June 5, 2007: Ants in My Coffee

Morning Rituals
We are fortunate that our hotel provides breakfast, as I think I've mentioned before. Mostly bread, butter, variations of dishes with manoc and tapioca, and fruits that I'm scared to try.

Milk is often boiled and served in a thermos, as most is not pasteurized properly. The cute, little old woman who manages the breakfast station usually leaves a little plate that captures the droplets of milk that don't make it to your coffee cup. The really agressive ants manage to always infiltrate the milk dish. I cringe to think that they have the ability to crawl up the thermos and enter my morning salvation.

And then there's the low-hanging fruit for the other ants with little concern for their caloric intake: the sugar bowl. Every morning I try desperately to strategically spoon the small grains of sugar that have not been claimed by the ants. To no avail, I consistently have additional protein during morning ritual. Mmm. Not so bad.

The Little Black Dress
Every morning on our way to the Institute to model revenue-generating activities (of which we are increasingly doubting the implemention), we drive by several small shops that carry some interesting clothing items (those whose goal is to expose muffin tops and quadruple boobs, which are usually out and about and large and in charge).

Anyway, I noticed the cutest little black dress in a shop. Our timing is always off, as the stores are open only from 8am to 6pm, which we miss due to our work schedule. We finally have the opportunity to check out the dress one morning, and as we approached, i felt my nose cringe ... The dress shop was part of a meat market. That smelled. Like raw meat. And you could see. The meat carcasses the size of a medium-sized person hanging from hooks.

And the kicker was, the dress had sold the day before.

Wanted: Chinese Takeout
Be careful what you wish for ... Although we try not to make a habit of it, Maiken and I have a tendency on occasion to talk about what we miss. Most often, the discussion surrounds types of food or the temperature we wish our shower was set to. One day, we ventured to say how much we would love to have chinese takeout while watching our favorite Brazilian TV show, the tele novella. The tele novella is a night-time soap opera. Keep in mind that I only know numbers and Portuguese, but somehow I understand exactly what's going on, i.e., Matheas just got dumped by Camilla, who decided to marry another rich guy.

The next day, following a suggestion of one of our clients, we dined at this little fish place that did have a little bit of an interesting smell. Once you adjust and order, the fish was extremely good. And at $5 reais (roughly $2.50 USD) for fish and beer, you can't beat it ... until the next morning when you realize that your clothes smell like fishy chinese takeout, and now your entire clothing collection smells like it.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head
Showering in the Amazon is not quite what it is cracked up to be. I think we spend half of our morning discussing the new strategies we tried to mitigate the amount of cold water dripping down our backs. I realized early that there is a limit to our water benefactor - sputter, sputter, spit, spit ... and the water shuts off.

I am the lucky one who usually gets caught in the non-shower, fully covered in soap. You rarely have a choice other than to stand there with your eyes closed, hoping that the soap does not penetrate your eyelids and make your eyeballs burn. During the reprieve of the icicle shoots dispersed through the shower head, your body compensates with additional heat ... you start warming up.

And then you squint your eyes tighter because you feel the soap gradually conquering the eyelid baracade. Then, you are flanked - not only are your eyes starting to burn (and its second defense - tears - move into action), but you feel the cold water spitting again. You have moments to dispell the hopes of warmth while the water returns to its former glory.

A New Species
It is not uncommon in the Amazon to discover a new species; in fact, it happens often. I just never expected to find a new species in our toilet.

Perhaps out of sheer laziness, we never opted to switch dormitory hotels rooms to rid ourselves of the unpleasant odor that would eminate from our bathroom. Or, perhaps it was out of hope that the smell would magically disappear by the toilet fairy, if we left her a glass of clean water on the sink.

Nevertheless, we had the brilliant idea to dump bleach in the toilet ... in the shower ... in the sink ... on the floor ... anything we could to rid ourselves of the decaying poop smell in our room. After little success (outside of feeling giddy from the fumes of the bleach), we decided to go where no man has gone before - we dumped bleach in the contraption above the toilet that forced the flushing.

We must have awakened the sleeping smelly giant, because he metaphorically spewed forth much additional odor. No monster, no matter how stubborn, can defend itself against powerful Brazilian bleach. We hope that we have rid the world of an undefined parasitic black cloud that hovers in bathrooms all over the Amazon.

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