"Love, I think I burned our house..."

Yes, this is just one of the sentences I had to hear in these past two weeks. This and others, like "Honey, I am so april of you!", "Don't worry, it will not be one hour. We will just socialize for 10 minutes!" And this one from my wonderful mother-in-law - "Which of these cloths you want on the table in your living room - the large or the small one?"

The last two weeks I have been so proud of my "house wife's" activities! Lots of cooking, decorating and cross-stiching my Christmas gifts. So proud, or how we say now in our family - so APRIL! Don't ask me why and how! This is one of the things i love in my husband - his unpredictable English mistakes! One day he wanted to say how proud he was for something, but instead of proud what came out was APRIL. It took him some time to understand why I am laughing so much instead of being happy for his compliment.

We also went to the Zoo. The visit was on our plan for the first week in Rio. I guess this is how much time it takes to do something what it is already planned! But it was really nice. I enjoyed being outside, hearing some animal sounds :) Back at home I have hundreds of different birds who make sure nobody can sleep longer then they.

We also had a special performance by the local Lion King! See the link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADUrmEaQeng

Another social activity we had was friend's wedding. Well, it is very easy to earn the honour to be somebody's friend over here. I remember the time we made the guest list for our wedding. Thiago's list of friends was longer then mine, and please - he was in the country for 3 months while I have spent there 25 of my 26 years!!! 

The wedding here in Brazil is SO different!!!! The whole ceremony starts (of course.. late :)) with a long procession of MANY bridesmades and bridesgrooms. When they all have made the entrance, paused to take a picture, sat on the stage, in come two little girls, dressed in white like little brides. They are not the flower girls. Just two little beautiful kids. Oh, I forgot the family - sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers. When the fashion show is over, it's time for the bridegroom and the bride. I think it is the most beautiful moment in every wedding ceremony - when the soon-to-bee husband is waiting at the altar for his beloved. 

After the church ceremony, it was time for the party - not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess also Brazilians needs some time when just sit at the table and look beautiful :) After sitting around for 3 hours, we had the cake and soon our car was free to be pushed outside the garage and the party was over. 

One thing I really liked - the decorations and little sweets/snacks. Very cute!

I think the most scary of the sentences of the last two weeks was "Love, I think I burned our house!". And this time - no sweet English mistakes, it was what it was - he actually did almost burn our house. Well, I guess I should use "we" instead of "he" since we are one flesh now. He does not mind this change of pronouns in this ocasion :)

But yes, back to the burning activity! Actually, it was very simple - we went to a beautiful Christmas concert at Thiago's church. Since leaving the house usually means I am standing at the door repeating like the colourful ara parrot - "Vamos, amor! Vamos, amor! Vamos, amor!" and my bonitao is running with one sock in hands and the other on one of his feet it is not a surprise that WE forgot to turn off the ventilator. When we returned home, already at the door we felt an unusual smell. When opening the door we were faced by smoke, smoke and so much smoke... At first we thought something is burning, I was even scared to go inside. But, after making sure there is no fire, no heat, we found the little ugly looking plastic thing that used to be our beloved ventilator. When we saw the damage, all we could say was - thank you Lord! Because the floors are wooden and there was fabric sofa right next to the ventilator. It could so easily catch fire and then the whole house would be caput in few minutes. Here's the picture :)

The next day was spent cleaning the house. Honestly, I had NEVER spent so much time cleaning something NON STOP. We started at 9.30 in the morning and finished at 7.30 at night. Now, when leaving the house, my monologue is completed with few words: "Vamos, amor! Vamos, amor, check the ventilator! Vamos, amor!"

This week has finished SO fast! Even though the days are flying with the wings of an eagle (hm.. this metaphor was meant to accent the big speed of time:) ) I still don't believe there will be NO signs of snow in the nearest days leading to Christmas. Since palm trees are refusing to turn into ever green Christmas trees and the temperature is stuck on 40 degrees C, I have to start my own "Save the Christmas" marathon.

First mission of course was an Advent crown. Even though I told about it's necessity at our house to the Love of my life, he was so surprised when one morning I was ready to invade the streets in search of something round that could look like an Advent Crown. It turns out, they don't even have a proper name for it in Portugese!!!! At least not in my husband's lexicon! But I armed myself with imagination and patience and after long and very colourful explanations of what is An Advent Crown and why we NEED it at our home, we went out.

