For the meantime I´m back teaching English. If you ask around some people seem unfulfilled doing this kind of job...well, if you don´t like it you need to think about doing something else. To be honest with you, this time around for me it really doesn´t seem so bad.
The thing about travelling around São Paulo to teach staff in companies is that I only have to drop by the institute´s office to see the boss and/or the admin staff every few weeks. I have class with each student once or at most twice a week. Its pretty easy to get on with people for this amount of time - 40 hours a week with the same crowd? Difficult!
But wait!
Want to keep travelling and continue to be an international vagabond without teaching? Here are ten escape plans - possible with minimal savings. It can be done! Don´t scoff, they have all been tried by various desperate TEFL teachers.
1. Join the WWOOF organic farm website and work hippie farms for the rest of your days.
2. Go work in a hostel in Buenos Aires, its a city with hundreds of hostels! (I can recommend it, but it doesn´t pay well).
3. Join French Foreign Legion. Was reading blog about a young guy who did this: http://foreigninfatuation.blogspot.com/
4. Join Buddhist temple in some provincial Asian setting. Becoming a monk will make you a hit with the ladies.
5. Work in admin at a language school (I´ve tried this one too, no bad but you need to be friendly which didn´t suit me, people constantly asking me directions in broken Spanish. Actually the job was pretty good, none of the performance anxiety of teaching).
6. Go to California and work illegally in a restaurant Mexican-style (no racism intended, probably financially one of the best options here).
7. Get a job on a cruise ship.
8. Get a scholarship from home and became an international Uni student (Done this one too).
9. Buy a fishing rod and a plane ticket to Bali (I´m still considering doing this).
10 Walk into jungle and hope (I´m not too far from the Amazon, just need to remember bug-repellent).
Well that´s my list so now you know why I´m back teaching...
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Much More Than Just The Cleaning Lady
The cleaning lady at the hostel I worked at in Buenos Aires was from Peru. She was quite a character, in some ways strong, in some ways weak. Her style was to be incredibly servile towards the bosses and incredibly dictatorial towards the receptionists.
She was took her job seriously that was for sure and the absentee Argentine playboy bosses basically left her in charge. To make up for working long hours for a pittance she reveled in the small amount of power she held over us - the guys with the not so grueling job of minding the reception.
To her the receptionists (unless one of her favourites) were the enemy. A receptionist was a lazy creature who didn’t clean the kitchen, forgot to check guests out (unless they were female ha), was always drunk and took girls to private rooms without paying. To some extent she was correct. She would report the misadventures of the receptionists to the boss, grossly exaggerating details. When the kitchen was left messy she would take away the pots and pans, so we couldn´t cook. There was something sadistic to it all: she cackled with pleasure to see all six of us have to make do with one pot to cook our dinners. It was the oldest thinnest pot, without handles.
Once, on a summer´s weekend due to a broken cable there was no power or water (electrically powered pump) in the hostel I was reading a book – after having finally convinced all the guests to leave. It had been stressful dealing with, amongst other things, an understandably irate Uruguayan who arrived at reception covered in soap suds. The water had gone off while he was in the shower.
After more than 24 hours of this, despite the boss not wanting to loose guests, the other receptionist and I made a policy of asking people to change hostels. A couple of Bangladeshi guys had been constantly yelling at us wanting the power back on – we were sick of it. The owner´s strategy was to make an agreement with another hostel that out guests could walk over there to shower if we paid 20 pesos per head. It was ridiculous and the toilets were really starting to pong. Close the damn hostel! I was thinking after 40 hours of it. In fact another receptionist had just quit and the Chilean guy and I had to work 8 hours on, 8 hours off through Friday, Saturday and Sunday – both secretly hoping the power and water would come back on during the other´s shift to avoid having to do the mountain of dishes.
With all the guests finally out or pacified into lying in their darkened dormitories I began to read my book in the precious daylight, but the cleaning lady couldn’t leave me alone – talking about various issues around the hostel – I not politely suggested she took up reading. She was concerned about drinking bottled water from the fridge, in case the owners noticed – ridiculous I told her we have to stay here and work its 35 degrees – the taps were dry.
