Our experience with the Emergency room

It wouldn't be school vacation without some accident.  Thankfully, it was minor for us.  Two Thursdays ago, Bea and Sebastian were bored and engaged in typical sibling horseplay.  Beatrice was sitting on Sebastian's back, and he decided to launch her off.  She went flying, and hit the bridge of her nose on the edge of her bed.  I was outside hosing down the patio when I heard the screaming.  I looked in the window and didn't see any blood and asked Sebastian what happened.  He did the usual big brother deferring blame thing.  I came inside, and by that time there was blood everywhere, and I knew right away we were taking a trip to the emergency room.  I have to admit it was a bit scary to see my child covered in blood; especially not knowing where the wound was (mouth?  internal?  a cut?)  Matt was home, so we all loaded in the Fusca and drove to the Unimed Hospital.  We live VERY close to LifeCenter, which is one of the best (so I've heard) hospitals in the city, but when Sebastian hit his head at school and we were concerned about concussions, we were told that LifeCenter doesn't see children.  Since Bea's incident, we've learned that LifeCenter will do stitches, but not much more.

I sent Matt in with Beatrice, so all I have to say is based on Matt's experience.  But overall it was VERY good.  It's easy to pull up and to do a drop off.  Matt went up to the counter to get a number, but a "greeter" came up to him to ask if everything was ok.  Matt showed her Bea's wound, and the greeter helped get them get a ficha (ticket) that was bumped to the front of the line.  Within 1 minute, Beatrice's name was called and she was back with a doctor.  He cleaned her up, and she got 4 stitches.  I meanwhile was trying to find parking (I'd only brought R$6 with me, so I was rather limited.  Yet another reason to always carry some cash....) and console the older two children.  Dora was crying and upset:  she thought Beatrice was going to have to spend the night.  I stuck around the waiting room for about 45 minutes, and then realized I had to leave or else I wouldn't have enough money to pay for parking.  Matt said that Bea had to wait for x-rays (because she bumped her forehead they wanted to take x-rays just to be safe).  By the time we got back home, Matt and Beatrice were done.  I cleaned up the blood on the floor, and we went back to meet them at McDonalds at Boulevard Shopping for a "were going to be okay" dinner.  Bea and Matt spent a total of 60 minutes in the hospital, and the nurses, doctors and staff were very efficient, helpful and did a great job.  

Beatrice had to go back to the Unimed hospital to get the stitches out a week later.  This was the most annoying part of the whole process.  We had thought about calling our pediatrician to schedule and appointment to get the stitches out, but just didn't do it.  Matt took Bea to the equivalent of the walk in clinic (urgent care), and there was a HUGE line.  Matt guessed that it was going to take 2 hours, and he hadn't planned for that, and he knew it was going to be a problem for him and for Beatrice.  He went to LifeCenter, but it was the same story there--long line.  So, he brought her back home, called his sister who is a nurse, and took the stitches out himself!  I have to admit I wasn't so keen on the idea of him playing doctor, especially since I had attempted to remove George's stitches (the cat) last year and caused a mountain of problems.  But his sister assured us that it was ok.  And it is.  Now we are just applying Rosehip oil to help it heal and hopefully minimize any scarring. 

I think it's pretty much a given that we will have visits to the Emergency room.  Kids are kids.  Accidents happen.  And like I said, it could have been worse.  Thankfully it wasn't, and we are thankful that we have good health insurance, that we live close to good hospitals, and that we had a good experience.

paranoia and the expat

Ay.  What a day.  Actually, a week.  Here's the story.


I work one day a week at a campus that is about a 40 minute drive outside the city.  Last year I started the year by driving, but quickly realized that the roads were sooooo crappy (think big trucks, heavy rains, and minimal road repair) that it was not worth adding more grey hairs to my head.  I was able to carpool with a group of teachers.  But this year, for various reasons, the carpool doesn't really exist.  At least a convenient carpool.  So I've been trying to figure out how to get to work without spending too much time (taking the bus) or without going thru too much hassle to meet up with other teachers to get to work.  Each week there are always various factors that affect my decisions regarding transportation.  And I'll admit, I've driven a few times.