After an hour of really hot sun I gave up. It's hopeless... NOTHING in the streets that would resemble something round and shape-able :) At the end I just got some of those green decorations reminding Christmas tree branches and improvized with dry roses and orange peels :)

So far, so good. But the war was not over yet! I would've never imagined it can be such a huge mission to buy the most simple, tea candles, or how we call them in Latvia - ploškas! :) It turns out that all the shops where I can buy my beloved candles are "from the evil". Yes, true, usually these are shops that sell lots of black magic and demon worshipping stuff. And Brazil has a stange culture of candles - those are usually asociated with spirits worshipping rituals. I really had to fight to make my husband go in one of these shops and buy 12 pink "evil candles". I prayed over them and now they are a perfect fit for my first Save the Christmas mission - Advent Crown.

On 2nd of December we had a "Merry little" celebration - our 2 month wedding anniversary! I know, I know! It's not even one year, maybe many of you, who are married for half of a century are reading this with a little smile :) But it's ok! We love to make all these little dates important! We have so many of them - 22nd of every month - celebrating the date when we started dating, 2nd of every month when he first proposed to me and the date of our wedding, 10th of every month - our official wedding date :) And we have few more! 

Once I was re-reading my older posts and thought - hm, why am I reffering to my husband only as "husband" or "love of my life" or "meu bonitao". I have actually not mentioed his name!! But I realy have an excuse - I have been praying and waiting for my husband for so long time and I am realy enjoying to call him "my husbendinho". Thiago is by no doubts the best God could ever give for me. As I have said to my girl friends - his love makes me so humble.. because I know I would not ever earn the love and passion he has for me. All I can do - close my eyes and enjoy!

My father-in-law is SO funny! One day he decided to "show Thiago how many people are wearing suits and not only soccer shirts and havaianas" and he invited us to go with him to "rich people party" how we both like to call it. It was a party for the most influential and therefore the most rich lawers of Rio. Since my father-in-law used to be a lawer himself, we were alowed to take part in the night as well. But - one more proof how good my husbendinho is - before going to the party I received an early Christmas gift - the most beautiful shoes I have ever owned and a nice little purse to go with them!

And here's me in my new shoes! Sorry the mess around - I could explane every bit of the "trash" you see. Jusst in case you're wondering why we dont throw out the broken ventilator - "No love, my dad will fix it!" P.s. it is broken in 1000 places and has been laying there in the corner for almost a week now... I promise to throw it out when Thiago goes away for his soccer course :)

And some pics from the party. Actually, it was a lots of fun. People were eating GOOD food, drinking GOOD drinks and having GOOD gay MC/DJ/Lead singer. 

The war is over!

Miracles happen even in Brazil! The war is over! And life is back to normal. With normal I mean - Relax and enjoy!
These last few days have been very colourful and rich. I was actualy able to regain my pictures from the camera-without-a-cable-and-a-hope-to-find-it and I can put here some oldies with my delicious Latvian flag cake and some others..

This is me, stuffing peppers :)

... and our first guests in our Brazilian home - wonderful couple Mario and Fernanda and Wagner. 

P.s. Mario LOVED my stuffed pepper :)

And my Latvian flag cake! Long live my country!

In my previous post I wrote about the amazing parking traditions over here :) Well, don´t you think it´s just a one time thing! Na-a! Just yesturday I saw again few cars trapped between the walls and other cars that, believe me, are left in neutral just in case you want to push it aside in order to get out your poor Wolksvagen :) Here´s a proof! I post this picture here in honour of the house lady who spent all her day searching for me in order to punish me for parking my car in the incorect free spot out of many other free parking spots :)