One entire week she stayed at the hostel until 11 every night cooking for a group of guests. She created wonderful Peruvian dishes and the guests paid extra – she never asked the boss for extra money. Although the Argentine boss was the coldest capitalist pig she thought the world of him.
She also had a great knack of being outside the door in the morning when a guest or staff member tried to leave a room with a girl – she always wanted to charge more for that – or report it to the boss. She knew by voodoo whether a receptionist had used the washing machine. She even watched the video from the camera in reception at home at night and would call if she saw the receptionist was relaxing. Have you taken out the rubbish? She had no reasonable motivation to do this with her 500 USD a month salary that I could see? She should have been spending time with her son.
Then sometimes she could be nice. I once had dinner at her place, a lovely old house right in the heart of La Boca, the Buenos Aires neighbourhood famous for the tourist trap Caminito with brightly painted houses, football, the smelly river, muggings and working class immigrants.
I had some huge shouting matches with here she could really bring the worst out in me. Mind you I´ll never forget her.
She was took her job seriously that was for sure and the absentee Argentine playboy bosses basically left her in charge. To make up for working long hours for a pittance she reveled in the small amount of power she held over us - the guys with the not so grueling job of minding the reception.
To her the receptionists (unless one of her favourites) were the enemy. A receptionist was a lazy creature who didn’t clean the kitchen, forgot to check guests out (unless they were female ha), was always drunk and took girls to private rooms without paying. To some extent she was correct. She would report the misadventures of the receptionists to the boss, grossly exaggerating details. When the kitchen was left messy she would take away the pots and pans, so we couldn´t cook. There was something sadistic to it all: she cackled with pleasure to see all six of us have to make do with one pot to cook our dinners. It was the oldest thinnest pot, without handles.
Once, on a summer´s weekend due to a broken cable there was no power or water (electrically powered pump) in the hostel I was reading a book – after having finally convinced all the guests to leave. It had been stressful dealing with, amongst other things, an understandably irate Uruguayan who arrived at reception covered in soap suds. The water had gone off while he was in the shower.
After more than 24 hours of this, despite the boss not wanting to loose guests, the other receptionist and I made a policy of asking people to change hostels. A couple of Bangladeshi guys had been constantly yelling at us wanting the power back on – we were sick of it. The owner´s strategy was to make an agreement with another hostel that out guests could walk over there to shower if we paid 20 pesos per head. It was ridiculous and the toilets were really starting to pong. Close the damn hostel! I was thinking after 40 hours of it. In fact another receptionist had just quit and the Chilean guy and I had to work 8 hours on, 8 hours off through Friday, Saturday and Sunday – both secretly hoping the power and water would come back on during the other´s shift to avoid having to do the mountain of dishes.
With all the guests finally out or pacified into lying in their darkened dormitories I began to read my book in the precious daylight, but the cleaning lady couldn’t leave me alone – talking about various issues around the hostel – I not politely suggested she took up reading. She was concerned about drinking bottled water from the fridge, in case the owners noticed – ridiculous I told her we have to stay here and work its 35 degrees – the taps were dry.
One entire week she stayed at the hostel until 11 every night cooking for a group of guests. She created wonderful Peruvian dishes and the guests paid extra – she never asked the boss for extra money. Although the Argentine boss was the coldest capitalist pig she thought the world of him.
She also had a great knack of being outside the door in the morning when a guest or staff member tried to leave a room with a girl – she always wanted to charge more for that – or report it to the boss. She knew by voodoo whether a receptionist had used the washing machine. She even watched the video from the camera in reception at home at night and would call if she saw the receptionist was relaxing. Have you taken out the rubbish? She had no reasonable motivation to do this with her 500 USD a month salary that I could see? She should have been spending time with her son.
