Making soap and getting in a lather.

I have various different ways of trying to make an income here, non of which have been particularly lucrative but I keep trying new ideas and live in hope. My latest is soap making.
On a previous trip back to London, while browsing through the second hand shop, I came across a book called Gourmet Soaps Made Easy by Malinda Coss. I knew I could get the glycerine base here needed for the simpler melt and pour method, and the books well written, clear instructions inspired me to give it a try, adapting the recipes to make use of the ingredients available to me. Since then I have found numerous sites on the internet offering more recipes and have a collection of lovely smelly soap as a result. The melt and pour method is simple and great fun, your imagination and creativity can run and run.
In order to melt the glycerine base, you need a double boiler, a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of water will do, or you can melt it in a microwave, just do it slowly and make sure the melting soap doesn’t get too hot, when completely melted leave to cool slightly before adding fragrances and other ingredients, then pour into a mould to set, that’s basically all there is to it, but before you start make sure that what ever you are using to melt the glycerine in really is heat proof; I didn’t, with a rather messy result.
I used an old glass jug to melt the soap base in, thinking it would be easier to pour it into the mould after. I thought it was strange that while the soap base was melting, the water in the pan had gone a little cloudy, but assumed it was soap that had been on the outside of the jug. I picked the jug up by the handle and as I lifted it clear of the water in the pan, the bottom dropped off it, 1½ Kilos of melted soap went everywhere. The base of the jug fell back into the pan and with it a fair amount of the liquid soap, but the rest went all over the cooker and all over the floor. At least I’d have a clean floor and cooker.
I trooped off to get the mop for the floor, leaving the cooker to soak in its soap mask, that’s when I made my second mistake. The soap was setting on the floor and a sensible person would have taken it off the tiles with a knife, not me, I wet the mop and set to producing a lovely lather, that’s when I made my third mistake, thinking that as the floor needed a wash anyway and as I had all this soap I might as well use it, I added more water and spread it about, result the floor became a soapy ice rink. It took me about an hour, skating about in the foam with frequent changes of water in the bucket, to finally get the floor free of soap, by golly it was clean. Then I had to start on the cooker, as the soap had set I was able to peel large pieces off, taking the underlying grease with it, a little water (yes I’d learnt my lesson) and a sponge took off the rest leaving a positively gleaming cooker. I left the rest of the soap/water mix in the saucepan while I got on with dinner (a bit later than usual) and by the next day it had set into a soft soap. When the jug had broken the base came off in one piece but I re melted the soap and then strained it through a fine sieve just to be sure there were no tiny slivers of glass, I then used the glycerine/water mix to make a soft soap for washing the dogs, adding citronella, T tree and peppermint oils to keep ticks and fleas at bay, it smelt fantastic and now so to do the dogs, for a change.

More on Neu’s Kidneys

Neu and I have been going backwards and forwards to Fortaleza to see a Nephrologist, a specialist in kidney problems. Our first visit to Doctor M. cost us R$180.00, this gave us the right to come back and see him within one month without having to pay again. Doctor M. is extremely kind and very good at explaining what is happening to Neu and what we need to do in order to stabilise Neu’s condition. Although Neu has lost 60 % of his kidney function, Dr M. assures us that, provided Neu’s blood pressure comes down and he responds to the treatment and therefore doesn’t lose any more function, Neu can live a normal life with the remaining 40%. Neu has to follow a no salt, low protein diet (something that is extremely hard for him, having lived on a very salty high protein diet all his life) and take a cocktail of drugs to lower his blood pressure and cholesterol. At some point he will need a kidney biopsy to find out exactly what is going on with his kidneys. As Neu has no private health insurance, we have had to pay for all his doctors, the multitude of tests and the scan, its all been fairly costly, just getting to Fortaleza is a financial strain, and as Doctor M. banned Neu from fishing until his blood pressure is under control, the money side of things is a real issue for us. Neu had his second (free) visit and the Doctor said he would have to come back the following week when he hoped to be able to tell us how much the biopsy would cost, he must have seen the colour draining from my face, because he said from now on he wouldn’t be charging us for treating Neu, my relief was so enormous I had a hard job not crying. Neu asked if the doctor liked fish and, to show his gratitude for the free treatment, on the next visit he took a huge Cavalo (one of THE BEST fish in Neu’s opinion) on ice in a polystyrene box, Dr M. looked very pleased, we think it the least we could do and consider ourselves very, very lucky to have met such a lovely man.