All the last week has gone in one big mist in my head. Since it was war outside, we didnt leave the house much and all this time feels like one long day with lots of fresh made orange juices, pizzas, video games and Lie to Me series. But, my pictures tell me a different story! It seems that in one of these war days we did go out! Actually, I remember now - it was the day almost at the end of the war, in late afternoon when we wanted to visit my husband´s family. (It was planned as one of the mission´s Lose to Win strategies - a long walk instead of a fast car ride.) When I am almost ready to leave the house my wonderful, in all the ways the best, husband says - ``Hey, maybe you better want to go to this big exhibition-fair-show thing that happens once a year. They have stends from almost all the countries of the world selling their stuff and doing other cultural activities:)`` Hm.. good timing my love! So, after a short visit at my in-laws home which ended with yet another ``Where is the camera and the cord!?``argument between my husband and his parents, we left for the Feira Providencia. And good we did! It was amazing!! Ok, it wasn´t exactly ``almost all the countries of the world`` but it was ``almost all the continents of the world`` :) But it was really nice!! I ate so much food! Palestinian, Brazilian, Spanish, Turkish! Bought so many sweets for gifts to my friends (sorry, friends, I ate almost all of those the minute we arrived home :( ). 

One of the stends where you can loose your mind trying to choose one... ok, ok, five sweets from thousands of different flavours, sizes and colours! It reminds me my dreams where I am alowed in a cake shop to choose whatever I want and where I am waken up in the very second I am putting my first cake in my mouth.

Lienit!! This picture is for you! For others, who dont know - my good friend Liene is going to Bolivia in January next year to join a ministry working with Indian children in the jungle. Liene, if you are still considering  finding a good, caring husband in the jungle, this is what expects you. Well, the clothing can change according to the status he will have in the tribe, but in regards to facial expressions, colour of the body this ir pretty much it! CONGRADULATIONS!!

Last Sunday we were invited to share a little about our work in Latvia at a local Assambley of God church. Very colorful experience :) It was a service devoted to missions. When we arrived the church was decorated with flags of many countries and they had even found a small Latvian flag! What a nice gesture! The african looking pastor lady welcomed us with open arms being SO excited I came. Already after I took the first steps inside the church, she called all over the sancuary - ZandRa, you are so welcome!! When we reached her, she hugged me with so much passion and very politely gave a little nod with her head to acknowledge also my husbands presence! I wondered if this is how it would feel being a guest speaker at some feminist conference! :) No, no, it was all ok after everybody had said very warm ``Boa noite! Tudo bom?`` to me. At the end also my love got his share of warm and passionate hugs and kisses.

We both were so happy for this oportunity to share about our country and what God is doing in Latvia. Also for ourselves it was a blessing of being reminded of God´s faithfulness over the years.

I have excellent update on Lose to Win mission. It has been launched! As you may remember from my previous post, my beautiful marido swore to indulge himself in regular running ``after the war is over``. Well, this morning was supposed to be the official end of the war and he was supposed to be dressed in his running shoes. Hmm.. it was 4pm when he said: ``Ok. I will run tomorrom, today i will do some excercises.`` I could not resist myself from taking our low quality camera and making a nice instructional video. Here it is! Enjoy as much as I did! Kilos lost - for him - 0, for me - 1 from laughing! P.s. I do hope to convince him to go for a short night run after I finish this post!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ilo0MBLyoI

I feel like a little library :) I have all these little stories in my head I want to tell you. But my library has been closed for a while. You would ask - Why? And I would say - "Eh, it's Brazil baby! You want, you work, you don't want, you don't." No, actually I was waiting and hoping to finally get a cord for my camera to put here some pictures.. but today I realized, it's not gonna happen. So I got a new camera to take new pictures :) Puxa vida! (Terrible life!). And instead of hoping that one of my in-laws will find the cord, or, find the camera... which I can swear is at their house..I decided just to keep writing :) Since I'm under something similar like a house arrest, there is not much things to do around here. My daily evening cake is in the oven, husband is comfortably placed at the TV screen where he will spend as much time as it takes for my cake to be ready and I can let the rest of the world know how is my world doing :)

Last weekend we spent in one hotel-fazenda taking part in our first married people camp organized by my loving husband's church. Very beautiful place with many swimming pools, a "hammock garden" in a nice shady place and so much FOOD!! It was nice rest all together but for me it was also one of the most funny experiences here so far! And it's again about these countries' ability to survive under chronicly being late. Ok, for their defence I must say that they had a nice schedule included in all the welcome packs. They even used Bold and Underline to show the times when everything is starting. But the fun part starts already on the first evening at the big meeting. After a nice worship we all are waiting for the guest speaker to come up and teach us on some marriage wisdom. Few minutes passes by and the pastor of the church comes in front to give, what I assumed to be a guest speaker introduction speach. But don't worry - life in Brazil would never be so predictable and borring! It turns out that our long awaited guest speaker FORGOT TO COME. Hm... "Whas it THIS weekend??!!!" No worries!! The local pastor knows a lot about marriage and sex to make the evening pass really fast with lots of laughter.