Then sometimes she could be nice. I once had dinner at her place, a lovely old house right in the heart of La Boca, the Buenos Aires neighbourhood famous for the tourist trap Caminito with brightly painted houses, football, the smelly river, muggings and working class immigrants.
I had some huge shouting matches with here she could really bring the worst out in me. Mind you I´ll never forget her.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Getting Used to São Paulo 3
As I make a not too enthusiastic effort to get the pronunciation of Brazilian Portuguese down, one undeniable resource is the announcements on the subway – ´the next stop is such and such, exit on the left side of the train´.
One name which really stands out for me as being both equally cool and hard to pronounce is Anhangabau, a stop right in the centre of town.
Not that I´ve been getting off at that stop. I´ve been taking the Red line to Republica and then changing to the Yellow line, and then to the Green line or onto the Emerald line. The Yellow line is a remote control train without divisions between carriages – 2000 person capacity cattle-ship. The TVs inside continuously show the imported trains arriving at the port of Santos from South Korea. People are quoted praising the speed and convenience of the train. The vid gets old after a couple of rides.
The subway full at 6am. Ten years ago when I was catching the subway just as early in Shanghai, I know it wasn´t full – not even half. Bad news, people work hard in São Paulo. The poor just to get by. And the rich? Well the condo expenses, the new car and school fees they pay here are much more I would say than in another country....you want quality of life you pay.
Prices are tricky to compare, to get a clear picture how much better off you were in one place at one time compared with another time and place. There are websites devoted to comparing the prices in different cities but I´m not sure I trust them. Making your own mental comparison accurate depends on how analytical your mind is, fading memory, currency conversions, changing tastes etc.
I would say food and beer are not too expensive in SP if you cook and drink in cheap places. Food and beer that´s what life has essentially boiled down to for me. One anomaly both here and to a lesser extent Argentina, why are clothes so expensive???
So anyway how does it rate this place if you just want to turn up get a job? I see English Teacher X is flogging a couple of ebooks named ´To Travel Hopelessly´ and ´How To Survive Living Abroad´. I guess the target audience is guys, and to a lesser extent girls, of all ages looking to go overseas for an adventure to escape the mundane West. These guys also need to get a job in overseas-adventure-fairyland quick quick before their savings vanish. Here in São Paulo turning up and getting the survival mode English teaching job was easy. No visa required. I Have to get up very early for 7am classes, have other classes in the evening – I´m not even thinking about 9 to 5 and I´m not going to be making bank – but unlike Argentina I´d say because of demand for English and good economy I´m going to survive.
People are very friendly, not necessarily star-struck by foreigners like the Chinese.
Don’t know if there is a foreigner scene of grumpy Brits hanging out downing pints – I don’t have the camaraderie of working with other teachers as I travel to teach in companies solo. The people I teach are pretty rich, and although quite worldly still hold the view that I must be rich like them because I come from an English speaking country. Lucky they don´t know that I´m not - otherwise they might not like me so much. People lower down the cash-train are also friendly too. However, security is an issue wandering about here. More to come on that issue.
So my early thoughts lead me to believe that São Paulo might be better than Buenos Aires work wise. In BA every 20 something from the US and Europe is willing to work for peanuts because it is a KEWL place to be. And there is no lack of foreigners who speak Spanish well. Here foreigners who speak good Portuguese and by foreigners I mean British, American, German etc. may be in demand.
Then again not sure they are so open to hiring you without a visa for any serous job, I got an admin job in Argie without a visa can´t see it happening here (yet).
So If I knew some dude of about 23 with minimal savings...where would I send him to have a good time???...hell if a miracle happened and one of my 33 year old friends wanted to give away the career path and follow in my footsteps where would I send him? Well the jury is out on SP.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Getting Used to São Paulo 2: The Giant Worm Speaks, An Inanimate Piece of Motorway Has Its Say
São Paulo´s Minhocão is a piece of the urban jungle which seems to get a lot of attention. It has been the backdrop of films, music videos and photo-shoots. Minhocão, The Giant Worm, is a three km long stretch of elevated road close to the centre of the city. It is closed to traffic at night and on Sundays. When shut it is one of the few places in the city where it´s easy to jog. Many homeless people sleep below as they are sheltered from SP´s frequent rain. Walking along it you can see into apartments with windows adjacent, you also get a fairly good view of the SP, a rare chance to orientate yourself in this city of sparse landmarks.
