Walls and Bikes

Hi, this is Jeyson - I thought I'd have a try at blogging this week....so here goes!

When you come visit us here in Brazil one day, you'll probably notice a major difference when we're taking a walk down the streets....walls. Walls, walls, everywhere! Before coming to Brazil, Stephanie had never really seen a house surrounded by a wall, like many of you haven't. So, when we posted a picture of our house (months ago) it's easy to see why it was so confusing. We posted a picture of our house...but all you saw was the wall! Where is the house?!? So, this post is dedicated to clearing up the confusion of walls.

This picture shows our house.... with the gate open,

Within the gate, you can see the car garage (where Stephanie is standing), as well as part of our huge lawn! (ok, actually the lawn in the front is about 12 ftX 6 ft - but it's green and cools the house so that's what counts!)

...and the main entrance to the house. (please excuse the bike...more on that later!) As you hopefully can see, the house is in the middle of our property and surrounded by, but not actually attached to, the surrounding wall. The trouble is that it is impossible to actually take a picture of the house since when you back up to take a picture of the whole house, you have to walk outside the wall. Here actually, driving down the street, you can't see what houses really look like ever - all you see is a wall. Only when you walk through the gate can you get a view of the house. As strange as the wall situation sounds, many (if not most) places in the world are like this. In fact, people here are amazed that the houses in the States do not NOT have walls for safety and privacy. It's all a matter of perspective of "normal".

This is the view of our street. That's our car parked there....although it always comes in the gate at night for safety. Can you see the grey splotches every few meters? Thats dried up cement! During construction, most house builders can't afford to have access to cement mixers and so they mix up the cement right there on the street with a shovel!

Ok, back to walls, here are more examples of walls around the neighborhood. The wall around the green house looks pretty small but is actually 2 meters tall. Its just the grass surrounding it has never been mowed! If you look closely, you will notice an electric fence above the wall, to deter people from "hopping" it.

Most builders actually build the wall that goes around the house first, and then build the house! Why you might ask? Well, so people don't steal the bricks and building materials before the house is finished, of course!

Pictured: Tempting loot for thieves laying around! (ie, bricks and tiles :)
More walls in front of each house....

Here's a house in the middle of construction. Here in Brazil, people don't really worry about fires since, as you can see, there really not much that can burn down!

(There I am walking Bobby down the street.) Some people can't really afford to build a wall so a wire fence will do. These neighbor's have a vicious dog that helps protect their house and car and Bobby likes to have a barking match with him every time we pass by!

Well another fun thing that happened recently is that we were able to get our hands on a tandem bike! Stephanie had really been wanting one so we could ride to the airport every so often and get some exercise in. However, they are extremelly rare here and the few that we saw for sale in stores where about 1.500 US dollars!

Well, recently we were able to borrow one that had been given to the YWAM base in Goiania. The base there is surrounded only by rough muddy roads and the thin-wheeled bike does not handle that too well. It had not been used in several months and was in need of much repair, so they agreed to let us use while we're in Anapolis, it in return for me fixing it up.

The bike is actually old and kind of "home-made" so it needed some modifications. One problem was that the front chain, called a "timing chain" fell off every couple of meters we rode and it could not be adjusted. The solution I found was to throw a few parts I had lying around the house to make a chain tensioner. So far it is working great and the chain has not fallen off!

Another problem was that it did not really have brakes since they were rusted together. Some lube and adjustments got that problem fix. It's in process, but we're having a lot of fun!

Whenever we ride around the neighborhood people love to marvel, since most people have never seen a tandem bike before. The other day we passed a group of kids playing soccer in the street. A little boy (about 5) stared at us with a dropped jaw. After a second he called out "WOW! I have never seen a bike like that in my WHOLE LIFE!" Very funny!