europe) to send you
some picturesque impressions of the south, so you have to make up your
mind yourself further on - it's also good to practice your imagination
in a multimedia time ;-)
As mentioned before a lot did not happen
and we are still at the parent's place. The grandmother only comes back
end of the month that we can't move in there yet. Till now we also
couldn't care too much about to find a job - which will not be easy at
the moment anyway, for the main news that make up the papers here is the
unemployment rate which surpassed 20% in the SP metro area - it's even
worse than Germany here and Sao Paulo is not the only bad place. Just an
example: In Rio the city was making an ad in the newspapers that they
are looking for street cleaners. Result: more than 60'000!!! unemployed
workers queued up, sleeping in tents and on mattresses on the street
over night in front of the place which resulted in a big fight the next
day when only a few could be hired. But maybe we have more chances with
our education and skills as many say - but let's see. These few weeks
now we had anyway other things to do.
Yesterday for example we went to a tailor
woman to order Paty's wedding dress. She took her measurements and the
dress should be ready till September - it's all hand-made and will look
great when it's finished. An interesting detail is that this tailor
still lives in a favela even if she must make a lot of money with her
dresses (she even delivers wedding shops all over the city and the
prices are not too low, at least not for here - 500 SFr.).
But this is somehow typical: if you are
grown up in a favela in poor conditions you don't move out when you are
rich, it's still your home, outside looking broken and inside in the
meantime modern and full of all the electronic equipment you can
imagine. This is why stately housing for the poor never works (like in
France for example) - even if you live in a broken cottage, it's yours
and your neighbourhood with your social connections and still better
than an anonymous apartment in a big block of flats and that's also
resulting in the fact that a favela doesn't mean only poverty and
criminality - over the years some of them grow up to become real
integrated neighbourhoods. Anyway speaking of transformation countries:
We have been only away from here for one year and everything changed:
suddenly there is a new skyscraper next door, a huge motorway cuts the
neighbourhood and all the streets have a new and better pavement and are
crowded by mostly new and more expensive cars than we saw one year ago.
In Switzerland they take one year to build one kilometre of highway,
here a 20 store building is dominating the city practically over night.
Nothing is stable, everything is in transformation and if you draw a
street map today you can trash it next year. And it's not because of the
uncontrolled squatering but especially of the growth of middle and upper
class quarters - how much control lies in there I also don't know. The
city itself is anyway indescribable - a sea - or better an ocean of
buildings and houses without any end. You pass over one hill and see the
same: a totally overbuilt valley. There seem to be no limit of the city
and it's growing more - not in inhabitants but in size. Just to give you
an impression:
-
The city of SP covers an area the size
of the Canton Aargau (including mountains, forests, lakes etc.) and
keeps 10 Mio people in it's limits
-
The biggest suburbs are Guarulhos (the
airport city) in the east with about 1.1 mio and Osasco, in the west
where we live, with 0.7 mio inhabitants. That's alone Zurich
respectively Basel including their suburbs!
-
There are 32 cities that make up the
metropolitan area which covers the size of the Canton Bern where 18
mio people live - that's double of Paris.
-
The overbuilt area stretches 80 km
from east to west and 50 km from north to south and while on top of
a skyscraper in the centre the view you get makes London look like a
small town. This is the forth biggest metropolis on the planet! Not
beautiful but breathtaking impressive like nothing else.
Like the city everything is big here as
well: especially the shopping malls and supermarkets. Ones we went
buying some ferret-stuff in a pet shop which had the size of a football
ground and the dogfood alone filled shelves of 30 meters! Every shopping
mall includes a cinema complex with up to 10 rooms - normal cinema
theatres don't exist. You go to the malls for cinema, exhibitions,
eating out in one of the 20-30 restaurants it has and of course shopping
- the main hobby of the Paulistanos. Only to cross the parking in front
of these consumption palaces you take 10 minutes. It's maybe not the
cheapest places but still cheap for what we are used to (for cinema
entries, pizza and drinks for three we paid not even 30 SFr.). The
cinemas are a bit confusing: first you have to stand in a line to get
the ticket (it's only a receipt with a stamp how many people for which
movie), then you have to wait till they call out over a speaker which
line you have to join for which movie (this can even change during
waiting time). While you are waiting someone else comes to check your
ticket again and after quarter an hour you are let in finally. But don't
go in the evening - the amount of people we saw waiting when we came out
was amazingly horrifying!
Now we are also looking for a health
insurance for us. Brazil has one of the best health systems in the world
(unfortunately soon bankrupt for the government spent for too long time
too much money in supporting soldier's widows, politician's children and
bureaucrats - Lula want's to cut this drastically but if he will be
successful is written somewhere else): poor people don't pay for
medicaments or hospitals, if you are employed your employer pays the
health insurance for you and everything is covered - except for the
medicaments. We don't have a job here yet, so it's better to have a
private health insurance in the meantime but even for that we will pay
together less than half of what one would spent in Switzerland - about
100.-
The people here are very open and you can
talk with everybody everywhere. They are talkative but not in a
disturbing or nosy way. But what is omnipresent here is the paranoia of
how bad the safety situation in Brazil is. Here people say it is them
who live in their self-made prisons while the criminals are outside and
everywhere in the world it is better. They really have the impression -
and it was even written in a tourist guide, that you can leave your
Rolex on a bench in Zurich HB and it will be there even hours later
still while you can't even cross the Paulista Avenue without realizing
on the other side that your wallet has gone. So sometimes it is
difficult to define if you should be afraid only because of this
paranoia of the people or because of the real thread - which is bad but
by far not so bad as it is seen here.
Tomorrow we will get a health check for
Pikku and Raja and we also got all the papers ready for the permanent
visa - if the federal police doesn't require more suddenly ;-) Fingers
crossed.
Table
of Contents
Brazilian
Reports Part 2 - in German
|