Below it’s a bit gloomy, to say even positively apocalyptic at night wouldn´t be too much of an exaggeration. I go there by day and night at to take the subway, it’s not too bad, but the thing gets to you somehow.
I imagine it as somehow the concrete conscience of the city. Here´s what Minhocão has to say:
It´s hard to decide who to punish sometimes, who should feel my wrath, I can´t really be bothered to come up with some kind of justification for dishing out suffering - which will end up seeming completely arbitrary a couple of days later. Yea, today I feel like that.
At other times I´m convinced of my mission to punish like a strong Old Testament God - that´s a good role for me to play, suits me. Who am I anyhow? I´m an elevated stretch of motorway in the heart of the city. I´m not universally loved - but people know me, they pay attention to me. I´m not lost amongst a lot of other flash elevated-roads and bridges like I might be in another city. Business is booming here friends but show off skyscrapers etc. are not, I´m still one of the biggest chunks of grey around.
Getting back to what I was thinking about. How to alter the course of people´s lives? It’s too much to work out for my concrete brain. As I weigh up today´s options I coming up with a few mantras which won’t seem silly if I don’t think about them too much.
Here some info on my day to day contacts:
I keep two colonies below me full-time and one part-time. To my south end I have a group of homeless people who sleep opposite the subway stop. This group is pretty well organized they recycle rubbish and at worse drink some pretty horrible rocket fuel. I don’t mind sheltering this group from the rain or other terrors. Although I can’t do much about the police. Not that the police bother with this group.
The other group resides a few blocks further towards the centre of town, they are crackheads. They haven’t been with me long. The police operation which forced them out of their old stomping ground over by the train station drove them to me. Why do I keep them around? Because I want people to be sacred of me, know I harbour below me dope fiends hell bend on robbery. It keeps the rich away. The rich get stuck in the odd one of my traffic jams – that´s the extent of our contact.
The middle class apartments facing me? well I make life tough for them – traffic fumes, they can´t open their windows and show the world their 50 inch TVs till after 9:30 when I shut for the day. I also make for excellent access for taggers who paint the apartment buildings´ façades with ugly, meaningless, non-sloping letters.
Traffic is what I was born to bear it gives me power. But the people jogging on me, glancing down to the red-light district below without a fear in the world except that their heart rate is still too low, they kind of annoy me. I feel like they take me over. But occasionally on a Sunday when the Sun is out I feel the open space I provide to be something beautiful – I´m a kind of public servant – I get caught up in the Sun´s rays reflecting off skyscrapers, children happy on bikes, people drinking beer, sun bathing. I want to give up my malevolent ways, but the depression of Sunday night is inevitable, my benevolent mood is short-lived.
Below it’s a bit gloomy, to say even positively apocalyptic at night wouldn´t be too much of an exaggeration. I go there by day and night at to take the subway, it’s not too bad, but the thing gets to you somehow.
I imagine it as somehow the concrete conscience of the city. Here´s what Minhocão has to say:
It´s hard to decide who to punish sometimes, who should feel my wrath, I can´t really be bothered to come up with some kind of justification for dishing out suffering - which will end up seeming completely arbitrary a couple of days later. Yea, today I feel like that.
At other times I´m convinced of my mission to punish like a strong Old Testament God - that´s a good role for me to play, suits me. Who am I anyhow? I´m an elevated stretch of motorway in the heart of the city. I´m not universally loved - but people know me, they pay attention to me. I´m not lost amongst a lot of other flash elevated-roads and bridges like I might be in another city. Business is booming here friends but show off skyscrapers etc. are not, I´m still one of the biggest chunks of grey around.