Neu’s not as healthy as he thought.

For a very long time I have thought that something wasn’t right with Neu’s health, but he point blank refused to go to a doctor, just as he refused to cut down on his intake of salt or eat a more varied diet (one that included vegetables). Last month I was finally able to get Neu to take a blood test (well actually my mum, for whom Neu has total respect, ordered him to have a blood test), the results of which have led us on a trail that has ended with a kidney specialist who tells us that Neu, aged 32, has chronic kidney failure due to long standing, undiagnosed high blood pressure (the first doctor who tested Neu’s blood pressure was alarmed to find it registering 200/150, it should be 120/80).

Neu has lost 60% of his kidney function, will need tablets for the rest of his life to control his blood pressure, and needs to have a low protein, no salt diet. If his blood pressure can be controlled and he responds well to the diet etc, he should be able to lead a normal life with the remaining 40% of kidney function, we have to hope he doesn’t lose any more.

It’s not going to be easy for Neu, he has traditionally eaten a high protein, high salt diet (as do most Brazilians from the North East), mostly fish, chicken and red meat with rice and beans, spaghetti and farinha, he does eat fruit but vegetables put in a rare appearance (in Neu’s case he only ever eats potatoes, carrots and onions when they have been cooked for hours in a stew, that’s it, no other vegetables at all).

Although Neu has never been fat, it was his weight loss and loss of appetite that convinced me he was ill, a few weeks back he only weighed 71 kilos. The stress of the last few weeks, combined with the medication for his blood pressure and the low protein diet has brought his weight down to 68 kilos and I think he weighed even less than that for a time. Neu also has incredibly high cholesterol levels, the doctor has ordered more detailed tests for this and to see how his kidneys are coping, if his cholesterol levels are confirmed then Neu’s dietary needs will be difficult to meet, we don’t have a great deal of choice food wise in the village, or the nearest towns and have to go into Fortaleza for anything remotely special.

All of this could have been avoided if Neu had checked his blood pressure regularly, as the doctor said hypertension is a silent killer, many people don’t know they have it, their heart growing with the pressure and getting stronger and stronger, until it can’t maintain itself and collapses resulting in a heart attack, or as in Neu’s case, the kidneys give out.

Finding all this out has been very stressful, but then some things happen to brighten our days, like this lovely visitor to the garden. This tiny hummingbird (about the size of my little finger) is a regular visitor to our garden.

A less welcome visitor (though I don’t mind them as long as they aren’t trying to bite me) was this snake that I found in the kitchen. It was a small one, probably only a baby. I think its markings are so pretty. I put it out in the pineapple plant to save it from our hunter cats.

As I came out of our house to come to the Internet, a huge grasshopper leapt off the wall of the house and into my hair. Now that’s something I hate, things, especially live things, in my hair (probably a deep seated reaction to my brother who, when young decided to see what would happen if he threw a lighted match in my hair, the first I knew about it was when he began smacking me about the back of the head to stop my hair shrivelling before his eyes and my mum from killing him).

When I was in secondary school we had to study locusts as part of a biology lesson, I remember feeling so revolted at the idea of having to hold a locust about the size of my little finger, this mornings grasshopper was the length of my palm, and I’m not exaggerating (thankfully I don’t find them revolting anymore, though I still would rather not have one in my hair). It leapt back on to the wall again but unfortunately by the time I had gone back in the house to get the camera, it had hopped off else where.

