Brazilian "Manners" Part II
Casa De Melo
by
2y ago
I put Manners in quotations like a passive aggressive asshole because sometimes I just can't deal with the culture here. A friend recently clued me in to a Brazilian term - I do not know how to spell it - but it basically translates to "the way a monkey would behave." With the racism in Brazil, she was very concerned that I understood that it meant a literal monkey and did not coyly refer to dark skinned people (because you don't have to be black in Brazil to be "black.") Thankfully, she reassured me that I'm not alone in my frustrations and that many of these things frustrate Brazilians as we ..read more
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Mandioca 101
Casa De Melo
by
2y ago
Mandioca (aka yuca aka cassava) is a staple in Brazilian cuisine. I learned how to cook it in the US, because it was so incredible I just couldn't wait for our Brazilian friends to make some every once in a while. Mandioca is a root vegetable. We actually visited a distant relative's farm (which was really in the middle of nowhere. I mean we're in the middle of nowhere, but we're also in a city of 300,000 people.) - while there, they took us out into what looked like a field overgrown with natural vegetation, and we began digging up mandioca roots. I'll share with you my favorite way to ..read more
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Thank You Recession - Cooking
Casa De Melo
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2y ago
Farley and I joke that we left the US recession for the Brazilian one. The real has dropped and prices have skyrocketed. We were lucky enough to move here, buy a vehicle, and furnish our house while the dollar to real value was in our favor. But, since we were used to living like broke college students in the States (had to pay off those student loans and save for an international move!), we've applied a lot of the same money-saving tactics to our life here. And the name of the game is: DIY. I cut everyone's hair (including my own), I re-purpose old clothes, garden (working on that one!), shop ..read more
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Gender Disappointment - It's Okay
Casa De Melo
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2y ago
My first child was a boy and I was ecstatic. I always wanted to be a boy mom. Going to soccer games, playing with dinosaurs, wrestling, all the fun things. I grew up with two younger brothers and I was all about the boy life. My son was so much work as a baby and toddler, but he was adorable and I loved it. I had this vision of a second son. One that would roughhouse with our first. They'd fight over cars, but be best friends. The younger one would follow the first around, copying everything he did like a mini-me. When I became pregnant with our second child, I knew it was a girl. The pregnan ..read more
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Garden of the Gods
Casa De Melo
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2y ago
(Note: I wrote this pre-quarantine). The kids and I recently spent three months in Denver visiting my brother, Jeff. We arrived the day before Thanksgiving and returned mid-February. During our last visit to the States, we traveled a lot. We were all over the country trying to catch up with family and friends we hadn't seen in two years. It was exhausting. I swore that we wouldn't travel this trip. If we were going to visit anyone, they had to come to us. (We did end up traveling to Ohio, but that's for another post). I also wanted this trip to be more about experiences that we don't hav ..read more
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Brazil's Pride Month
Casa De Melo
by
2y ago
Brazil is a place I frequently refer to as "stuck in the 50s." Gender and racial equality, LGBTQ+ acceptance, and wealth disparity have a long way to go. And the same could be said for the US, absolutely, but in the US, there appears to be a strong divide between tolerance and intolerance. In Brazil, there seems to be only intolerance, with the vocal objectors exclusively in Rio or Sao Paulo. For the LGBTQ+ community, Brazil is a contradiction. It's ruled by Catholicism and Evangelicalism and has the world's highest LGBTQ+ community murder rate, but also features the world's largest pride para ..read more
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Things I Wish I Had Bought
Casa De Melo
by
3y ago
I've been reflecting on thing I wish I had done differently during our time in Brazil. The consulates have finally reopened, so it looks like this might be our last year here. Nothing is written in stone, but we're preparing ourselves. One of my biggest regrets was treating our time here as temporary. When we first moved here, we had no idea how long we'd be here, but we figured eventually (at least when the kids were a little older due to the better quality of schools) we'd move back to the States. With that mindset, there were a lot of things that I didn't buy because I didn't think it was w ..read more
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5 Years Later Part I
Casa De Melo
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4y ago
Since it appears that we're not going anywhere anytime soon (thank you USA and Brazil for your tag-team disastrous Coronavirus responses *insert eye roll here), I thought I'd bring my blog up-to-date with a slightly early 5 Years In post. (Holy shit I can't believe we've been here for 5 years, it simultaneously feels like a month and a lifetime).  So.. remember when I talked about our immigration timeline? We should be looking forward to Farley's medical exam, biometrics, and consulate interview in Rio. Except the consulate is closed indefinitely due to Rona. We have no idea wh ..read more
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Coronavirus in Brazil
Casa De Melo
by
4y ago
It's impossible to avoid, so let's talk about how coronavirus is affecting us in Brazil. Firstly, we live in a city with just under 300,000 people and the nearest city is an hour away. We are in a fairly remote area and certainly do not have the amount of international travelers that they have in Rio, São Paulo, or Brasilia.  As of 21 March 2020, there are only 29 confirmed cases in my state (remember, our state is the size of France). 18 of those cases are in Belo Horizonte (5-7 hours from us), which is also home to the only international airport in our state. There are 2,140 suspected ..read more
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What We Brought to Brazil - Round 3
Casa De Melo
by
4y ago
When we were researching living in Brazil, one of my favorite things to read were posts from expats about the stuff they brought with them. It helped inform us of the things we wanted to bring. (I even wrote my own posts about it way back in the first blog post and and again here.) Since we had already moved to Brazil, I had been in the States two years before, and we estimate that we'll live here for less than two more years, our priorities this trip were a little different. Some items were practical things that we felt we needed in Brazil. Items that we could buy cheaper and with better qual ..read more
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