Getting back to what I was thinking about. How to alter the course of people´s lives? It’s too much to work out for my concrete brain. As I weigh up today´s options I coming up with a few mantras which won’t seem silly if I don’t think about them too much.
Here some info on my day to day contacts:
I keep two colonies below me full-time and one part-time. To my south end I have a group of homeless people who sleep opposite the subway stop. This group is pretty well organized they recycle rubbish and at worse drink some pretty horrible rocket fuel. I don’t mind sheltering this group from the rain or other terrors. Although I can’t do much about the police. Not that the police bother with this group.
The other group resides a few blocks further towards the centre of town, they are crackheads. They haven’t been with me long. The police operation which forced them out of their old stomping ground over by the train station drove them to me. Why do I keep them around? Because I want people to be sacred of me, know I harbour below me dope fiends hell bend on robbery. It keeps the rich away. The rich get stuck in the odd one of my traffic jams – that´s the extent of our contact.
The middle class apartments facing me? well I make life tough for them – traffic fumes, they can´t open their windows and show the world their 50 inch TVs till after 9:30 when I shut for the day. I also make for excellent access for taggers who paint the apartment buildings´ façades with ugly, meaningless, non-sloping letters.
Traffic is what I was born to bear it gives me power. But the people jogging on me, glancing down to the red-light district below without a fear in the world except that their heart rate is still too low, they kind of annoy me. I feel like they take me over. But occasionally on a Sunday when the Sun is out I feel the open space I provide to be something beautiful – I´m a kind of public servant – I get caught up in the Sun´s rays reflecting off skyscrapers, children happy on bikes, people drinking beer, sun bathing. I want to give up my malevolent ways, but the depression of Sunday night is inevitable, my benevolent mood is short-lived.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
SaUdADes de Buenos Aires 2: Brief Sketches of Hostel Staff
And....
There was T, a 19 year old kid from Texas - who claimed he was there to learn Spanish and then study medicine, making use of the free education offered in Argentina. However, he only ever showed interest in smoking weed and mixing dub-step beats.
He made Marijuana butter in the kitchen and famously then fried up some ´green´eggs. This brought back for me childhood memories of Dr. Seus and ´Green eggs and ham, Sam I am´.
Later turned out that he was in fact on the run from the law in the States and was down there to avoid jail, he even showed us an online wanted poster with his very same mug on it.
He is doing ok now, has an Argie GF and working at that same American bar Ray worked at. Almost has enough saved up to buy DJ equipment.
BR: a Brazilian guy...finally an employee who could understand the Portuguese speaking guests! Very relaxed photography student - shaved once a month, always on the look out for a wounded antelope...err I mean a woman.
Mario: Argentine guy, who ended up being the only one there earning a salary. Had lived in Brazil for 11 years as kid, Uni drop out, Muso...good singer but played too much Kiss and ACDC on Grooveshark for my liking. Older than me so glad to see another guy in his 30s working at hostel. Always tired form his band´s gig plus cocaine the night before. Always late for work.
Marco: Grumpy Argentine guy who left to work in a hotel. Great painter who had various exhibitions round town. Good guy once you knew him, could be rude with guests. Famous for only ever having 2 pesos in his pocket.
Pedro: Chilean student who lived in hostel for 2 years. Ended up working as there was nobody else to to so. Spoke a very rapid, slangy Chilean Spanish. Not very gregarious but good kid.
Jim: Slightly bitter Englishman, student of the Spanish language. Elaborate plans to seduce South American girls.
Suzie: Italian girl, first female receptionist I saw there, in fact she started after I left. Had something of a pantomime character about her. Studied something which meant she was always making things out of play-dough.
Fer: Uruguayan Rocker - always coming across to BA to see gigs, stayed at the hostel and fell in love with it, got a job there. Rolinger hair-cut. Funny husky voice like some kind of whiskey-pickled Metalhead. Introduced us to a big metal bar/club very near the hostel, which I loved.
Mathew, Richard, Lucas and others: Somewhat cooker-cutter American youngsters who spent short amounts of time working in the hostel. Nice boys and generally got on better with the cleaning lady than the rest of us.
