More Blog Updates

Time to satisfy the curiosity of those readers who are wondering what's been happening with some of the ongoing dramas — or even just the day-to-day changes — that make up our life in Búzios. So here are a few blog updates:


The Vacant Lot's Not Vacant Anymore
(First posted on 9/16/13, updated on 6/23/14)

Two years ago the beautiful forest next door to our house was uprooted, sections of the steep, sloping hillside were removed, and construction began on the foundation of a house. But just a few months after it started, the work stopped. Whether it was stopped by the authorities or the owner simply abandoned it because he ran out of money has never been quite clear. All we know is that people carted off the tools and the porta-potty, and Mark and I have since been watching nature return in all its exuberance. Here's how the lot was left when it was abandoned:

And here's what it looks like now:

Hah! Now it's for sale!

For us it's just a matter of waiting for the next shoe to drop.


Bakery 1 and Bakery 2
(First posted on 5/6/13)

The bakery at the corner of our street, the one I referred to as Bakery 1 in the May 2013 post, is now being run by the owner's son, and is being slowly dragged into the 21st century. The old TV with bad reception has been replaced by a snazzy flat screen model, products are being upgraded, but the place still thankfully retains its seedy, neighborhood-y feel. Bakery 2, otherwise known as Golden Bread, is no longer the only place to meet and greet, and not because the quality has gone downhill, but rather because the formula has changed. They've gone the way of self-service. As someone who hails from the land of self-service, all I can say is that the place has lost some of its original luster.

Bakery 3

But more to the point here, Búzios has now been blessed with yet another bakery, Bakery 3, and what a place this is! Run by the elegant, French-born Valérie and her equally elegant, German-born baker-husband, this newest hot spot of European-quality breads and rolls and pastries and other baked goodies has some of our friends touting it as the only bakery in town. But Mark and I frequent them all, of course, 'cause you never know which side your croissant is buttered on.




Dining Areas
(First posted on 8/18/14)

A year ago I was thrilling to the plethora of dining areas we have at home — five, count them, five, quite separate and distinct, each one of them used depending on the meal, the weather, and the number of people we need to seat. Well, could it be that five wasn't enough? We have added a sixth dining area to the mix. Outside the living room, and at the top of the stairs which lead to the beach, our new favorite dining area is intimate, cozy, protected from the glare of the setting sun, and it reminds us of Provence:



Girl's Night Out  
(First posted on 11/10/11, updated on 5/13/13)



The institution of Girls' Night Out that my friend Cristina and I began some 12 years ago is still going strong. We still meet once a week (barring illness, travel, etc.), we still alternate languages, and — believe me — neither one of us has aged one iota. Really.





Watchin' Movies
(First posted on 5/7/12, updated on 5/13/13)

In the two years since our update on how many movies Mark and I have watched since moving to Brazil, the number has risen to 2,088. Hey, it's our main source of entertainment . . .


Man in Water
(First posted 11/19/14, updated on 8/10/15)



This man fascinates me. He is still there, almost every day, standing in the water in front of our house, quiet, contemplative, pensive. Yesterday Mark and I passed him on the beach (he was on his way into the water), and we all nodded a hello. The man will never know what a world-renowned celebrity he's become.

More Blog Updates

Today, I'm going to turn away from All-Soccer-All-the-Time news, and bring you some more updates on our ongoing dramas, both personal and non. But don't be too disappointed, all you soccer fans, it's going to be a long month!

Forbidden Fruits (October 22, 2012)

To my utmost despair, I found yet another fruit to add to my long, long list of prohibited ones: jaca (jackfruit). Our cleaning lady thoughtfully brought us a container full, all cleaned and ready to eat. It smelled divine, it tasted heavenly! Then, in just a few minutes, came that unmistakable tingling in my lips, that swelling around my eyes and in my fingers, and the slow and steady closing of my airways. I hadn’t eaten much, just one piece, so I drank lots of water, lay down and deep-breathed my way through it. The allergic reaction fizzled. Then I hit Google, where I learned that jackfruit is famous for the sticky substance in its center: latex, for goodness sake! The worst thing possible for a girl with the rare latex-fruit syndrome.

Closing the Stable Door After The Horse Has Bolted (February 11, 2013)

Facade of the disco today

Over a year after the devastating fire in the southern Brazilian disco Kiss, in which 242 young people died and hundreds more were injured, most Brazilians can tick off every single factor that contributed to the disaster: the disco was overcrowded, the musicians used pyrotechnic flares in a closed space with flammable, toxic materials, windows were boarded from the outside, doors were bolted from the inside, and the fire department had never properly inspected the place. Over a year now, and not one single person responsible for this crime has been convicted. Those who were indicted (club owners, musicians) are awaiting judgment in the comfort of their own homes, not in jail. And that judgment will take years, with several pending cases making their slow progress through the courts. Impunity reigns, at least for the time being.

