(part eight of Thirty Days in Brazil: Fiber in a Faraway Place)
For this entire month, I've had this massive marble tub in my hotel bathroom. It's nice: it's deep, enclosed by glass, and has some pretty spiffy jets ringing the interior. A soak in it takes away the pains of working in NOCs all day, and eases the headache caused by dealing with the half-assed work of infrastructure contractors and management. It keeps me from twitching my hands towards the necks of the lazy and the incompetent.
I've used it twice.
For the past two weeks, actually, it's been barely enough time to pop into the shower at night, soap up, shave, and attempt to resemble something human. Things are picking up, racing towards my departure on the 2nd. I'm exhausted constantly, and quite frustrated.
Annoyingly, my dream of candles, of bath salts, of chocolates and port wine have resulted in a bottle of port that I've barely touched, a candle without lighter or matches, and a stack of dark chocolate that I've no inclinations towards eating.
In the evening, I slip into the glass enclosure of the shower, stand under the expensive head, and attempt to remember what it's like to be human again. Then I trot back out into clothes and into the real world to go spend yet more time with coworkers talking about work.
Uploaded some pictures to Facebook. Notable: images of a boy playing Spanish guitar in a favela, pictures of a favela crouched, half-demolished, under a posh apartment building, pictures of tiny Fiats, and various pictures of flowers.
I haven't had much time to take photos.
Out here, you can eat tons of cassava root flour. They mix it with black or pinto beans, and sometimes bits of meat, and it's delicious over rice. It's a constant side dish, and apparently what they call "slave food", a common dish all over the country in various permutations. Usually they serve it with calabresa - sausage. It's tasty.
Unprocessed cassava is full of cyanide, and there's always a chance that your delicious slave cuisine will end up poisoning you. I eat a bowl of it every day or so. It makes for a filling lunch.
I was talking about Nando's in DC with a coworker on the way to dinner. "They serve great roasted chicken, and these pitchers full of sangria." was the totality of my explanation, shortly followed by what sort of shenanigans my friends and I have gotten up to over Happy Hour sangria.
Coworkers had not heard of sangria. On the way to the restaurant, I explained the concept of it. We arrived at the restaurant, sat down, and were served three massive pitches of sangria.
Well.
Waste not, want not.
I still haven't dreamed here.