There was T, a 19 year old kid from Texas - who claimed he was there to learn Spanish and then study medicine, making use of the free education offered in Argentina. However, he only ever showed interest in smoking weed and mixing dub-step beats.
He made Marijuana butter in the kitchen and famously then fried up some ´green´eggs. This brought back for me childhood memories of Dr. Seus and ´Green eggs and ham, Sam I am´.
Later turned out that he was in fact on the run from the law in the States and was down there to avoid jail, he even showed us an online wanted poster with his very same mug on it.
He is doing ok now, has an Argie GF and working at that same American bar Ray worked at. Almost has enough saved up to buy DJ equipment.
BR: a Brazilian guy...finally an employee who could understand the Portuguese speaking guests! Very relaxed photography student - shaved once a month, always on the look out for a wounded antelope...err I mean a woman.
Mario: Argentine guy, who ended up being the only one there earning a salary. Had lived in Brazil for 11 years as kid, Uni drop out, Muso...good singer but played too much Kiss and ACDC on Grooveshark for my liking. Older than me so glad to see another guy in his 30s working at hostel. Always tired form his band´s gig plus cocaine the night before. Always late for work.
Marco: Grumpy Argentine guy who left to work in a hotel. Great painter who had various exhibitions round town. Good guy once you knew him, could be rude with guests. Famous for only ever having 2 pesos in his pocket.
Pedro: Chilean student who lived in hostel for 2 years. Ended up working as there was nobody else to to so. Spoke a very rapid, slangy Chilean Spanish. Not very gregarious but good kid.
Jim: Slightly bitter Englishman, student of the Spanish language. Elaborate plans to seduce South American girls.
Suzie: Italian girl, first female receptionist I saw there, in fact she started after I left. Had something of a pantomime character about her. Studied something which meant she was always making things out of play-dough.
Fer: Uruguayan Rocker - always coming across to BA to see gigs, stayed at the hostel and fell in love with it, got a job there. Rolinger hair-cut. Funny husky voice like some kind of whiskey-pickled Metalhead. Introduced us to a big metal bar/club very near the hostel, which I loved.
Mathew, Richard, Lucas and others: Somewhat cooker-cutter American youngsters who spent short amounts of time working in the hostel. Nice boys and generally got on better with the cleaning lady than the rest of us.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
saudades De bUenos AiRes 1: Working in a Hostel in Buenos Aires, Edad de Oro
Working at a hostel in Buenos Aires, despite being 32 years of age, will probably be when time fades the bad parts, something I look back on as one the best times of my life.
Now I can really appreciate it as I sit at Starbucks in Morumbi mall São Paulo - a Gringo English teacher (once again) surrounded by office workers from international companies. I´m waiting around several hours till my next class. It isn´t hanging round with my mates making jokes in Spanish and having a couple of cold ones - but it isn´t hell either.
With a break of 10 weeks in which rented a room, I worked and lived at a hostel in downtown Buenos Aires from July 2010 to August 2011.
The deal was two eight hour shifts (later three) for free accom in a room shared with two other guys working the same system. I shared the room with an American guy of Mexican descent. The other guy in the room was in Chile on holiday.
My first night staying at the hostel was pretty fun, I met some people and went out with them the following night. The day after, Saturday, I started on reception at 4pm. All went well until my second night on the job ~ a guy rang saying he was from Cordoba and wanted to make a booking. He ended up being a crook and broke into and stole stuff from lockers in the dorm he was staying. I was stressed after, not so much for the guests - their ipods and money, but more that I was going to lose my job - because this happened when I was working. Of course the owners didn´t get very worked up, this kind of thing had happened countless times before. The lockers in the hostel were all dented and twisted from being forced in the past.
After that things went pretty well for a while. However, the same thing happened again some months later - a girl checked in while I was on reception and this time stole a Russian girl´s passport. The Russian girl had to go back to Russia to replace it so she was pretty livid, as was her husband. At least I got the experience of going to make a statement at an Argentine police station. Felt guilty about it because I didn´t check the girl´s ID, but it wasn´t really the policy of the hostel to do so anyway.