A week and a half ago,  I drove.  I was having a great time, belting out "All We Need is Love" by the Beatles, puttering along in my VW Beetle.  Feeling so 1973.  And then I heard a VERY loud noise.  I was almost on the exit for the school, so I kept driving, but midway thru the exit I realized that I had a flat tire.  I almost freaked out right then and there, thinking "I AM IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY WITH A FLAT TIRE, 40 MINUTES FROM REAL CIVILIZATION."  But I was able to calm myself down, pull over, and start changing the tire.  Granted, I haven't changed a tire in almost 20 years, but darn it all, I was going to try.  And I actually got the car jacked up pretty good (like, on the jack, not messed up).  But thankfully a very kind man named Julio stopped and took over.  He changed my tire and also managed to make me feel very wonderful about being a) a teacher b) a native English speaker and c) someone who can play the guitar.  Wow, thanks Julio for changing my tire and giving me an ego boost!  The spare was a little low, so I drove to the nearest gas station to fill it up.  The guy at the gas station told me that my spare had a leak.  He filled up the spare to 30 psi (even thought I was pretty sure that I'd been told 24 was okay), and within 30 seconds it lost 2 psi.  He convinced me to leave the car there so that I could come back after work, refill the tire (that would be flat by that time) and drive to the closest tire repair shop.  I then walked to school, and even managed to make it to class ON TIME.  Yes, I am that awesome.

After work, I walk back to the gas station, and what do you know?  The spare tire is NOT flat.  He insists on refilling it up, and of course it loses 2 psi in 30 seconds, and at that point I was pretty sure that he really knew nothing about tires, and I'm just thankful that he didn't blow up my remaining tires!  I made it back to BH, picked up the kids from school and got home.   I then got the chance to look closely at the tire, and saw that I had hit something pretty serious, and ripped a big hole in the tire.  But I had to at least try to see if it could be repaired.

I went to the neighborhood tire repair shop, and was kindly informed it was a lost cause.  Then began my search for a good price on tires.  I went back to the place where we had purchased 2 new tires back when we bought the car, and the prices had gone up almost R$50 a tire!!!  I called around, but found pretty much the same price.  And of course, because the tires were used (not that much, but enough to count), I had to buy 2 new tires instead of just one.  This stupid drive to work was starting to get really REALLY expensive.

So I finally scheduled the time to get the new tires.  And that was today.  I took the car.  No problem.  The shop even called to tell me there was an issue with some machine and my car would be ready later than they had told me (that NEVER happens!  Usually I have to call the shop and harass them to find out when my car will be ready).  Finally, they call and say everything is ready.  I went to pick up the car, pay my hefty bill and leave.  But then I realized that I'd forgotten to check the spare, and make sure that they'd traded the old tire with the hole for the old "good" tire.  I pulled over a block away from the shop, and saw the old, holey tire.  So I went back and explain what I need.  And then this guy shows up holding a tube, and says that the tube has a hole so they can't give me a good spare.  But what happened to my two good tires?  The old tires that you just took off?  I went back and forth between the secretary and the grease monkey and I just didn't get it.  At that point, I should have called my husband to get his help with Portuguese and even to help me think rationally here.  The grease monkey said he would see if he could get a new tube and they would call me.  And I drove away.  And I felt this increasing sense of dread.  How was is that I drove into the shop with 4 decent tires, but then bought 2 new tires and drove away with only 4 good tires?  I should have gone back to the shop and tried to clarify things.  But instead I went to the grocery and then home.  By then I was feeling really crappy.  So finally I told my husband, and of course he was mad that they had put a hole in the tube (that was the only conclusion I could come to based on what they were telling me) and we were going to have to pay for yet one more thing. 

He called the secretary to ask how they were going to fix this problem that they created, and she was really rude to him, and then he got really frustrated.  He said that he was not going to let them take advantage of us, and we had to go back there and figure out how they were going make this wrong right.  In the process of driving back, we found out that they had broken the handle on the driver's side door that had just been repaired.  I didn't notice it when I went to the store because I was so upset about the tire problem.  Ug.

We get to the shop, and the secretary is still trying to talk over my husband, and is not listening to anything he's saying.  Finally the manager comes out, and explains.  All the tires have tubes.  Old tires.  New tires.  They used the old tubes (which were still good) with the new tires.  They didn't make any holes in any tubes.  The grease monkey was talking about the repairing the tube in the tire that I had put a hole in.

Oh.

And he would fix the door handle.  He apologized about it, and was quite nice, even though we got all worked up about it.

So essentially I made a big mess of things by not understanding Portuguese.  And I realized, that we are still in the paranoia stage of being expats.  We still are very quick to assume that people are trying to trick us, take our money, and essentially use jeitinho to take advantage of us.  The blog that I linked to defines "jeitinho" as personal benefit or advantage that is detrimental to the benefit or advantage of others.  


