Sandbox
Two weeks became three months![edit] | |||||
| Posted by Nad on 14 November 2014 at 23:33 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
| |||||
| I had my court hearing on October 6th which turned out to be nothing more than both Tiago and I agreeing that we both wanted the whole thing over and done with, so the mediator said that we could opt for reconciliation which simply involved me apologising to Tiago for attacking him and us all signing a statement saying as much, and that was it! The mediator women didn't even know what it was actually about as she had a million other disputes to deal with and hadn't even read the report!
So the next day we got straight on a bus and set off for Caxias, we stayed one night with our friends Fabrício and Eliane at their mother's place, and then set off early the next morning on a bus for Lageado Grande to get our bikes (which we'd left at our old neighbours who moved there) and cycle back to the land. We had a huge load, but thanks to our new side panniers we were able to cycle with all of it no problem! We finally arrived back in the afternoon on November 10th, just in time for our 3rd anniversary of moving to Brazil on the 11th :-) We originally only intended to be away for two weeks for Beth to do the Dito e Feito play, and then we were to return straight after that. But then Beth ended up doing another week of the play, and then helping Del with some translation work, so two weeks became a month, and then there was the ill-fated incident in the park which took another two months to resolve! When we finally got back everything was really overgrown, here's a couple of shots of what it's like now followed by one of how it was before we left.
The few vegetables that have survived are very strong though which is good to see - there is a big courgette, a few cauliflowers and cabbages, chia, spinach and lots of mint. Most of the fruit trees along the northern fence are doing well too, the oranges are flowering and a peach even has some small fruit on it! Del and Helder gave us some nice German liqueur chocolates that they got in Portugal (they got back from a trip to Portugal just the day before we left their place). We had some of them on the bus to Caxias, but unfortunately the rest of them all melted in the sun when we cycled back, so we let the wasps and bees have them. They loved them, but were getting really drunk from the alcohol in them :-D
I couldn't post this item when I wrote it a couple of days ago because the net cable was still damaged from the giant swamp rat bites, but today on the 14th the weather was finally good enough to go about replacing the bad cable in the pipe with a good segment. It took most of the day, but it's finally done and the net seems to be going well - whew! |
Eu sou quase um verdadeiro brasileiro![edit] | ||
| Posted by Nad on 17 October 2014 at 14:31 | ||
|---|---|---|
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
| ||
| The residency process became a lot easier on September 1st 2014, where now you can just get it all completed in one day after filling in this form, and making an appointment with the federal police. So one good thing about getting shot on September 3rd was that it made us quickly decide to get the residency process under way again, and we were one of the first in line for the new process :-) They're still very busy though so the appointment was set for October 16th, but at least this ridiculous procedure of effectively being under house arrest for a month has finally been done away with!
Today we went to my appointment and everything went smoothly and I got my new ID on the spot! Unfortunately I had to pay the R$800 illegal over-stayers fine for the second time! The girl told us that if I had written in within three months of being declined last time and said I was going to try again then I wouldn't have had to pay the fine again, but nobody told us that! This ID is much better than the last one because it's a permanent one and I can leave the country any time and re-enter without any problems, and I can use this ID for travelling within Brazil instead of my passport :-) Oba!!!
Unfortunately the photo on my ID is pretty bad! The guy who took my finger prints mentioned that I looked really different with short hair, and I said that I should have taken the photo after I got my hair cut - he said "yes you really should have" :-D |
BitcoinToYou in Curitiba[edit] |
| Posted by Nad on 9 October 2014 at 23:24 |
|---|
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
|
 This is a way for me to transfer funds from my NZ bank account into Brazilian Reals, but without having to be robbed by the banks in the process! In fact the price of Bitcoin in Brazil is a little higher than the international price since it's still very new here, so I actually made about R$80 in the process. If I had used an ATM to do this I would have lost about 5% on the currency exchange, and then had another R$12 cash advance fee added on top of that, which means this simple operation of transferring my own money would have cost me around R$100!!! Bitcoin allows people to transact with one another independently without needing to trust the banking system which deserves no trust at all since it engages in secrecy, extortion and fraud as an integral part of its actual systemic core. |
