Portuguese builders/builders in Portugal...

The subject of today's post is builders. Well let me expand on that somewhat...by builders I mean all those engaged in manual work somehow and as the title of the post suggests a great many of those working here happen not to be Portuguese but more likely Brazilian, Eastern European or African.

Take my own example...below S and my lovely apartment, in one of the most beautiful (and surprisingly peaceful) areas of Lisbon there have been works taking place. The apartment black we live in is not new, it's one of those concrete jobbies put up sometime probably in the 1940s, but it does have its own charm - from the old creaking lifts with their manual doors to the old creaking porter of a similar vintage. Recently the apartment below us was bought and the new owners wished to refurbish it. That may be fair enough - I don't know but chances are that the previous owner was probably close to 100 and it hadn't had a lick of paint since the place was built - that is until whoever was in charge of the hiring managed to get hold of two guys whose only tools appear to be a hammer and a drill. Added to this is the fact that they apparently hate each other because they can't go more than half an hour without screaming at each other.

This combination of a lack of tools (and perhaps knowledge) with a complete inability to work well with each other means that the project of refurbishing the flat has been going on now for over 3 months. That is 3 months of banging, drilling and shouting from 8:30 to 19:30, Monday to Saturday (yes, Saturday!!!). I cannot begin to wonder what kind of palace would await me after 3 months of work (an estimated 1600 man hours for those who can imagine it) baring in mind my own experience of such works was when my old house had a new roof, central heating installed, double glazing put in and a damp proof course, all within 2 weeks. Yet it was only yesterday that they got delivery of the kitchen!

Anyway, after months of having our weekend peace disturbed enough was enough and last week S went to have a word with them. As a man I promised her any backup she needed, from the safety of our flat. To the builders' credit it was at least 30 minutes before they started up again but thanks to my love's training in the law she whisked out the right directive, gave a quick call to the local constabulary and shut that noisy operation down, all without me having to lift a finger! (For those of you in Lisbon faced with noisy neighbours I will post the law later and you can quote this at them, after an initial warning they face a €2500 fine.)

So after our successful confrontation with Portuguese builders it got me thinking. Coming from the UK I'm quite accustomed to health and safety procedures, things like safety barriers, warning signs etc... things that haven't quite made it to Portugal yet. When seeing building work in action here there are a number of points that it's hard to miss:

• Typically if there's a hole to be dug this will take 5-8 people - 1 to dig and 4-7 to stand outside the hole and advise how it is to be dug.
• Barriers/signs to protect workmen and the public are expensive and often get in the way (of people giving advice to the one man working) so why bother - of course the public won't come too close to your pickaxing/pneumatic drilling/welding.
• If you're digging a hole in the pavement don't worry, people are probably too busy avoiding the others to mind yours.
• Of course scaffolding is supposed to look 60 years old!
• Remember the one and only Portuguese Health and Safety rule - no smoking on the job (that's reserved for the 5 people outside the hole telling you how to dig).

The sight that really summed up the attitude to health and safety occurred last week on holiday. We were driving through the town and were on our way back to the house when the street was blocked by a pick up truck. (I will have to write another post about Portuguese parking, perhaps as no.2 in my series on driving.) Onto the back of this pickup truck was being loaded a fridge/freezer. As you can imagine this appliance was around 190cm tall and therefore the most sensible thing in the world would be for two people to put it on its side. But no! Of course not! Instead we watched with a mixture of amusement and horror as onto the back clambered a typical Portugeezer (all 165cm of him) and he held onto this thing as the truck trundled off over the hills at 40kmh...

...all I could think of was at least he's not smoking.

The things you see when you haven't got your gun.