I fell down a hole the other day, I wasn’t drunk or anything close, just out with the dogs on the dunes. I saw this hole that a conscientious house builder had dug right in the middle of the well trodden path through the vetch like plants that grow on the dunes, “that’s a nice place to dig a hole” I thought,”just placed for some poor sod to fall in” , I then fell in it. Well  it wasn’t quite as stupid as that, dog Benjy  did have something to do with it, well that’s my excuse anyway. I have to put Benjy on the lead as we approach the houses, he is likely to have a go at anyone he views as dangerous, that covers just about everyone, he walks fine to a point and then pulls like mad, as though he’s desperate to get back to the house. He pulled really hard, just as I was at the side of the hole, I thought I was far enough to the side but the sand gave way and I rather slowly descended into the very deep hole, leaving me with one leg out of the hole, my knee level with my ear, in this position it was a bit difficult to move, let alone get out, I had to use Benjy as a rescue dog, getting him to pull me out of the hole, which being the hero that he is, he happily obliged, or could it be that  he was just pulling as usual, unaware that I was up to my chest in a pit. The most embarrassing thing for me was seeing our neighbourhood alcoholic standing outside her house, staring at me. I was now laughing to myself so she probably thought I was in the same state as she usually is, or maybe she was so pickled she couldn’t tell what she was seeing, who knows.

Luan has been going in for some interesting artwork lately, unfortunately I didn’t get photos. First he decided to paint Benjy, very red, all over the poor dogs side. Benjy being so loving of any attention that even being painted and then sprayed with a virtually a whole can of WD40 (light oil for car and bike) hasn’t put him off Luan, I can well imagine he would have just sat there, looking slightly pained, he certainly didn’t make any fuss or I would have heard. Neu came home a while later and momentarily thought Benjy was bleeding. Then one of our house guests came rushing in looking upset and said “Oh my god!!!!! have you seen Benjy, he’s been attacked!!!!!!!” poor girl, she was really upset for him (it was getting towards dark and so less obvious that it was paint, I’m afraid that when Neu had told me earlier, I was too busy to go and look, I assumed it was just a dab of paint, it was in fact the whole of Benjy’s side). I thought I’d better go and wash him then, it took some time to get it all out.

After that Luan decided to paint some of the plants blue, and very attractive they look too. Then Luan got hold of one of Leila’s lipsticks, she said it was one she didn’t like very much, it was VERY pink, it was just as well she didn’t like it because he used it to paint Baloo’s nose, our chocolate Labrador’s usually chocolate nose was now a shocking pearlised pink, amazing that he too just sat there.

Benjy received a bit more attention from Luan, an eye patch, Baloo looked quite jealous as Benjy sat there, apparently quite proud of his gift.

Maribondo = a general name for a type of wasp.

Maribondos come in a a variety of sizes and colours but they all share the basic same elongated hour glass body shape and they all have a nasty sting, though some are worse than others. There flight is delicate, apparently hanging in the air, effortless, while they check things out. Their fluttering wings and long fine legs put me in mind of fairies, as fairies in dark tales often are, beautiful but very dangerous and best avoided.

