Our Lady of Aparecida

Nossa Senhora da Conceição Aparecida. "Saint Patron of Brazil"

Todays blog has nothing to do with my meaningless life stuck somewhere just this side of the middle of nowhere in northern Brazil. Today, we are going to discuss South American culture. As fate would have it, tomorrow is a national holiday here. Our Lady of Aparecida Day is a Catholic holiday set aside for feasting in the name of Mary, Mother of Jesus. But unlike the images of Mary I have seen, this one is black which is why she is so popular with Afro-Brazilians.  October 12th is set aside each year to honour a miracle which, if you believe in miracles, happened in 1717.  The story goes (and let me ask in advance for my readers to forgive me for taking some creative license), that when Dom Pedro de Almeida, the Count of Assumar was passing through the little village of Aparecida, the people decided to hold a feast in his honour.  And so, three amigos named Domingos, João, and Filipe took a few cases of beer down to the river so they could fish and smoke a dubey, and when they hadn't caught anything after all the beer was gone, they prayed to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.  Just when they were ready to give up, young João pulled up his net and Woa!  Low and behold there was a headless black statue of Mary. They dug around for a while, found her head and after catching a whole boat load of fish, brought it back to town, where they made merry all through the evening.  They glued her head back on and named her Nossa Senhora da Aparecida Conceição (English: Our Lady of the Appeared Conception).
After dinner, miracles started happening for anyone who prayed to the statue and before you knew it, pilgrims were pilgrimaging and lining up to see her.  One slave named Joaquem prayed at her feet and was not only healed of his maladies but became free.  More followed and thinking they were on to a good thing, Dom, João, and Filipe built a roof over her head, started charging admission and bought more beer.  Over the years, a few Popes even took notice and sent their blessings.  Jump 300 years, and she now has a massive cathedral over her head.  The dark statue is in the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, near São Paulo. The Roman Catholic Church in Brazil celebrates her feast day every October 12. Since the basilica's consecration 1980 by Pope John Paul II, it has also been a public holiday in Brazil. The Basilica is the fourth most popular Marian shrine in the world and holds up to 45,000 worshippers!

The statue has also merited worldwide controversy in May 1978, when a Protestant intruder stole the clay statue from its shrine and broke it into pieces, and another in 1995, when a Protestant minister slandered and vandalized a copy of the statue in national Brazilian television.

Anyhow, tomorrow is a day of feasting in the honour of this statue and all of her miracles.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida

Our Lady of Aparecida in Tucuma

For dinner, I was able to get the keys to a pickup and go to the Casa Da Vovo for a smorg. It was delicious (except for the calf's testicles)!

Manioca

Wednesday October 10, 2012

Today's blog will concern itself with a lesson on one of the world’s most important starches.  Manioca root (also known as cassava), from which tapioca comes, grows like a weed here in the Amazon.  People attach small wagons to the back of their motorcycles, drive out into the jungle, dig it up and sell it in the markets.  I suppose it is grown on plantations too though I havent seen any.  The thing about manioca is that a single root contains enough hydrogen cyanide to kill a human being.  Ten times actually.  A dose of 40 mg of raw roots will kill a cow!  I’m glad I know that because I have made a habit out of buying the various fruits and vegetables that I don’t recognize and eating them... RAW! To prepare manioca, the locals boil them and grind them in large cast iron hand-cranked grinders available in the stores here.  Then they take the soggy "masa" and put it in a long woven tube they call a "tipiti" which is tied to a tree limb and when it is pulled and twisted, the water is squeezed out.  The resulting liquid is collected and dried, leaving a dry powder similar to corn starch. Pearl tapioca, like we have in the stores back home, is made by forcing the damp starchy masa through a sieve under high pressure and then drying the "pearls" in the sun. I happen to really like tapioca!
I had manioca today for lunch.  It tasted similar to potatoes but was fairly bland and colourless. Manioca, in this form is used all over the world as a major source of carbohydrates, none of which I need!
 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday October 8, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving! The only turkeys that showed up for dinner are the same ones I work with every day.  Dinner tonight did not consist of the traditional smells of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy.  Instead I had the usual chicken, rice and beans…  If this doesn’t give me cause to be thankful, nothing will! I think everyone should spend a few months somewhere other than their home country.  It will certainly give you a whole new appreciation for Heinz ketchup, Kraft peanut butter, clean bathrooms, running water, clean air, safety standards (seatbelt, helmet and drunk driving laws!), dependable electric power, Walmart and Denny’s, among many other things!