On the hostel computer there was folder in outlook called the black list. It contained information about crimes committed at hostels all round town and BA has a lot of hostels. It made excellent reading.
The best story being some old Spanish (or Argentine pretending to be Spanish) guy who invited tourists for a cup of red wine. They all woke up without their wallets in Parque Lezama some time later. I actually think I ran into the guy one day down in Barracas...some things an old dude I bumped into asked me seemed to be similar to the approaches described in the story.
The thing that made working at the hostel great was not so much the guests but the others working there. And there was very high turnover.
Initially most of the guys who worked at the hostel were Argentine, but the owners eventually wanted to save money and hired all foreigners to work there in exchange for accommodation.
This is a partial list:
Ray: American guy former real estate agent from Portland, lost 1 million in 2008 crisis, worked in American bar by night, slept during the day. Very nice guy 31 years old, Mexican Descent, intermediate Spanish. Very into exercise as used to be very fat.
JP: Chilean doing a psych master´s, notorious for sleeping 14 hours a day. Great guy. Into a poetry group called poesia bajo la autopista. Shag anything that moved. 25 years old. Some Portu and some English.
Johnny Fresco: Socialist, 30 year old perpetual uni student. All was ate Milenesas a la Napolitana. One day came in with cut knuckles after a fight between socialist factions at the Universtiy of Buenos Aires. Rather rotund and jolly. Pretty good British style English.
Gladys: Peruvian cleaning lady. Thought she owned the place - could be your worst friend or best enemy, a bit sadistic. Would enjoy hiding cooking equipment if she felt receptionists had been too messy.
Now I can really appreciate it as I sit at Starbucks in Morumbi mall São Paulo - a Gringo English teacher (once again) surrounded by office workers from international companies. I´m waiting around several hours till my next class. It isn´t hanging round with my mates making jokes in Spanish and having a couple of cold ones - but it isn´t hell either.
With a break of 10 weeks in which rented a room, I worked and lived at a hostel in downtown Buenos Aires from July 2010 to August 2011.
The deal was two eight hour shifts (later three) for free accom in a room shared with two other guys working the same system. I shared the room with an American guy of Mexican descent. The other guy in the room was in Chile on holiday.
My first night staying at the hostel was pretty fun, I met some people and went out with them the following night. The day after, Saturday, I started on reception at 4pm. All went well until my second night on the job ~ a guy rang saying he was from Cordoba and wanted to make a booking. He ended up being a crook and broke into and stole stuff from lockers in the dorm he was staying. I was stressed after, not so much for the guests - their ipods and money, but more that I was going to lose my job - because this happened when I was working. Of course the owners didn´t get very worked up, this kind of thing had happened countless times before. The lockers in the hostel were all dented and twisted from being forced in the past.
After that things went pretty well for a while. However, the same thing happened again some months later - a girl checked in while I was on reception and this time stole a Russian girl´s passport. The Russian girl had to go back to Russia to replace it so she was pretty livid, as was her husband. At least I got the experience of going to make a statement at an Argentine police station. Felt guilty about it because I didn´t check the girl´s ID, but it wasn´t really the policy of the hostel to do so anyway.
On the hostel computer there was folder in outlook called the black list. It contained information about crimes committed at hostels all round town and BA has a lot of hostels. It made excellent reading.
The best story being some old Spanish (or Argentine pretending to be Spanish) guy who invited tourists for a cup of red wine. They all woke up without their wallets in Parque Lezama some time later. I actually think I ran into the guy one day down in Barracas...some things an old dude I bumped into asked me seemed to be similar to the approaches described in the story.
The thing that made working at the hostel great was not so much the guests but the others working there. And there was very high turnover.
Initially most of the guys who worked at the hostel were Argentine, but the owners eventually wanted to save money and hired all foreigners to work there in exchange for accommodation.
