Brazilian Hell

I´ve been complaining recently that all I´ve been doing at work is reading, reading, reading, then today my ´supervisor´, lets call her that for argument´s sake, informed me she will be taking ONE MONTH´S leave as of the first of May. This means I will be in charge of anything and everything environment related, how on earth am I not going to screw this up? At least it will be a welcome respite from the endless reading. I just hope that the knowledge I´ve been cramming my mind with over the past two weeks has actually been absorbed.

My boss told me a story this morning about ´The Brazilian Hell´, in which a man chooses to live in Brazilian hell instead of, for example, American or Swiss hell, because in Brazil the generators don´t work to heat hell and the man who usually turns the spit on which we are eternally roasted is having a day off. I have lately been suffering in this Brazilian hell. On Sunday we were supposed to have rugby training in the evening, however only 2 of us showed up - me and another English girl. An hour and a half later a third girl turned up, an hour and a half! Needless to say we didn´t have training. Yesterday I didn´t come to work so that I could begin the application process to get my CPF (social security number required to do practically anything). I took a long metro and bus journey plus a half hour walk to the office where I have to apply for my título de eleitor (electoral registration), necessary to apply for a CPF. On arrival at the office I discovered that there had been a powercut and all work for the day had been halted. My afternoon today will be taken up by that same journey...this time in torrential rain. Once I get my título de eleitor I can apply for the CPF, that process takes up to 2 weeks, once I get my CPF I can apply for my Carteira de Trabalho (work permit), another 2 week process, as well as open a bank account. After all that I can finally get paid. Ok, so it´s not exactly hell but it´s mighty frustrating.

Rugby, Running and Rabbits

There have been some fantastic developments since I last wrote. I went with my Dad on Wednesday evening to play touch rugby on the beach, but after watching the guys play for a bit I chickened out for the second week in a row, fortunately however, in the distance I spotted a group of 4 girls and a dude doing some passing practice. Turned out to be the Women's Rio Rugby team having their weekly training session. I joined in the training and even when the heavens opened and drenched us all to the bone I stuck with it and trained on. It was brilliant, I really enjoyed myself and was warmly welcomed by all. The team is quite small and there is very little funding and as you can imagine there aren't a huge number of other teams to compete against, so getting experience from playing games is difficult. I'm not going to say the girls are the best players in the world but they have the determination and hopefully over the coming months there will be much improvement.

After training I discovered, by eavesdropping on a conversation between the coach and one of the girls, that they are part of a team training for a half-marathon in June. I couldn't believe my luck! To cut a long story short I will become the fourth member of their running team, anyone who knows me well will understand how psyched I am about this. They reacted really positively when I suggested that we get sponsorship for the marathon and give the money to charity, so another bonus to the story!

I'm off to the beach now for the first time since I arrived.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Easter weekend and gets lots of chocolate from the Easter bunny.

Welcome to my blog

I, who know barely anything about computers, have decided to embark on a technological adventure and create my own blog to keep my nearest and dearest informed about the goings-on in my new Brazilian life.

Things have got off to a fantastic start. I have spent the majority of the last week meeting up with old friends, eating so much delicous food and working in the office. I can still hardly believe that I am really here but because everything has been moving so fast I haven´t really had time to stop and contemplate.

I was thrown into work on my second day in Rio and because I don´t know a huge amount about the subject matter I´m dealing with I have spent most of my time in the office reading environmental reports and trying to get up to speed. I am gradually getting to know my colleagues, all of whom are in their mid twenties and most are interning here whilst studying at university. At first it was difficult to speak with them becasue my Portuguese was a bit rusty but it´s getting much easier as my confidence in the language is growing every day. Today we all went out to have an absolutely delicious steak lunch, which cost me roughly 6 quid!! I´m acually still in the office now and technically skiving in order to write this so should probably get back to work.

Will write more updates soon.
Much love to all.