The gas man cometh...

Spending many of my days wandering the streets of Rio De Janeiro, it can be expected that I get the desire to eat something, most days, which I’ve never seen before. It was during one of these walks that I purchased Cashew fruit.

Cashew fruit provides a very simple example of how wasteful we Westerners are. It is my understanding that most cashew fruit is thrown away or burnt as it is too difficult to transport and sell so we only sell the seed (about 1/30 of the total mass of food). The fruit itself is fist sized and mostly red with a great big fat nut on top (bigger than what we see by about three times due to the large shell). So how does it taste?

It’s really hard to say…and I’ve eaten two. The fruit is quite juicy but somehow manages to dry your mouth out. The only thing I know which is similar in this way, is deodorant….I know, I know most of you aren’t stupid enough to put your finger in your mouth after spraying your pits, but personally I’m up to about 37 incidents so am familiar with the situation, so I guess you’ll just have to take my word that they are similar.

Anywho after bringing all the cashew fruit and numerous other fruits home, I then had to get my housemate to tell me what I had purchased and then how to eat it. As I had, unsurprisingly, bought all the fruit that required some form of preparation, most was left to rot in the fruit bowl. My housemate (Adriana) found my stupidity to be quite hilarious and also watched in awe as I quartered oranges (footie game style) and proceeded to eat. “What you doing, this not how you eat and orange!”.
Eventually we turned in and Adriana wandered off to her room shaking her head, wondering how someone so large could no so little.

In wasn’t until about 4 am that my unfamiliarity with this place would hit again. Waking in the middle of the night, I smelt what I thought was gas. So wandered over to our hot water system (a small box covered in burn marks and needs to be lit every time you have a shower),situated just outside the kitchen. I smelled the air again and could smell something that might be gas, slightly concerned I spent half and hour putting my nose into every part of the box to try and find the source. No positive identification was made. Not wanting to wake my house mate at 4am, in my sleepy haze I picked up a box of matches and considered lighting one to identify the leek, after a short time considering this option I decided that I had read enough “Darwin Awards” to know that this was what is called a “shit idea” and quickly put the matches down.

So with my nose still picking up some odour but unable to identify the source I decided to listen to the gas unit. Pressing my ear against it I could hear a hissing sound. Unfortunately the unit was connected directly to the water pipes and the sound was not definitively gas hissing.

By 4:45am and I was getting a little jumpy. I turned the mains gas off (still a hissing sound was present) and I closed the door. I also went to my room closed the door and piled clothes against the crack at the base to stop the gas seeping in. Having watched Myth Busters blow up a using gas, I figured this would probably suffice. I opened my window up to maximum (despite knowing this would make me the number 1 mosquito target in Rio) and turned the air conditioner fan on full. Considering the other possibility, asphyxiation, I slept with my head at the foot of the bed so that the outside air blew directly into my mouth. I thought I would be kinda ok.

Waking late the next morning my house mate was in…lets say a “not so good mood”. She was not angry but disappointed here gas system was broken and she couldn’t have a shower.

“Ummmm…”

Before my explanation could spill forth, there was a knock at the door and the gas man arrived.
“Bugger!”. Knowing the cost of trades men I could see this might cost me.
The gas man quickly got to the job at hand and determined the failure was due to the fact that the mains were switched off (surprising!). It was at this stage the stupid gringo got the chance to explain the situation to his housemate.

Adriana became mildly concerned and asked him to check for gas leaks just in case there was a problem. As you may be aware, in Australia this is done with one of the gas probey thinga majigs. A safe and reliable way to find a leak. Not the case in Rio. They light a match and waggle it around seeing if things go boom (Genius! I could have done that last night). Despite the odd smell and the presence of a large white man hightailing it out of the kitchen at triple speed nothing went boom and the whole situation was put down to me “being an idiot”.

…oh and as an aside I did find the source of the gassy smell. It seems that cashew fruit along with drying your mouth out are quite smelly….I expect them to deport me in 8 days!!!