Brazil

Brazil is now a day and half behind us. We're losing about one hour a night with time changes as we cross the Atlantic, and I noticed today that attendance wasn't as good in Global Studies as it has been up to now. We're hoping students get used to this routine since we'll be losing hours all the way around the world.

In Brazil we stayed in the Salvador area for the entire five-day port stay instead of taking any big trips. None of us had been to Brazil before, so we thought we could learn a lot about the country be spending some quality time in one city. Salvador is the third largest city in Brazil, with about 3.5 million people. This area was settled by Portuguese colonists earlier than other parts of the country and had its first "boom" in the 1600s and 1700s when sugar grown on plantations in the region made local Portuguese settlers incredibly rich even as they left behind a large disadvantaged population of Afro-Brazilians descended from the slaves brought over to work in the sugarcane fields.

Much of this history is well-preserved, in part because some of the areas that were settled in this era went into a long period of decline and stagnation. Also because UNESCO recognized two of the oldest city centers as world heritage sites and has allowed the local areas to begin restoring them. You can see some of the beautiful baroque, Portuguese colonial-style buildings in these two photos of the Pelourinho area of Salvador. One shows the first church built in this area for the Afro-Brazilians. The other shows Isabelle standing in the square with colorful buildings going up the hill behind us.

The Pelourinho area is on the "high city" just above the port area in which we docked. Although beautiful, it remains a relativley poor area, with favelas near by, and so has attracted some pick-pockets and other criminal elements that made you feel you had to be on the watch at all times. One student had her camera stolen in the first hours we were in port, and others were bothered by drug dealers. But it also was incredibly lively. On Tuesday night during our stay, students went up to the area in large numbers to dance with the drummers who parade through the streets.

Salvador has many other poor areas, since so much of it has been settled by people coming in from the countryside and building up the favelas. These have grown up on incredibly steep hillsides that were previously open areas. The people came in and occupied them. If they could hold onto the land for three years, they had enough security of title to begin building brick homes, by hand on small plots. As their families grow, they add a second floor, a third, and sometimes more. All by hand in a very gradual (and haphazard!) construction process. The result is a cityscape that is unlike anything I've seen in other countries. Dense multistory homes of haphard construction covering hillsides for as far as the eye can see. Gabrielle and the girls both joined field trips that took them into the favelas to see schools and social programs. I've posted a few of their photos here. I didn't make these since I was serving as "duty dean" and needed to be ready to respond to any problems that came up on this day.

After a couple days in these areas, our family (plus Susan Timko) decided to spend Wednesday in one of Salvador's fanciest shopping malls: Shopping Salvador. No pictures from that day, but I can tell you it was as nice as anything you'd find in the States: boutiques, the latest electronics, and a food court with food much better than you find in Virginia! Our visit there not only allowed the girls to purchase a few wearable souvenirs (Brazilian bathing suits), but also gave us a sense of the huge social class gap between the poorer areas we'd seen earlier and this wealthier section of the city.

We spent the final day on a faculty-directed practica visit to the old "country town" of Cachoeira. This town had once been one of the largest and wealthiest in Brazil since it was at the center of the sugar-growing area just inland from Salvador, but it seemed to have been frozen in time from that era. It is still a small town, and most of its buildings are from that era. Among the places we visited was the Sisterhood of the Boa Morte, where we met a group of women from this organization which long ago helped runaway slave women and kept alive African traditions such as the Candomble religious practices brought over from Africa. In Paul Groner's Global Studies class, we had learned about this religion and how Brazilians kept the practices alive under the cover of Catholic churches (each Candomble "saint" had a parallel Catholic saint so that authorities wouldn't realize they were worshipping in this banned tradition. So it was interesting to meet some practitioners.

On Thursday, we left Brazil with everyone arriving on time and only a few passport issues. Two had to be replaced after being lost, but they were ready in time. One was left at a hotel and is being FedExed to Walvis Bay so that it will be there when we arrive. Our stay in Namibia is for five days, followed by just two at sea before we get to South Africa. We'll see if I can get a post up for Namibia during the rapid turnaround...