Prainha

June 1^st, a new month, a new me (?) here in Brazil. I have finally moved into my own apartment. No more having to worry if I am going to come home from a weekend away to find gay guys sleeping in a bed that wasn’t before in my room. I have this little apartment, in a tiny beach town that’s about an hour by bus outside of Fortaleza. My apartment is above a beauty salon in a building that is colored a bright orange/yellow. There a room to hang my hammock with two single beds, there’s a big bed to sleep in with a mosquito net, bathroom, stove, refridgerator. Awesome! Right? Uh… well in typical Brazilian style I’ve had some problems.

The common room, with desk, hammock and two beds/sofas.

My bedroom!

First problem I bought two celebratory bottles of wine to bring to my new apartment from Fortaleza. I thought toasting myself with a nice glass of wine would be a great way to start a new life, in a new town and have it be a positive Brazilian experience. Well, I put the wine to chill in the fridge, because no one drinks room temp red wine in Brazil, mostly because it’s so hot here, and the second time I open the fridge, the wine bottle falls off its shelf and shatters all over the tile floor. Welcome home Lindsay. I got to spend the first hour in my new apartment cleaning broken glass and red wine up from the floor. Oh well right? Then I bought a bag of ice for some cold water to drink. Stuck it in the freezer, and it melted all over the fridge and leaked out all over the floor. It turns out the fridge and therefore the freezer doesn’t work. 1 week later I am still not living with a properly functioning refridgerator, instead I have this tiny Styrofoam cooler, which I stock with ice twice a day. Except the ice isn’t edible ice, because the edible ice comes in bags that are too big for the size of my cooler. So the guys at the supermarket have agreed to put the ice they use to store meat and fish in my cooler, which leaves the cooler at times not smelling quite so pleasant. Ok, so living like this until the refridgerator is fixed isn’t too big a deal. But of course, the story and the problems get better.

My third night in the brand new apartment, after making myself my first dinner in my kitchen, the water gets shut off to my apartment. Yes that’s right I go to turn on the sink and no water comes out. Not even a trickle. I go into the bathroom and get the same response from the sink in there. No water for the shower, and yes it is really hot temperature wise, and no I haven’t taken my night time shower yet. And after an hour when desperately needing to go to the bathroom I realize there is no water for the toilet either. Well it’s a Saturday night, I think maybe there’s an official problem, maybe someone turned off the water because a pipe broke. Then I think well maybe the people who run the beauty salon turned the water off to the building when they left for the weekend and maybe they forgot I was living upstairs now. But I’m not too concerned yet, I can deal with no water for the night. Upon waking the next morning, still no water. I go downstairs to ask the neighbors if they have water and they confirm they have running water and I do not. Since the owner of my apartment lives in Italy, calling him to complain is not an option, so I try the number for the person who gave me the keys. Of course he doesn’t answer the phone……..for the next 3 hours.

Around 12 pm, now 18 hours and counting without any water, I make better friends with my neighbors and ask to use their bathroom. I ask in Portuguese if I can use the bathroom, and their response is yes you can take a shower. I am slightly confused by this so I persevere and try to explain I just need to pee, I don’t need to take a shower, but they continue to say yes you can take a shower. So quite perplexed I follow them into their backyard, where on the ground there is a concerete slab and a water pump. They tell me to fill the bucket up with water and take a shower. Once again I try to explain, no I just have to she-she, the Portuguese word for pee. Then they explain that I should wear my bikini and while dumping buckets of water over me, just pee right there in the backyard. Right? Right….of course, why didn’t I understand. So I strip down to my bikini, you know me I am always wearing a bathing suit, and did I mention that their backyard opens up to this little market area where the ladies of the town sell their wares? So everyone in the market area seemingly stops what they are doing to watch me strip down and “take my shower.” Talk about really getting to know your neighbors. Oh boy! So finally the water gets turned back on after about 24 hours.

The next day rolls around and I get up at 5:45 AM to head into Fortaleza for my capueira class (more on this in another blog). And it’s starting to drizzle as I leave. I go to capueira class, run some errands in the city, and it pours all day. When I get back about 3 pm, I come home to a flooded apartment. Oh the irony that just 24 hours before I was complaining about having no running water, and now the complaint is that I have too much water. So I do my best to mop up the water, with only two towels, that are disgustingly dirty, and a floor that is equally dirty, it’s not so pleasant to “mop” up the floor. After this fiasco, I leave for a bit to write some emails, then I return after dark, go to turn on my lights and guess what? There’s no electricity in the house! I don’t know whether it’s from the rain or not having paid an electricity bill or any other reason except that I am in Brazil and I still don’t have luck on my side.

So I call my trusty friend who gave me the keys and turned the water back on and we discover that the electricity wire to the house has been cut, and while there are lockboxes on other electricity meters for the other buildlings, mine has no lock. My trusty friend said it could be the power company, or someone just playing a trick on me. Sigh, great. Did I mention the apartment also flooded that day? So I deal with a night of no electricity, I buy some candles, cook dinner by candle light, and it turns out I kind of liked spending the night by candle light. It made me think of simple things and how it is easy to forget to appreciate them, such as flicking on a light switch and enjoying the fact that the lights go on. Like turning on the tap to discover water comes out.

So yes, these are all the crazy things that have happened in my new apartment. The electricity is now on, turns out there is a different electricity box than the one with the cut wire…..although still not sure what happened in the first place. I have running water, but the fridge still doesn’t work. Supposedly someone is coming today to fix it, although I think we all know the likelihood of this working out is small. Regardless of these setbacks and headaches, I still like my small town. Everyone knows me as the American that lives in the yellow house on main street. It’s cute. And yes I get to walk on the beach everyday, it’s about a 4 minute walk from my place to the beach. It’s awesome. Let’s hope after all these disasters this first week, that it’s smooth sailing from now on!

so update from when i last wrote this blog to posting it. I also encountered a gas leak, but that is now fixed, the fridge is now also fixed! SWEET!