 

Every evening of the last week I heard one and the same sentence from my husband: "Love, tomorrow I will start a new life! Running and excercising!" One of the goals of starting this blog was to document how our "short-term missions" are going one of which was "Loose to win". So far we've been only winning... :) We have set a goal for my bonitao (most handsome husband :)) to loose 10 kilos in these 4 months. And I so wish   I could say - 1 off, 9 to go, but ... hm... no... actually now we should set another goal - to loose 11 kilos :) But, don't loose faith! We have lots of strange looking "excercise tools" at home and he WILL start running after "the war" is over! Ok, ok, this needs a bit of explanation. Last night we received news on TV that the federal police is going in the slums to "take out" (read - kill) some of the drug dealers and other banditos because last week they have been protesting against the strong police presence in their "market places" and bringing a lots of trouble in the city. So, it was advised to not leave the house since it is always unpredictable where the shooting would take place. And of course, we stayed home. Today the situation was even worse. They said in the afternoon news that already 10 people have been killed in these shootings. My father-in-law is calling after every 10 minutes to make sure I am safe and his son is taking a good care of me (read - locking all the doors and hiding the keys). He is!! BUT, asked about when he is going to run, my querido says "After the war is over!" :) How can you not love him??!

But my second mission - A dinner in honor of Latvia's 92nd birthday - was a success!! I have beautiful pictures in my "other camera without a cable and a hope to find it".  So, maybe I will add those some days later. But, I have to say that it was a struggle. Not because I am scared of a kitchen, no, we are good friends... but because it turns out this country DOES NOT have sour cream, double cream and some other important things to make a nice Latvian dinner. I even had an informative Skype conversation with my Brazilian best friend. I showed her all the unknown ingridients in my shelves and fridge but none of them was what I needed. So our dinner was not 100 % Latvian but the cake had Latvian flag on it made of the red grapes and bananas and we sang our anthem. I made peppers stuffed with mince and rice, garlic bread and a simple cake. We had some really lovely people over and it was a good night! Tommorrow we are having our small house group meeting at our place and I am planning to make "pīrādziņi" - a Latvian pastry with special kind of bacon, onions and spices inside. Based on my bad experience with sour cream and whipped cream I almost gave up this dream thinking that it would be impossible to find this special, really fat bacon over here. As far as I know, Latvians are the only people eating "that white part of the bacon". But, today we went to the nearby (of course, because it's a WAR outside) shop and what do I see - BACON FATIADO! My lovely, beautiful BACON FATIADO!!! Hurray for pīrādziņi!!

SURPRISE OF THE DAY
I even don't know what surprises me more - the relaxed way how people treat any problems or the amazing parking skills they show!! As for the parking skills - I am almost shure that a Brazilian can park on the top of a vulcano not getting hurt by the flames and ashes. And they have to - taking in consideration the way how they drive and totally ignore any rules, it's is an undescribable luck if you find a proper parking space. The story goes like this: we are arriving home after visiting some relatives and my precious husband is parking our 38 years old fusca-preta. The fact the the small parking place is full does not create any negative emotions, gestures or thoughts. Continuing our conversation and humming one of his Brazilian love songs he parks the car... exactly in front of two other cars!!! I wish I would have a picture for that!! So now the two other cars are trapped between a wall, other cars on their sides and our black Beatle from the back. On my shocked look and unarticulated sounds, he only smiles and says "If they want to go away, they just push my car aside! Most important thing is to rememeber to leave the car in neutral and don't use the hand brake!" As simple as this! I remember a time when I had parked my car in Riga at my friend's house in a space that was reserved for another lady and how the next morning she put her car right behind mine so I can't get out and spend all her morning and afternoon walking in all the apartaments of a big building to search for this awful criminal! And I had to pay her 4 lats because "just a sorry is not a currency in these days"! Puxa vida!!

