problems with encoding

hi,

i have made a parser that reads a xml ead file and saves some data to a
mysql database. 

i am using xml::simple to read the xml file and converting text with
unicode::string, like this: $a = utf8("olá açafrão!")->latin1

now, my problem is: sometimes it encodes wright (latin1, portuguese
characteres like ç or ã ... etc), sometimes dont!! theres no pattern...

can anyone help me?

thanks
tiago jacob