It's tricky in Brazil, because jeitinho is alive and real.  Not a day goes by when I don't encounter it (either attempting to use it, or being it's "victim").  So it's easy to quickly jump to the conclusion that someone is trying to pull the wool over my eyes.  But there's also the reality that we are foreigners in a foreign land, with still a very limited understanding of social norms, culture, language and the many, many nuances of communication.  When I don't understand how something works, it's tempting to make a quick judgement that I'm being made fun of, and that my lack of understanding gives the person I'm interacting with full license to "get" me.  It's hard to be vulnerable.  It's hard not having the tools of language and culture.  It's hard to not understand.  And it's hard to live in a place where people can maneuver their way into benefits without following the rules (my rules?  North American rules?  Just who is making these rules...)  But somehow we've got to hold in balance the reality of jeitinho and our assumptions.   Like when it seems like someone is charging us too much for an inferior product.  Or convincing us to do something that we don't want.  Or giving us the raw end of a deal.  Hmmm....

But my moral to my story is, if I don't understand, keep asking until I do.  And maybe try not to jump to conclusions so quickly, and then drag my unsuspecting husband into the paranoia as well.

The downside of living in an older building

We have a nice apartment.  It has a nice "area privativa," what we also call our patio.  It is on a VERY quiet street, and we don't have construction or traffic noise to deal with.  It's close to many bus lines, to some nice restaurants (not that we go out that much) and a very nice bakery.  Our neighbors are usually quiet, and the sindica (building super) is very helpful.  And the owner of our apartment lives upstairs, which has been very, VERY helpful.




And the building is 40 years old.  When we were looking for apartments, I remember several people telling us to avoid renting older apartments.  In many people's opinion, anything older that 10 years is considered old.  In the US, older buildings can be charming, quaint, with lots of retro chic details.  And I think that those kind of places exist in Belo Horizonte, but the challenge is that unfortunately most rentals have not been well maintained.  I think there are many reasons for this.  First of all the imobiliárias (the property management companies) really only want to take your money.  In my opinion (biased, and very uninformed I'll admit), the imobiliárias exist to serve the interests of the owners, and renters have fewer rights.  And the rights that we renters have, have to be fought for.  You have to work your tail off to get things fixed.  You have to jump through lots and lots of hoops to have documents corrected and updated and notarized.  The imobiliárias are not here to help us renters out.  And that means they do everything possible to avoid fixing problems.   




Secondly, I think that renters in Brazil don't take care of the problems either.  Renter are already paying lots for rent, condominium fee (the fee for maintaining the building and public areas, which also pays for doormen, cleaning, elevator, the pool if the building has one and so on), and taxes (yes, renters have the pay the owner's taxes).  Renters also will want to paint when they move in (the previous renters used the cheapest quality paint when they left), but of course you have to paint when you leave because the walls have to look the same when you leave.  So why would a renter really want to take care of the place?  If you are already feeling taken advantage of, why bother keeping things up?  If you already know that when you leave you will have to pay out the nose for things that were broken YEARS before you moved in (and the imobiliária and owners will just pocket the money and not fix things), what the point?






We decided to politely disregard the advice that was given to us, and we decided to rent our current apartment.  Like I said, there are many great things about it.  And yet my list of problems to take care of seems to grow week by week.  Right now, and for the past 2 months, one of the problems has been our "extra" bathroom, referred to as the "service" bathroom.  It's the small bathroom next to the maid's room (yes, think The Help.  But we use the maid's room as my husbands office, so hopefully the beautiful music he makes there redeems any injustices committed...).  We found out while we were in the states that the pipes in that bathroom had rusted and they were leaking into the downstairs neighbor's apartment.  Within a week of returning, we had a bombeiro (plumber!  not fireman!) come and rip everything out and change the pipes.  Wow!  It was so quick it left our heads practically spinning!  But that's what you get when a grouchy Brazilian grandma neighbor is fed up with water coming into her home.  And then we waited for the pedreiro (mason, tile guy).  And we waited.  And waited.  The owner of the apartment wanted to make sure that she had a trustworthy guy that would do a good job.  And it's really hard to find those kind of people right now because of the HUGE construction boom in the city.  But finally after about a month, she found a pedreiro.  And after 2 weeks, he got the tile down, and the toilet back in.  Hooray!






Not so fast.  While all this was happening, a problem was growing in our other bathroom.  The sink had been leaking, and someone did a very crappy job attempting to repair a leak in the shower.  Water had infiltrated the floor, and was damaging the wall in the hallway.  Great.  So now that the service bathroom is repaired, we are going to have to repair the main bathroom.  But the problem is that there isn't a functioning shower in the service bathroom.  So starting tomorrow, I don't know how we are going to shower for the next week.  Fun times.