maribondos like to make their homes in trees particularly, but also in the roof beams of houses, in fact anywhere out of reach or hidden, or both. Their homes look like they are made with papermaché, usually a dull grey, their honeycomb structure starts as a single cell, hanging from a delicate but firm paper anchor. The maribondos build up the house until it reaches, well the largest I have seen was slightly bigger than a tennis ball, funnily enough the smallest maribondos, make the bigger houses. These maribondos are tiny black wisps, that at only 2cm or so long, and with the most nipped in waist appear almost to be a head and tail with nothing in the middle. These tiny dots of pain, (as I now think of them, having suffered their displeasure) are so small that it’s easy to mistake their darting flight for a trick of the light, until that is, one of them lets you know in no uncertain terms that this trick of the light has a painful sting in its tail.
Last year I was picking the fruit on our guava tree, I was reaching up to pluck a delicious looking fruit, when zap, zap, zap on my side and intense pain that made me cry out, the fruit falling from my grasp as I ran backwards out of the enveloping branches of the tree. Once out of the muddle of branches, I caught sight of a large maribondo , in shades of brown, I swear it was looking for me. Without daring to enter the shade of the tree, I tried to locate its house, but the pain in my side was incredible, like burning needles and a large red welt was forming around my side, nearly as wide as my hand span. I gave myself some homoeopathic remedies and an ice pack, before calling on my father in law to help locating the house (Neu was out fishing). As is my mother in law’s way, she laughed when I said I had been stung, but she was shocked when she saw how I had reacted to the stings. My father in law came and had a good search, but nothing, we gave up thinking I must have just disturbed a lone wasp. The next day Luan was going over to visit his grandparents, the path takes him under the tree, I warned him to watch out for wasps, but he came and went several times that day without any problem. Suddenly he was screaming and running back to me waving his hands in front of his face, my poor little mite had been stung on his face several times, and was swelling up before me. Thankfully I had discovered that vinegar works well to take the pain out of the sting, and Luan was very brave about the whole thing. Hearing Luan screaming, my father in law came round on a search again, this time he was determined to find the offenders, and spent some time poking about in the branches until he did indeed find it. Having dealt with it, by knocking the house out of the tree with a stick, he told me that it was the most vicious type of maribondo , the one that definitely gives the worst sting, and didn’t Luan and I know it.
A few days ago, I was pruning some low branches out of a tree, always keeping one eye out for maribondos of course. I thought I saw one, so stepped back and waited a bit, nothing, safe to go back under the branches again. Then there she was coming at me a whirl of wings and legs, I swear I could hear her malevolence as she spiralled in to sting me three times on my face before I, like a lumbering elephant, could back out of her way. Grabbing the ice out of the freezer, the vinegar out of the fridge (we have to keep it in there or the ants get in it) and the homoeopathic remedies from the drawer, I dosed my self up as I could feel my cheek beginning to swell up, my eye not wanting to move properly and oh the pain. Four days later, thankfully the pain and swelling has gone, but my fear of malevolent fairies has increased.

We have a host of tiny frogs all over the house, literally in every room. They are up to an inch long, but many are half that or smaller, a speckled green/gold colour with huge black eyes. They ping about from surface to surface, and occasionally along the floor. I have stepped on the odd one, a bit of a cold, slimy shock (I didn’t squash them, they somehow got out from under my foot) and I have discovered that they have a toxic skin. I woke up with a burning sensation on the palm of my hand, then all the skin went red and flaked off. A little while later it happened again. Then Baloo tried eating a frog, he was in so much distress, (don’t suppose the frog felt great either) rubbing his mouth, drinking vast amounts of water, eating ravenously and trying to be sick, (he wont do that again, well actually he probably will, not very smart is Baloo). Later I trod on a frog and got that burning under my toes, putting two and two together, I think all the burning sensations were from the frogs, I often wake up with one near my pillow, (maybe he is a handsome prince but I’m not going to kiss him now). They also have the habit of hiding in the hinge side of the door and windows, not clever as they occasionally get squashed in there, yuk.

They like to hang about the kitchen sink, occasionally with disastrous consequences for them. I have accidentally cooked one when it pinged into the strainer, just as I was tipping the boiling water from the pasta into it. I tried to rescue the poor thing, tipping it into the cold water sitting in the other sink, but it was stretched out as in mid ping, and obviously wasn’t going to be pinging in this life any more. We now have to rinse every cup and bowl before use, cereal with frog or coffee with added ping is not my thing.

In the bathroom, we currently have seven. Frequently getting a cold wet slap on the back or bum while showering or on the loo. Even though I know they will do it, I always jump, though not as spectacularly as the frogs. For something so tiny, they can jump incredible distances, and not only sideways but straight up, I’ve seen one jump nearly a metre, amazing.

A few years back we had enormous toads all over the house, too big to jump (or too lazy), they lumbered about like old men, looking very grumpy and fed up with their lot. The only time we saw them move at speed was when they were after a bug, boy could they gobble up a beetle. My mother in law was horrified that I tolerated the toads in the house, but rather them than bugs. As mysteriously as they arrived, the giant toads disappeared, they have never come back, except for one who occasionally hovers about by the back door. I wonder if the little frogs will disappear too.

A lot of work for R$2:00

Neu is fishing over 13 hours a day at the moment, not that he is catching anything worth that amount of effort.