WORD OF THE DAY
LARANJA - orange :) Simple but important! The knowledge of this word was later cemented in my memory by a freshly made laranja juice by my husbendinho and a laranja cake :) Nice way how to learn new words!!

Well, my cake is ready and my husband is distracted from his video games - time for some fresh pepermint tea and a movie!

Tommorrow will be already one week since we left our ... wish I could say - "our neat one-room flat"... but I have to say - since we left our corner in my youngest brother's room! Very nice of him to give up such a big part of his property for his sister and her husband.. but... I am sincerely appreciating the HUGE appartament where we can stay now. We even have one spare room for our guests, which is a luxuray I have never had in my whole life! I love it! Slovly my conquering technics are starting to win more and more of the theritory. Few days ago I was able to clean all three bathrooms from all the empty and almost empty bottles and tubes and strange looking things (which, I suppose, used to be a bar of soap) and free the space for my two pieces of cosmetics, Thiago's face "shaving thing" and newly bought foot cream. Now, also the bathrooms are mine! Taking over the kitchen is the most hard part of this conquering battle. But slowly I was able to put the trash bin below the sink instead of it being 100 metres away, hidden between thousands of cleaning supplies in our loundry room. One more thing - no offence to all my Brazilian friends - but what is it about covering ALL the surfaces and everything standing on these surfaces with hand-made, embroidered towels and little cloths???? Very beautiful towels but - I'm sorry, if I have a juice maker in kitchen, I want to SEE that I have it in kitchen! So, I'am steadily taking away all the cloths and towels, which takes more than one day, and now our kitchen looks more like a place for prepearing food instead of a Latvian souvenier shop. Today my wonderful mother-in-law (bless her heart) came for a visit and seeing all the "mess" I have made in kitchen kindly brought me to a drawer - A WHOLE BIG DRAWER - full of another neat and hand-made, embroidered towels just in case I didn't know where they are and wanted to "pamper" the kicthen surfaces again with colourful flowery cloths! "Depois, depois! Muito obrigada!" (Later, later! Thank you very much!)

Brazil is an amazing country! The life style people are having here is... so different!! You know all those TV shows that show us how particular things are made, how everything in the world works?? Well, they really should make one serie on "How can a whole nation be always late for everything?" And I would record this show and watch it again and again and again.. till maybe after the 10th thousand time I will finally understand. Yesterday we were invited to an English class in nearby Language school where my husband used to study before comming to Latvia. (Hm... at the end of his first letter to me, he wrote: "SORRY MY INGLISH, IS TERIBLE".. and even though I wanted to be polite and say - no, it's not so bad.. i just couldn't, being scared of going to hell for heavy lying.). The classs was supposed to start at 7.30. Guess at what time we leave the house?? 7.35. It takes us about 15 min to finnaly arrive at the school and the time now is close to 8.00pm. We enter the class ... and... - NOBODY is there. We wait for 2 min and the first teacher with 2 students arrive.. in course of 15 more minutes the rest of the students and the other teacher have arrived as well and the class can start. It was very nice class, I enjoyed talking english instead of Level 1, Page 1 Portuguese of mine! At the end of the class the "other oriented proffesor" presents us my first Brazilian alcacholic drink - CACHACA! Nice of him! Oh! Did I mention - the class ended on time! As my bonitao of a husband explained after: "We need to respect the finish!"

