Yesterday (oops took me a few weeks to publish this since writing it!)
I became the proud owner of a fresh stamp in my passport giving me
another 3 months as a ‘tourist’ in this crazy town.  That means I must
have been here 3 months already!!  Time really does fly when you’re
having fun and adventures trying to make a new place where you know
just one person and can’t speak the language, your home!

It’s been a roller coaster of a ride.  Ever since I first arrived at
the ashram my life has been sped up, on fast forward, with learnings
coming thick and fast.  Some feel like a gentle tap on the shoulder
and a point in the right direction, some of them feel like the branch
of a tree unexpectedly slapping me in the face and some feel like I’m
standing on top of a train going full speed towards a
tunnel…..arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

These are the hardest lessons for us to learn, because more often than
not, they reveal something ugly about ourselves, that we didn’t want
to see or have to deal with… and that’s why they’re the best lessons
of all and why we look back and are thankful for the whole experience,
because we grow and become better people as a result.

What a place to be learning in?!  Sao Paulo, Brazil, South America!!!
Where the people have samba in their souls, passion running through
their veins, fun in their hearts and a smile on their faces.  (Yes,
that is a sweeping generalisation, not everybody smiles, not everybody
likes samba, but I can only draw distinctions that define this culture
differently to that of England, India and Thailand for example.)

This too is a land of extremes… only in India before have I seen such
disparity between the rich and the poor.  Yes Britain is a richer
country and whilst we still have our own poverty problems, we
certainly don’t have richness to this degree or standard of living.
There isn’t such a gap between being comfortable and poor and even
between comfortable and rich.  In England you would have to be
seriously rich to have a live in maid, more than one house or a
driver.  Yet here that is the middle middle class and up, let’s not
even go there with the upper class……!

I don’t know what the official poverty line here is, but with an
average working class porter, bus driver, shop assistant etc earning
about 800 reias (c. £285) to support his entire family on… I would
imagine a huge percentage of Brazil’s population to be scraping
through life.  This mentality permeates the entire country in the
mentality of Brazilians and ‘The Brazilian Way’ of doing something.
This scratching out of a living as people, as a nation and as a
continent manifests itself in the way you are always looking for an
opportunity and the loopholes to problem solve the impossible and find
a way of making something possible.

There’s a lot to learn in this attitude, for one, whilst Brazilians
like to do something in the easiest way possible, they are not lazy,
they just like to take the time to enjoy themselves whilst they’re
doing it, otherwise, what’s the point, they don’t see the point in
over complicating something!  The other is to make the most of what
you’ve got and to always believe that you can do more and be more.  In
fact come of their most used verbs are Jogar – to play and Poder – to
can/may.

An illustration of this might be the Brazilian buffet… here there are
basically 3 ways to eat out.
1)      Al la carte, you choose something of a standard menu individually
and pay for it
2)      By Kilo, choose your items from the selection on the buffet and pay
per kilo
3)      The Buffet, load your plate up as many times as you want, with as
much as you want and pay one price….

This is no bad ingredients, poor quality, badly cooked, greasy, MSG
laden, all you can eat for £5 China town affair; this is like a
breakfast buffet at a really fancy hotel… everywhere!  And, whilst the
national might be associated with rice and beans, they’re as much into
their meat as the traditional meat and two veg Brit and quite
surprisingly there are scores of vegetarian and vegan buffets where
the food far exceeds even the quality of the nicest vegetarian
restaurants in London.

A Brazilian approach to the buffet, is to go with a very empty
stomach, try a little bit of everything on the first round, have
another plateful of your favourites on the second round, choose one or
two favourites on the third round and then finish it up by doing the
same with the desserts.  Money isn’t so easy to come by in Brazil,
however you’ve got it, you’ve been a bit creative in acquiring it so
you’re equally creative in spending it and you want to get your
money’s worth!

Apply this attitude to life.  It’s not so easy to come by what we have
but everything possible is on offer to us!  Try everything!  Keep
going back for more!  Have more of what makes us happy!

This might be a bit of a shock to the Brits, (I’m sorry it’s true
we’re a nation who place individual worth on how much we’ve endured/
suffered) but life doesn’t have to be difficult, hard or miserable.
Change your attitude towards it and you change your experience of it.
If life throws you a curve ball, you say, ok, not what I expected but
I’m going to make the most of it and get on with it.  I’m not going to
use this to exact sympathy and (twisted) respect from people.  I’m not
going to define myself with this suffering.

It’s my tastes that doesn’t like this particular dish and straight
after I finish it (because we do not waste food/experiences, oh no!) I
can go back to the buffet of life and choose something else and try
again.  Once I’ve finished eating this dish I don’t like, I don’t keep
going on about how horrible it is, my mouth forgets the taste and all
I remember for the future is that I don’t like that particular flavour
and next time I avoid it.  I don’t keep eating it to make myself
suffer or so I can complain about something.  I eat something
delicious so I can say how wonderful it is!

There’s always something new to try on the buffet of life and you
always get to choose. If one day there’s nothing you particularly like
you still fill your plate and you remain grateful for being given food
to fill your stomach or experiences to fill your heart and help you
understand your mind.

Life is a buffet, go crazy once in a while, try everything and most of
all, enjoy it!