This is a partial list:
Ray: American guy former real estate agent from Portland, lost 1 million in 2008 crisis, worked in American bar by night, slept during the day. Very nice guy 31 years old, Mexican Descent, intermediate Spanish. Very into exercise as used to be very fat.
JP: Chilean doing a psych master´s, notorious for sleeping 14 hours a day. Great guy. Into a poetry group called poesia bajo la autopista. Shag anything that moved. 25 years old. Some Portu and some English.
Johnny Fresco: Socialist, 30 year old perpetual uni student. All was ate Milenesas a la Napolitana. One day came in with cut knuckles after a fight between socialist factions at the Universtiy of Buenos Aires. Rather rotund and jolly. Pretty good British style English.
Gladys: Peruvian cleaning lady. Thought she owned the place - could be your worst friend or best enemy, a bit sadistic. Would enjoy hiding cooking equipment if she felt receptionists had been too messy.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Getting Used to São Paulo 1: New Jack City, Culture Shock
I´ve made the move from Buenos Aires to São Paulo. The first few weeks didn´t go so well. However, after wandering the rather uneven pavements hopelessly feeling sorry for myself, I´ve patched things up with my girlfriend and got some work. Back to teaching, after really a long break from it...pretty much two years, working in admin and reception in BA - nothing to brag about career-wise but I quite liked those jobs.
Here are some random thoughts from the weeks I spent alone pondering whether to go back to Buenos Aires, some organic farm, stay in São Paulo or even go back to NZ...all the time self-medicating with beer (destroying the nice level of fitness I´d built up in Buenos Aires):
Put your headphones on and go to a corner bar
2 beers and listening still to YOUR music
I salute you as a fellow person who doesn't want to share
The Internet in my dreams, dreamt I was reading a webpage
JZ lost 20 Kgs by giving up caffeine
anxiety about not having a coffee
19 people a day become millionaires here
When you´re depressed you don't wash
Under the motorway they can´t
The elevated motorway called the giant worm
You can make the conclusion neutral
or see yourself under there
To see yourself is to block out others
To smoke crack is to block everything
Can those dirty skeletons be on to something?
Nothing at street level for the pedestrians
Great towers full of security
Irritated like hell that every building access swipe card works different
Crackheads circling the pipe and police on the way
A great story, got people talking
Just like Christianity to savages
The crackheads have the control
A secret genius which keeps the rich out of sight
Savages are better on the tele
I miss Wesley, good looking man
On the Subway the hour correlates to attractiveness
At 6am you are ugly, later on the office girls
Wesley was a great gangster
He sold crack but never fell to sucking on that glass dick
What a line! No wonder they wanted Wesley in prison
Here are some random thoughts from the weeks I spent alone pondering whether to go back to Buenos Aires, some organic farm, stay in São Paulo or even go back to NZ...all the time self-medicating with beer (destroying the nice level of fitness I´d built up in Buenos Aires):
Put your headphones on and go to a corner bar
2 beers and listening still to YOUR music
I salute you as a fellow person who doesn't want to share
The Internet in my dreams, dreamt I was reading a webpage
JZ lost 20 Kgs by giving up caffeine
anxiety about not having a coffee
19 people a day become millionaires here
When you´re depressed you don't wash
Under the motorway they can´t
The elevated motorway called the giant worm
You can make the conclusion neutral
or see yourself under there
To see yourself is to block out others
To smoke crack is to block everything
Can those dirty skeletons be on to something?
Nothing at street level for the pedestrians
Great towers full of security
Irritated like hell that every building access swipe card works different
Crackheads circling the pipe and police on the way
A great story, got people talking
Just like Christianity to savages
The crackheads have the control
A secret genius which keeps the rich out of sight
Savages are better on the tele
I miss Wesley, good looking man
On the Subway the hour correlates to attractiveness
At 6am you are ugly, later on the office girls
Wesley was a great gangster
He sold crack but never fell to sucking on that glass dick
What a line! No wonder they wanted Wesley in prison
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