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ALMOST DAILY VLOG
DAY 15 - WHAT NO ONE TELLS YOU BEFORE YOU START
construction financing Building team This text is part of Tetéia’s Building Journal — documenting the process of building a house on the Maraú Peninsula, Bahia. After understanding the limits — and what was required to get the project approved — as we shared in the previous texts, what emerges is not clarity, but a new layer of questions. Much of what defines building with a Caixa construction loan in Brazil is only understood in practice — as became clear when certain condit
Nancy Silva
May 212 min read
DAY 14 - BORAMARAÚ
Public image and coexistence in the territory BoraMaraú panel, measuring 3.33 × 3.40 m BoraMaraú wheatpaste panel was created in December 2025, following an invitation from Eduardo, a seasonal resident of Algodões and political activist. Like us, he came from Brazil’s Southeast and maintains an ongoing attention to local community issues, especially regarding forms of coexistence, permanence, and participation in the territory. The work was installed at Casa Taba Maraú and em
Rodris
May 13 min read
DAY 13 - ALGODÕES EM AZUL
Portraits of a neighborhood and the time of blue Algodões em Azul at Bar da Toinha Algodões em Azul, held in December 2025 at Bar da Toinha, began in a simple way, almost without the intention of becoming an exhibition. Our temporary home — where we are living while the Tetéia residency is being built — is next to the bar, in a small village where almost everyone belongs to the same family — siblings, cousins, uncles. We are outsiders, but that condition gradually dissolves i
Rodris
May 14 min read
DAY 12 - WHAT WAS REQUIRED FOR APPROVAL
construction financing and its bureaucracies Tetéia under construction This post is part of Tetéia’s Building Journal — documenting the process of building a house on Maraú Peninsula, Bahia. If the first question was how far we could go, the next step was understanding what was required for the construction to actually begin. As we shared earlier — when the house started from what was financially possible. This became even clearer when we realized that, in some cases, reality
Nancy Silva
Apr 292 min read
DAY 11 - Building with a Caixa construction loan in Brazil
when the project meets reality Construction loan This text is part of Tetéia’s Building Journal — an ongoing series documenting the process of building a house on the Maraú Peninsula, in Bahia, Brazil, between design, territory, and everything that escapes planning. There’s a common idea about building a house: that it starts with the design. In our case, not exactly. It started with a project that fit within our financial reality. Tetéia is being built with a combination of
Nancy Silva
Apr 222 min read
Day 10 — Packing for Maraú
What to Bring, What to Leave — and What You May Need to Let Go Of Havaianas before and after Maraú. To make this more practical, I’ll start with a small personal embarrassment. The first time I came to the Maraú Peninsula, I packed like someone from São Paulo. Which means: I brought a light cardigan. In São Paulo, you always bring a “just in case” layer. It doesn’t matter the season. There’s a collective belief that cold air might appear out of nowhere. Well, the air here cor
Nancy Silva
Apr 125 min read
Day 9 — BETWEEN THE MANGROVES AND THE FOREST: TANQUE ISLAND, CAMAMU BAY
If you’re searching for what to do in the Maraú Peninsula beyond the beaches, you may need to enter the mangroves. If you search “what to do in Maraú Peninsula, Brazil,” you’ll mostly find beaches, natural tide pools, and speedboat tours across Camamu Bay. They exist. They are beautiful. They photograph well. But there is another Maraú. I only began to understand the Maraú Peninsula after entering the mangroves. And not on a speedboat. Is Tanque Island worth visiting? Tanque
Nancy Silva
Mar 233 min read
Day 8 — THE TERRITORY CAME BEFORE THE HOUSE