Life in Rio de Janeiro is so unrealistic. You have the most incredible beauty mixed together with violence and crime that steals your night sleep. Well, my hysbands night sleep. I am very imune to all the danger around me. Maybe because he is overprotective or maybe because Brazilians only like to exagaret everything. The first "advices" I received on my arrival was 1) If you hear a gun shot, fall on the ground, 2) If you are being robbed, dont argue but give all your money. I must say I haven't heard any gun shots in all my time in Brazil (including my both previous visits) and nobody has ever tried to ask for my money or my golden grand-grand parents wedding ring. But... my husband is convinced that in one of the following nights our appartament will be visted by a local robber who has worked hard to acquire quite a mythical nick name - SPIDER MAN. He is known to climb up the walls using the little verandas and balconies and enter your appartament and to.. I dont know what he can do in a dark appartament during the night when the house is full of people.. but anyways - "Love, don't laugh. Last year he "robber" an appartament of acquintaces of my parents and two weeks ago he "roober" another edifisio (a building) very close to our home." Scary.. That's why all the doors are checked 10 times before going to bed and also few times during the night, not talking about the nightmares of a Spider Man stealing your kitchen supplies and bed linen.

I promise to put some pictures soon. We forgot cable at home and I cant get the pictures out of camera :) Byt my brother-in-law "has all the things". The only problem - everything takes SO much time over here. Yesterday two guys came to put internet in our home and it took them 1.5 hours. After the first 30 min I left all 3 gentlemen and went to read my book. After I returned, all them were sitting at the table and chatting about the real meaning of life. "Love, you can make some food? They haven't had a lunch today!"

Bom dia gente!

This is the first time when I am considering writing a blog but this idea came like a lightening from clear sky and it was later confirmed by my wonderful brasilian husband so... I will give it a try! Actually you will meet not only me and my newly learned portuguese words and phrases but also him - the man of my life. The truth is very simple - we both greatly miss our beloved Latvia and we need something to make these 4 month to go faster. I am hoping that blogging could make this time more fun and also this blog will serve as a nice, up-to date newsletter for our friends and my family back home.

It's not all so bad as the mood of the first paragraph could make you feel! Common, we are on our 4 month long  something like a honey moon trip to Brazil, visiting my husband's family and friends!! Capacabana, sun and ocean! How can one sincerely miss cold, windy, rainy, snowy European country?!

It is already 5th day since we arrived in the country of Pele, slums and Guarana. Already on the second day I felt this uncontrolable desire to take our little strange looking camera for making pictures of our first home - my husbend parent's old apartament what will serve as our first home for these 4 months. My love left to visit his dad's church and I was home alone to "settle in". Quite a hard task when all the wardrobes and chairs and tables are packed with my in-laws clothes, 20 years old pictures and half used cosmetic bottles. Not wanting to bring my own order in something that doesnt really belong to me,  I decided to conquer the appartament slowly and carefully, one squere meter after another. I started with our bedroom. Removed the early childhood pictures of my husbend and his brother, glass "decorations and suveniers" from countries far away and replaced those with two purple candles from our wedding, couple of rafaellos and my Bible. So, now it is MY bedroom.

We have several "missions" or exciting adventures, depending on your view of life, planned for the nearest future and I hope to document it here so you can take part in our journey. The first, most important and most time consuming will be mission we entitled "Losing for winning" - love of my life NEEDS to loose some "extra layers" as I used to refer to the extra kilos when living in Scottland. He says it's all because of the excessive use of potatoes - BATATA in portuguese - in Latvia. I tend to believe it's the excessive use of Coca cola, daily loaf (latvian size loaf of white bread) for breakfest and lack of ANY physical activities.. but what do I understand... professional translator against professional soccer coach and, excuse me for almost forgetting, physical education coach - 0 x 1. Potatoes, you evil potatoes!!!

In more near future (not saying that the first mission is almost impossible and will happen if we will be thrown on an inhabitated island) we are planning to organize a nice Latvian dinner for Latvian Independence Day on 18th of November. P.S. for my latvian friends - if you have any ideas for the menu, those are welcome! For my other european friends living in Brazil - is it possible to find a yeast in Carefour, Extra or any other shop and what's the NAME of it!!!??

SURPRISE OF THE DAY

Very shortly - the intimate, red flumascent lights in my husbend parent's ex bedroom.

WORD OF THE DAY

Melhor - meaning -"better, or good". When we arrived I had a little cold and my wonderful mother-in-law provided me with heap of medicine. After 5 minutes for rest of the day, I heard only this one word - Melhor?Melhor?Melhor? By the worried look on her face and the intonation of her voice after a couple of hours I figured out it she's asking if I'm better. And finally, on the evening I could answer "Sim, muito melhor. Obrigada!"