The Pirate boats are out ion force, non of the men from here are earning anything. Last week Neu made R$2.00 and he still owes for the bait, one of his friends was comparatively wealthy with a whole R$5.00 for a full weeks work. To put that in perspective, a bag of rice costs R$2.50.

Neu is bringing all his traps back to shore this week, many others have already done so. This could put them at risk of losing their closed season payment. It is meant to give them an income for the 6 months they are not allowed to fish for lobster, but more and more of the men (and their families) are dependant on this payment to clear the debts they have run up through the fishing season. They were told that in order to be eligible for this payment, they must fish for lobster exclusively and for the entire fishing season, but how can they when it is costing the boat owner money to put to sea? Neu now owes more than he did at the start of the season (when he only owed for his traps).

They need to be catching in the region of 30 kilos of lobster a week, at least during the first months of the season, but this year catches have been as low as 1 – 6 kilos per week. they cannot continue like this.
Neu is leaving the house at between 2.30 and 3 every morning. He goes out to check his traps, and then move them to another location if, as is usual he knows the lobster have been taken by a diver. He knows they have been stolen because more often than not, the divers cut the mesh on the traps, requiring a repair job at sea. Having re located the traps, they head for the beach. At the moment the weather is very unpredictable, we are coming into the season of high winds, so the men have all reduced their sail size. Sometimes we are battered by high winds and tremendous storms, which vanish as fast  as they arrive, leaving the air and sea as still as still can be. The men are one moment, drenched in rain and tossed by gales and then becalmed.  To be capsized and, or have the sails ripped is common at this time of year, on the other hand, with no wind and a small sail it can take them hours to get back.

Having reached the beach around one in the afternoon, Neu goes back out to try for fish or prawns for us, sometimes he is lucky, sometimes not. I don’t know how long he can keep this up for, it is very hard on everyone. I asked him what he thought of the fact that we are now an MPA (Marine Protected Reserve). He isn’t overly optimistic that it will make any difference, as he said IBAMA come, the pirates go away, IBAMA go, the pirates come back. There really needs to be a concentrated effort on behalf of the government to solve the problem of illegal fishers.

Dare I say it?

I don’t want to push my luck, but some of the things that have been going on the blink, have decided to fix them selves or been fixed.

I took the sewing machine to bits and, having fiddled with this and that and given it a dose of oil,  put it back together again and hey presto. Phew what a relief. Actually I think the salt wind had just got to it, corrodes everything here, incredibly destructive, but I’m very glad to have my machine back, it gets a lot of use.

My mobile, while not working well, does at least allow me to speak to people, albeit through a shower of static noise.

Leila’s mobile decided to charge and her mp3 player, while not working properly yet, is showing signs of life.

I received an email from a friend to say she was also experiencing techno revolt, computers doing their own thing and phones not working, it’s nice to know it isn’t just me.

I was using the Internet in the school the other day, the young woman who works there, switched off the computer she had been using and left. Five minutes later the only other person there, switched off the computer he was using, which is a bit of a slow old donkey (there are only 2 working computers, out of 10 in the school at the moment) and left. A few minutes later a young man arrived, turned on the 1st computer, nothing, he fiddled with this and that but definitely nothing, I helpfully said it had been working, to which he replied with feeling, that it wasn’t now. I said that someone had been using the 2nd computer, he went to try that and got a screen in English, which he couldn’t understand, asking him if he wanted to do this, or that Y/N. He asked my help, I was rather reluctant to touch anything as I still thought I might be glowing or something. I told him to press this, then that, this resulted in miles and miles af start  up  speak, in English flowing up the screen. He waited, and waited, and waited. Finally the machine stopped and asked for a password, I couldn’t help him there, so he went of to find someone who could. Coming back with the school director, they both looked at the first computer and found the wire had come off the switch and needed soldering back, the director gave the young man the password for the older computer and went away again. He turned to me and said “At last, I only want to send a quick email”. We nodded and smiled at each other in a gesture of solidarity in the face of technology and he typed away, only to turn to me a few minutes later t ask if I knew why the mouse wasn’t working! Not good for him, but at least, like I said it’s nice to know it’s not just me. Sun spots perhaps?