And that changes how you arrive — and how you build a new life in the Maraú Peninsula, Bahia. The Maraú Peninsula, on the southern coast of Bahia, Brazil, is increasingly sought after. If you search “how is it to live in Maraú” or “Maraú Peninsula Brazil,” you’ll mostly find images of long beaches and unreal turquoise water. They exist. But they do not explain the territory. Maraú is more than a beach destination. It is an estuarine region, an environmental preservation area,
Nancy Silva
Mar 234 min read
DAY 7 — A HOUSE THAT FITS THE TERRITORY
Regina understood what worked in Maraú — materials, suppliers, construction methods suited to humid coastal Bahia. From the beginning, the house needed to fit the land. Zoning required 60% permeable ground. Beyond regulation, we wanted to preserve native vegetation. The region is part of an estuary ecosystem — fragile and pressured. Building a sustainable coastal house was not aesthetic. It was technical. Drainage, airflow, soil behavior, rainfall patterns. Within budget and
Nancy Silva
Mar 161 min read
DAY 6 - AND THEN, WATER WON
In my delusions, I wanted a tropical modernist house in Maraú. Flat roof, sharp lines, glass everywhere, perfectly calculated brise-soleils. That clean Pinterest aesthetic — tropical modernist house goals . It felt entirely possible. Until the climate joined the conversation. Here it rains vertically, horizontally, and — at times — metaphysically. Yes, we could have done it. But it wasn’t worth the emotional cost of trusting a heroic gutter system. Against water, we have very
Nancy Silva
Feb 282 min read
Day 5 - A TEMPORARY LIFE IN 36 SQUARE METERS
Cats, chaos and raul: "Try Again"- as Brazilian rock legend Raul Seixas would say. Neni Nenê and Fruki Mozão We were living in 36 square meters. Two cats. One room serving as office, studio, storage, and bedroom. In the effort to stay optimistic, living across from the local bar turned out to be strategic. We built relationships with people who had lived there long before the region became even remotely “trendy.” Those connections brought construction advice and, more importa
Nancy Silva
Feb 281 min read
DAY 4 - BUILDERS, BR-030, AND THE REALITIES OF A CONSTRUCTION SITE IN RURAL BRAZIL
Finding the contractor became a saga. Photo: Reproduced from Carlos Alberto Maier Building in Algodões required someone who understood sandy soil, high humidity, protected vegetation, lateral rain, and the reality of transporting materials via BR-030 — a challenging road that defines logistics in the region. That was how we met Alcinei. He showed us previous projects. When building outside major cities, references matter more than Pinterest. His work was solid and practical.
Nancy Silva
Feb 281 min read
DAY 3 — A PROJECT THAT DIDN’T FIT THE BUDGET
Square meters and reality. We arrived in Maraú with a dream, a full architectural project, and a rented car. In our optimistic timeline, we would move in within a year. The original design had two floors and over 300 square meters. That was when we understood the real cost of building in coastal Bahia. Sandy soil. High groundwater. Difficult logistics. Limited transport. Costs doubling quickly. And as we began living there, it became clear the house was too aggressive for the
Nancy Silva
Feb 281 min read
DAY 2: SLAB DAY IS BARBECUE DAY
The house program, capitalism, and the beginning of the soap opera. Photo: @unakiki Slab Day Is Barbecue Day. The day you pour concrete, you grill meat and start drinking early. Cultural fact. The behind-the-scenes celebration belongs to Instagram and TikTok — because only Brazilians understand the emotional magnitude of pouring a slab. Here, the story was different: how Tetéia’s architectural concept came to life. Architects call everything a house must contain its “program.
Nancy Silva
Feb 192 min read
DAY 1 — DREAMING A HOUSE IN MARAÚ
Bacurau Is Here and Now. Tetéia Is Coming. It was all blueprints and wild vegetation. In this photo, from left to right: Rodris, Regina, and Alcinei. This is the first entry of the Almost Daily — and as the name suggests, it won’t be daily. Nor will it be linear. A lot had already happened. Building a house in the middle of the woods, near the sea, in a village of just over 600 people, is quite an undertaking — especially if you are coming from São Paulo, where human time and
Nancy Silva
Feb 191 min read
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