I am thankful that we have bathrooms.  I'm thankful that we have a roof over our heads.  It really could be a lot worse.   But when you are already daily dealing with language/culture challenges, it gets pretty tiring to have to come home to a place that is constantly leaking, breaking, getting repaired, getting broken again, smelling funny (mold!?), or being eaten by termites.


So if you are in the market for an apartment in Belo Horizonte, beware of the older buildings.  They are cheaper, but are they worth it?  And if you are in our neighborhood this week, and smell something stinky, it's probably just our family...

the saga of Transpore Escolar, part 2

Ug.  Our motorista did not show up at 12:30 yesterday.  I tried calling him all morning (on all three of his phone numbers) but there was never an answer.  Of course in retrospect, I realize that I should have called him on Friday, Saturday and maybe even Sunday to make sure all the details were clear.  My Portuguese is improving, but it's still not 100% trustworthy.  Especially with these kind of the details.  I had to drop Matt and the girls off at their school (it was too early to drop the girls off by themselves) and then drive across town with Sebastian.  And then drive home at the end of the day.  Boo.

But, the funny thing is that the motorista did show up at 1:05 and spoke with our empregada.  Then my husband called him later, and made arrangements for him to come today.  I guess he wasn't clear on the time.  So we're going to try it again.  Oh please, let him come today.  I'll let you know.

Spanish language mistakes

I've been lucky enough to connect with the music teacher at the Elementary school in my home town in Cashmere, WA.  I got to see her again in January, and observed her class a few times.  Since she did me the favor of letting me sit in on her classes, I thought I'd return it by teaching her students a little capoiera.  My kids have taken capoeira classes at school, so I asked them to help.  We had a great time practicing with Grandma and Grandpa, and my kids were really excited to share.

However, I can now add to my accomplishments swearing at native Spanish speakers while trying to teach Portuguese.  You may remember my language boo boo with the " song.  Well, while talking to the first and second graders about capoeira, I asked them to make a "roda."  Then I told them that "roda" meant circle in Portuguese, and asked them to repeat it several times with me.  "Roda, roda, roda."    I saw the Spanish speaking kids snicker.  And then as they repeated "roda" several times (again), and started getting embarrassed, I was stumped.  It wasn't until I got home that I remembered that "roda" is pronounced like "joda" which comes from "joder" in Spanish.  If you don't know what that means, look
here.

And our shoes are still wet

The sun came out for about 5 minutes, and my first thought was to put Sebastian's shoes outside.  We went to a birthday party at the Ecological Park in Pampulha on Saturday, and it rained.


And rained.

And rained. 

We accidentally parked in the parking area that was quite a trek to the covered area.  We had 3 umbrellas for the 4 of us, and I made the mistake of wearing my "nice" shoes.  But I carried Beatrice, so we were ok.  It wasn't so bad walking there, because it was only raining, not dumping (yet).  The party was fun, including candy, yummy cake, brownies, and a piñata.  At the end of the party, it the dumping rain arrived.  I was too tired to carry Bea, and Sebastian just wanted to walk in the grass (without an umbrella), which I foolishly conceded to.  We trekked back to the car, getting totally soaked.  It was so wet that it was dripping inside my umbrella.  It was so wet that water had soaked my orthotics.  I wish the story ended there, but it actually gets better.  We piled into the car, forgetting that there is a leak in the passenger door, so Sebastian stepped into a lake of water.  I shut the door, and then our wet shoes, wet hair and wet clothes started fogging up the windows.  Unfortunately, 1983 VW Bugs don't come with air-conditioning and it was getting pretty steamy.  I used the flannel rag that I keep in the car to wipe off the windows, but then my glasses started fogging up.  I decided that we just had to go, and the good thing is that usually the traffic tends to lighten up when the torrential rain comes.  We crept along at about 20 kilometers and hour, but missed our turn and ended up going the "long-cut" as I like to call it.  I am good at taking the scenic routes.  The flannel rag got soaked, so I had to take off my shirt (I had a tank top on underneath, don't worry) to wipe off the window.  Forty five minutes later, we made it home.

And finally today, 5 days later, I think that Sebastian's shoes are almost dry!

Sleeve Juice

My friend and co-worker sent me this picture, and in the "mango" spirit, I had to post it.



Give us this day our daily sleeve, neh?