It’s hilarious when everything breaks down at the same time!

I am beginning to wonder if I have somehow become irradiated, or magnetised or some such thing, so many technological and mechanical things are giving up on me.

As I said in the last post, my laptop gave up the ghost. I managed to get another (to add to my mounting debt), and not unreasonably seeing as I am in Brazil, the computer programme is in Portuguese. As an added complication the programme is Linux, which I am not familiar with. Now I am not a complete idiot when it comes to computers, on the other hand, my knowledge of computer speak isn’t that great, my knowledge of computer speak in Portuguese is even less, trying to find my way round the Linux programme in Portuguese is a laugh a minute, oh yes I am really laughing!

OK I hear you say, what kind of idiot gets a Linux programme (when everybody I have spoken to says they take a bit of getting used to) in Portuguese? Well in my defence all I can say is: it was what was on the computer, I have been told repeatedly that I will have less problems with viruses, I like the idea that the programmes are free, it should help my Portuguese and I like a challenge. How’s that for starters?

The Portuguese Linux part of things is my choice and is just a matter of time (I hope). Were the problem comes in, is with the printer. A new printer that they said is ever so easy to install, just plug and print, OH yes, well not for me. I have followed the instructions to the letter, nothing, I have changed cables, unplugged it, plugged it in, turned it off, turned it on, un-installed, re installed, been on the web site, down loaded a new version of the install programme, tried it on a different computer, shouted at it, still nothing. The computer tells me that it is “unable to hold a two way conversation with the printer” ooh err, feels a bit like a theme for my life at the moment.

My mobile phone has decided that it will not let me speak to anyone, I can hear them but they cant hear me.

Neu came back from fishing the other morning, telling me the sail on his boat was ripped, yes I’ll fix it I said. He came back with the sail, I sat down at my machine which refused to lengthen it’s stitches, refused to do a zig zag stitch and kept breaking the thread. ARGH!!!! I had to sew the sail by hand, a long job.

And the problem seems to be catching

The toaster has a mind of it’s own, only one side works and then it sometimes refuses to stop, incinerating anything in it.

The Television is slowly giving up, sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t.

Neu’s phone has decided to stop ringing, only vibrates now.

Meryn’s playstation portable broke (oh I am so sad about that, oh no I’m not! though I didn’t touch it I promise) as did his mp3

Leila’s mp3 broke, and now her phone is refusing to charge.

The house phone, which we had to wait 3 years to get installed, often tells the person ringing, that the phone is engaged, when it isnt. When we try to ring our own number from within the village we often get told that “This number does not exist”, “This number does not receive calls” or “Please check this number and try again”. When the phone does agree to ring, the call tone sounds suspiciously like the effort is way too much for it, e er ee errrrrrhhhhhh e er ee errrrrrrrhhhhhh, and then very often when the phone is answered, the person in the house hears someone they don’t know wanting to speak to someone else no one knows, or just never ending silence. I mainly got the phone as I was informed we would be able to have the internet, what they failed to tell me was that it’s only available by dial up which is slow and prohibitively expensive.

Last month, while I was talking to Thom, the phone started to produce lots of clicks and finally we got cut off, we often get cut off, or get a crossed line, or fade away to nothing, and usually he rings back (it is way cheaper for people to ring me than for me to ring anyone who lives outside of the village, even Aracati, the town where we go to do our shopping is considered long distance). I was sitting in the kitchen waiting for him to call back, when I heard the box (that is something to do with our phone) on the post outside our house, making more of the same clicks, this time I could see the cable swinging backwards and forwards too. I called Neu and he went to investigate. It was dark but as he walked up the lane from our house, he saw three guys huddled together and the cable for our phone was hanging down beside them. When the guys saw him coming, they ran off but Neu found a strip of wire with clips attached to our line. We informed the company who sent someone out the next day to repair the line and put it back up the post. The engineer told Neu that the phone company would require us to pay for any calls the guys had made on our line, as that was undoubtedly what they were doing.
Now I still don’t know if that is true or not because when I went to Aracati to ask advice, I was told I would have to ask in Beberibe (the town in the opposite direction) because we live in that municipality, but a neighbour of ours had a bill for over R$400. of calls which he hadn’t made, and he paid it. When our bill came through, I was extremely relieved to find that there were no calls on it that we hadn’t made, I consider we were very lucky. I also consider it time to get rid of the phone.