 

 

 

 

Elections Day in Brazil

Sunday October 7, 2012

I have mentioned a couple times in this blog that Election Day was coming.  Ever since I got here, an endless parade of vehicles marked with various political colours, especially the blue flags (#12) and the green flags (#20), many with loud speakers, scantilly clad women and drunk men, has been circling the town.  The young men have taken their mufflers off their motorcycles and fireworks have been going off constantly day and night for a month, the party getting progressively more frenzied and out of control.  I saw several collisions between vehicles including motorcycles and couldn't believe that people would ride on the hood and on the roof of trucks and cars. Crazy!  Here are some pics to share... Imagine honking horns, loud speakers, music, political speaches, fireworks and cheering!

Military Police looking on..

And now, even as I type this, the ceaseless thunder of fireworks carries on.  The election results are in and it seems that the green flags (#20) were successful in this area.  I just rode downtown on my bike to see, and there wasn't a green flag to be seen.  The #20's are doing victory laps around the town while drunk men and women stagger through the frenzied traffic.

The Wild West

Fransa and I

Friday October 5, 2012

 

Good day everybody!

Same old stuff. I was surprised after lunch today to open a “cool room” designated for our guys and find at least a dozen labourers sleeping in it with the lights on. They were laying head to foot in rows across the floor and on the benches. I watched their eyes open to look at me as rays of light from the open door crossed the room. They relaxed and closed their eyes just as fast and I left them to their siesta.  The word is that they are legislated to have an unpaid one-hour lunch every day and if they want to sleep, who are we stop them?  That was a first for me… The other that I’m not quite getting used to yet is the prayer meetings before they start work in the morning. I was walking by the other day and there were fifty of them all in a circle participating in a prayer.  As I walked by, one of them handed me a piece of paper with their daily prayer on it, on a company letterhead. 

Saturday October 6, 2012
I managed to pry the keys for the company pick-up out of Bob's hands last night, effectively giving myself a set of wheels to explore with.  I put my last $65 reals worth of diesel ($32 Can) in the tank and set off to explore the land to the west.  The city of Tucuma is about 12 km west of Ourilandia Do Norte and though it is similar in size and layout, it was nice to see some new scenery.  I returned again this morning and walked all of its streets, looking for a bank that would let me withdraw some cash (no luck) and bought myself a new shirt as well as a comb, and a chain and lock for my bike.  After I shopped, I drove about 50 miles west towards Vila Carapana but I had to get back in case someone needed the truck.  If I could, I would invent a camera that not only captures colours, but scents and sounds too. I wish!  Here are the best of my pics! Insert your own vivid scents and sounds!

Open air market in Tucuma

Whole, cracked or ground... how do you like your corn?  :)

Sugar Cane

Brazil Nuts - I'm eating a bag a day!

Fransa helped me find the perfect shirt I have been looking for. Thankyou!

My "Souvenir" camisa (shirt) at last! :)

Tucuma looking East

Drained Coconuts



Come Mister Tallyman, tally my bananans! - Bananas on the stem!

Heading west from Tucuma, Para, Northern Brazil

Yours Truly!

You don't know squat about potholes until you have driven here!

Two Years later...
I awaken from a deep sleep, a recurrent dream having just run through my head for the thousanth time... I am driving down a pot-holed highway deep in the amazon when I come onto cow patties covering the highway.  At first I am confused... why would the highway be covered in cow shit?  And then the scene unfolds in front of me.. a hundred, no a thousand, maybe two thousand head of cattle being driven down the highway by some gouchos. The cows part in front of me like I'm Moses walking into the Red Sea, except I have to roll up my window because of the flies.  It was at least a half a mile of nothing but cows and the experience is forever etched in my mind!

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe you can't roller skate through a buffalo herd, but you can drive topless!

 

The terminus of my exploratory voyage west... I might be back!

 

One last stop on my way home... Public Cemetary

 

 

 

Clearly, a zombie has escaped!

 

 

5:00 pm update;  Back to my room and uploaded my pics.  Tomorrow is election day here and we have been told to stay away from town because of all the shootings and stabbings.  I am going to ride my bike down there and see if it's true.  More pics to come!

 



My "Office"

Head down, ass up!

October 3, 2012

Not alot to report these days. I sleep in until 5:15 am, have a bowl of granola and a cup of coffee and then Bob and I drive the 20 minutes to the plant, get escorted to the furnace where we work about 50% in the office and 50% in the furnace. We have lunch in the cafeteria at 1 and I give my cross shift Fred a high five at 6:30 pm at which time we drive home and have dinner. On a good night I ride my bike to the other end of town and back, but sometimes I lay down for a snooze and that's about it! And that will be my routine for the next couple of months though we are going to start taking one day a week off. I think I will take Saturdays off and explore the area. I may even rent a car on Fridays so I can take a good long drive in one direction or another and come back Saturday night.  That does sound adventurous!

Lancing a "floating" nickel slab in the furnace.

One of our messes we still need to clean up, under which is a hundred tons of spilled nickel.

Here's the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel!