I don’t spend a ton of time in here, but the local television advertising is not to be missed.
My dad said the other day that he couldn’t picture where I live, so I’m dedicating a post to some pictures of my environs. My room is one of five bedrooms in a rectangular house, with three rooms in two rows (one of the six is a living room) separated by a hallway leading to the kitchen and bathroom.
My room is the first on the right. The hallway is not only for easy passage. Small male children also use the space for climbing, hurling balls and toys, and violent hand-to-head combat. And occasionally for peaceful activities, such as drawing.
No one here’s afraid of a little color!
While I was taking these photographs, I was fantasizing that someday a display of my room would be in a museum, maybe described something like this:
Living and Work Space, Female Anthropologist, early 21st century. (Recreation).
While hammocks (redes) were most commonly used by the Portelense for sleeping and relaxing, occasionally mattresses stuffed with synthetic padding set atop wood frames were used as well (possibly because the wood frames served to deter – usually – cockroaches and other bugs from running across the sleeper’s body). “Beds” with mattresses and wood frames were considered more “modern” than redes and appear in some homes. Note the anthropologist used the hooks built into the walls for holding a rede instead to hang a string of clothes, a sack of items needing laundering, and a plastic bag of trash.
Three large suitcases serve as surfaces and storage, though the floor also appears to hold anthropometric equipment and gifts for native Portelense, including, curiously, disposable diapers and toothbrushes. This anthropologist, likely unaccustomed to the heat of Amazonian Brazil, used rudimentary means to cool herself, including an electric 3-speed fan and cups of water, and possibly many cans of beer (not shown). A small wooden table situated at the foot of the “bed” served as a desk.
Room with traditional rede, unoccupied.(The rede, that is. It’s possible that someone was in the room.)
The anthropologist also appears to have salvaged a discarded Visconti cookie display rack, possibly from the Matheus Variedades store around the corner, after she figured out what the h*ll these are called in Portuguese and asked the store owner if she could have it, to use for clothes and toiletry storage.
One man’s trash?
The fruits of labor
Last but not least, a right through the kitchen will lead you to an open space often enjoyed by a Portelense family for activities such as spitting the seeds of watermelon (melancia) long distances (an activity suggested by the anthropologist, sadly enough), fixing motors, and occasionally hosting a traditional Brazilian churrascaria. Don’t be fooled by the tree in the courtyard (as the anthropologist may have been – jeez, only jokingly!). It is NOT a cross between a coconut tree and banana plant, but rather a coconut tree with a green bananas conveniently ripening on the bunch.
Life with Its Teeth Out 