And it isn’t only mechanical things going wrong either.

Neu’s small boat got attacked by termites, hopefully a soak in the sea got rid of them, and one of the bigger boats got washed off the beach in a storm, luckily they found it further down the beach.

All my tomato seedlings that were doing so well, have had something eat them or rot them, I don’t know what or why but they are all flat on their backs with hardly any stem left.

And it’s still raining, ok not with the frequency that it was, but the other morning Neu left to go fishing at 2, I had gone back to sleep but woke with all the electricity off and a howling gale blowing. In the dark I couldn’t see the time and just prayed that Neu hadn’t left for sea before the storm hit, hope he was still on the beach. The storm blew for several hours and was one of the most violent storms I can remember here. Thankfully Neu hadn’t set out, he stayed at the beach hoping the storm would pass but finally came home at 5.30 when the rain eased off. Several boats were badly damaged by the force of the wind, even though they were still on the beach, boats turned over, had their sails ripped to shreds, masts snapped and so on. With our run of luck I was amazed that non of our boats had suffered any damage, but I was more than anything else, incredibly relieved to see Neu.

Neu said we should all go to church, he hopes a blessing will cure us of our run of bad luck, that’s not my way but I wonder sometimes, I really do.

Been away for a bit

After staggering around like a drunk in a field for a bit, my good old laptop finally keeled over, it now is quietly thinking to itself as to whether or not to let me back in. I will be back on track soon, but there may well be less than usual from me for a little.

The lobster season started here on the 1st of June, its no surprise to say that its been pretty much a disaster. The illegal compressor boats have been out in force, and as they pay no regard to the closed season rule, they have been heavily fishing for some time. In the 1st week, Neu caught 1 kilo of lobster, this week it was slightly better at 4 kilos. Some boats did better, some worse, no one caught enough to cover their costs, Neu has a long way to go before he will actually start to make a profit, and as the catch rate usually declines as the season goes on, it is hard to see how any of the men will get to a profitable state.

Prainha Do Canto Verde is now an official Marine Protected Area (MPA) and an Extractive Reserve (RESEX). President Lula signed the decree on the 5th of June in Bahia creating two reserves, the other being in Cassurubá.

Brazil signed up at the Biodiversity conference in  Johannesburg, to the commitment to convert 10% of its coastline to MPA’s, it is well below this level at the moment with only 0.5% of its coastal waters with any protection, recent governmental budget cuts are likely to further hamper the creation of more MPA’s.

Having won the fight to protect their land from speculators, the people of Canto Verde are hoping that the Brazilian government will sort out the problems of the illegal fishers, and help the fishermen to begin to sustainably fish their waters. The fact that the land is now secure is meaningless if the sea remains the domain of pirates, who’s only interest is short term profit, regardless of the consequences. There is very little in the way of alternative employment and the NE region, where the lobster industry is concentrated, is the poorest in the country. It is estimated that up to 150,000 people depend directly or indirectly on the lobster industry. For the 10,000 artisanal fishermen for whom lobster fishing is a way of life, the urgent need to resolve the problems of illegal fishing is a matter of survival.

Things are moving very fast here at the moment, René of Instituto Terramar said today that it is hard to keep up. It is hard to feel optimistic when we have seen time and time again a promising start, collapse and come to nothing, or leave things in a worse state than they were before, but maybe now with things being in undeniable crisis, legislation coming into force in the USA and the EU as well as in Brazil, will finally push the issue and things may get resolved. I hope so,  I no longer wish to see the look in Neu’s eyes when he comes home from over 13 hours of fishing,  he smiles gently at me but his eyes tell he has caught little or nothing, they cannot hide how crushed he feels.