Paradise Lost
(April 22, 2013)

In the months that followed our filing of a criminal complaint against our neighbor, who had turned his property into a wild party rental house, he finally did the right thing. Out went the party renters, and in came nice, quiet, mostly mature guests for his brand new, chic and expensive pousada. Things had improved so much that Mark and I had kind of forgotten we had ever made a complaint. So you can imagine our astonishment when we were summoned a few weeks ago to appear in court for an audiência, a face-off with our neighbor. After all, one year and one month had passed. We thought the complaint had just disappeared. But off we went for our day in court. The other side didn’t show up. We had a nice chat anyway with a conciliadora, or mediator. We were told we couldn't drop the charges (because they were criminal, not civil) but we were able to tell her that we had no reason to continue. We don’t want any money damages awarded, we just want to continue to live in peace. It’s now up to the Public Prosecutor to drop the case or not.

The 20¢ Revolution (July 22, 2013)

It’s been nearly a year now and Brazil is still seething with strikes and protest marches. Initially, these marches were organized to protest the rise in bus fares, but they quickly turned into an indictment against the government’s obscenely wasteful spending on World Cup preparations. Unfortunately, the peaceful marches have been infiltrated by masked vandals, who have used the crowds as cover to smash up banks, burn buses, and tear down public property. Then there’s the theory that by going on strike now, in the midst of the World Cup, the strikers will get what they want. So who’s currently been going on and off strike around the country? Just teachers, bank guards, bus drivers, workers in the subways, the bus stations, the airports, hospital staff, civil servants . . . the list is endless. What a mess.

"We’re on strike"

    






The Vacant Lot’s Not Vacant Anymore (September 16, 2013)

Ever since the forest next door to us was torn out and the earth excavated, we’ve been waiting to see a beautiful beach house rise up before our eyes. But here we are, one year later, and nothing’s happened since construction work stopped last September.

The site in September 2013

The site in May 2014

It hasn’t taken long for the woods to grow back. It hasn’t taken long for the rains to wash much of the earth down to the beach. But the biggest problem has unfortunately been on our side of the wall. Without the earth needed to sustain our wall and the staircase that runs alongside it, the wall began to crack and the stairs began to break up and sink into — well, we don’t want to think about where they might sink.



The owner/architect of the project has, to his credit, been responsive to our concerns and has filled some earth in between our two properties. He’s also had some plants put in (to secure the earth? to hide the construction site?) We’re not altogether happy with these bandaids, so here we are, having a major repair job done to maintain the integrity of our wall, our stairs, our property.

The Vacant Lot's Not Vacant Anymore

Ours is the last house on a narrow, hilly street. To one side of us stands the house that recently became famous (or infamous) in the neighborhood and in this blog (see my April 22, 2013 blogpost, and its update on May 13^th). Things have quieted down considerably on that side. They now leave us in peace, so I will do the same with them and say no more here. On the other side of our house was a vacant lot or, more specifically, a forest, teeming with life. Over the years large families of kingfishers and doves flew to and from their nests every day. Occasionally horses could be seen grazing, and possums would slink by, intent on their prey. There were also plenty of large termite nests and snakes (nothing’s perfect). Every day we would look over at the forest — "our forest" as we had come to think of it — and see something new and interesting. Eleven glorious years of peace, privacy and greenery.

We knew it might end one day, and so it has. The vacant lot had an owner, Octávio Raja Gabaglia, an architect, a former city councilman, and the man singlehandedly responsible for the distinct, low-rise profile Búzios enjoys to this day. While serving in the city council back in the ’70s, Octávio, or Otavinho as he’s called, introduced a law that prohibited construction above two stories, with the second story occupying only 50% of the area of the first story. The result? There are absolutely no highrises in Búzios, period. City governments have come and city governments have gone, but this law remains untouched and unchallenged (except by scofflaws, but that’s another story). Without this law Búzios would look — well, just like any other beach resort around the world.

It would look like Miami,


like Punta del Este,

like Cancún,

like Marbella,

like Rio de Janeiro,

or even like Cabo Frio, a mere half hour by car from Búzios.

Got the idea? Instead, Búzios looks like this —

But back to our lot, where Otavinho is eager finally to build the house he projected many years ago. In a spirit of good neighborliness he has made several visits to our house, blueprints in hand, both to enlist our cooperation and calm our worst fears. We’re not going to enjoy the year of construction that’s ahead of us, the noise and the dirt and all, but we will find it fascinating to watch a house — particularly an Otavinho-designed house — go up before our very eyes.


It used to look like this from the beach —                      

                 
                               









But now it looks like this —

Where horses once grazed and roamed free —

We now have machines —

And where I used to gaze at the ever-changing scene —

This is what we see now —

. . . to be continued.