Murder of the Imperial Palm [by Marina]

So, we had a favourite little Imperial Palm tree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roystonea_oleracea) growing outside of our fence.

We were watering it, and trying to protect from cows and donkeys, hoping that many years later it will grow into a gorgeous palm tree and will delight anybody who passes by our street with it's beauty.

Then yesterday some evil person reached through the little fence around the palm, torn off the top (the growing part) of it and left it laying on the sand. The 2 year old palm died from the hands of the crazy person :-(((

According to the results of our forensic analysis, the palm tree wasn't damadged by an animal, and yes by a human being. I have one suspect, but have no proof in order to accuse the murderer of the palm.

We got very sad but then decided to plant a new Imperial Palm in our garden.
Looking for a seedling now ... :-)
 

Daily life [by Marina]

Days are flying by quickly and we keep on being busy with arranging things at our new place.
Today Anna made a heroic effort to clean the storage room and separate useful things from the old crap.
Some objects that she found are really puzzling.
For example, anybody can explain what exactly is this rusty thing that looks like 2 matching metal plates with a few hard (resin?) balls inside? 


Anyhow, we found out that we have twice more space then we thought!
Meanwhile, I continued my never ending battle on the bureaucratic field...7 hours straight of calling, e-mailing... Talking about bureaucracy is boring, so here are instead some more curious details of our daily life.

A few days ago a couple of baby-ducks got separated from the flock and Dady spotted them out lost quacking in front of our gate.
A real village girl, she quickly pushed them inside of our backyard. We waited for half a day, and as the owner of the ducks never showed up, we decided that Dady can take them to her mother, who breeds ducks for sale.


The mango season is starting and inland is full of fruit laying on the ground.
My Russian-Soviet instinct told me to run and collect but before I could figure out where&how, a local village man showed up at our gate selling wild mangoes R$5 (USD 2.7 / Euro 2 / NOK 15.7 / RUB 16.9) per 25 fruits.

Wild magoes (collected from the ground especially) are not so delicious/easy to eat fresh, so we are going to make some jam out of them I guess (tomorrow!).


And the last one for today: tropical climate makes you drink a lot of water through the day. And I hate the tastlessness of plane still water, it makes me wanna puke! So, I enjoy mine always with some slice of lemon. Dady noticed this habbit of mine and came up with a spooky warning: according the the expert opinion of the Northeastern  people regular consumption of lemon decreases female firtility factor :-O Or, in Dady's simple words: "Stop drinking water with lemon or you won't have kids". Go figure...

Daily life [by Anna]

Today we have no guests, but we have a long list of things to do. The tasks range from clarifying some outstanding issues with Booking.com (pretty bad experience working with them so far!!!) to screwing our new hangers to the walls in all the rooms.

Meanwhile, here are some curious things from our everyday life.

We make our own yogurt. We got the recipe from our Serbian friends: heat up two liters of milk, mix in a small yogurt and leave covered for around five hours. In our temperatures it is enough to turn the milk into a yogurt, which can be then used twice for the next batch.

One thing I omitted on my "I miss" list was my grocery vendor on Storgata in Oslo. Those huge bundles of coriander for 12 NOK (4,7BRL/1,5EUR/80RUB)! Here is what we can get of coriander. As you can probably see, only about 30% of it are actually usable for cooking!

Today Dady called me to show me lizard eggs. I had no idea lizards lay eggs and I had no idea what they look like. We got to see these, as Dady was watering today and scared the lizard off, so she didn't have time to dig a whole in the sand for them. Here's what they look like. Dady made a little "house" for them in the sand so that the eggs get a chance. Let's see what happens.  

What's up with the AC? (cultural differences) [by Marina]

I guess, it's time for us to start writing about some cultural differences that we, as hotel owners, notice in the behaviour of our customers.
Here are some curious observations about usage of airconditioning.

At first one might think that travelers from the countries with colder climate (like those from Nothern Europe) may use more airconditioning here in the tropics of Jeri, and those coming from the neighbour regions, for instance, the North-East of Brazil, used to the Brazilian heat, will not need aircon at all, right? Wrong!

Tourists from countries like Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden... rarely or never use the AC here.

At the same time any hotel owner in Jeri will tell you that the first thing that a Brazilian guest would do after walking into his hotel room is turning on the AC (and TV). Less chance of that if he/she is coming from the South of Brazil, where the climate is cold, similar to European. If he/she is coming from Fortaleza or Natal, the AC will be on 24x7 even if the nights are fresh like now.


I guess, it happens because in Brazil because of the hot climate the ACs are very common and used on daily basis, so, eventually people end up turining them on by simple habbit, without thinking if they really need it or not.

Ribbit! [by Marina]

I can't help but getting impressed by our toads!
As mentioned by Anna before, they come into the house at night for cat food.
There's one which likes taking a bath after it's meal.
First it eats, then it fits himself into cat's water bowl (cut from a plastic bottle) and sits there for hours.
Human presence doesn't frighten it (or, shall I say "him") at all.
Last night Anna poured some more water on top of him, and it looks like he enjoyed it ;-)

Then we changed the location of the cat food from the kitchen into the garden to keep our kitchen cleaner.
The toad actually discovered the new eating spot before the cat did *lol*

Got baptised by local parasites! [by Marina]

Alright! Finally! I got baptised by my first tropical parasite! :-)
Been sitting at night in a restaurant, a street dog peacefully sleeping under the table...

I "smartly" rest my feet on top of my favourite animal for a while... 1 day later, my toe starts hurting - what's that?
"Bicho de pé"! (Chigoe flea).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chigoe_flea

Thanks God, our cold-hearted maid Dady removed it from my toe quickly by using a simple needle!

Now I know: I am not afraid of the local parasites! :-)

Curiosities... about the salty sand [by Marina]

Do you know that living in a desert, surrounded by enormous dunes, we still have to buy sand?

First when I saw a truck loaded with sand heading to Jeri, I couldn’t believe my eyes!

Anna and I made all kinds of jokes about this being like “selling snow in winter in Norway”, however a small thought stayed in the back of my mind: if somebody brings it, somebody buys it…

Later the same night I found out that our sand from the dunes is not fit for construction purposes (i.e. mixing with cement) because it is salty. It will crash and crumble, or something like that. So, one needs to buy sand from the river bed if he wants to mix a quality cement for construction.