Hey there!This winter, we cannot yet complain (too much) in the Netherlands. The weather has been pretty mild (but no white Christmas like last year). But as I scroll down my facebook wall and see photos from friends and people I know in Brazil, it reminds me that they're actually in the middle of summer there at the moment. Ooh, just slightly jealous. Hence, my last post (back in 2011...) also reflected my enthusiasm about spending time in a warm country where all you need in your wardrobe are nice dresses (and some light jackets), really.. I often have that nostalgia when I look through my summery photos in Brazil. And as I have written before, I love the idea of jumping through the first seven waves of the new year for luck. (I did see photos of friends celebrating NYE in Rio on the beach this year, and they're all drenched - though not from the sea only, but the stormy rain!)
Brazil is now the 6th economy in the world. And just this week I read in the newspaper on the train to Amsterdam (my usual morning reading when I take the train... yes, every week) that many thousands of Portuguese (graduates) have immigrated to Brazil in the last year, and the year before. Here in Europe we're having this major crisis that politicians just won't stop reminding us about, and there in Brazil - Portugal's former colony, might I remind you - they have an economy that just keeps growing and booming. Hmm... who said learning Portuguese wouldn't come in handy?
In the film Rio, about which I've blogged a while back when I went to see it in the cinema, you can see the sharp contrast, however: between the rich parts of Rio and the adjacent favelas (although it's fairly subtle, it is an animation after all not a political thriller or whatnot, but I was glad they included that aspect in the movie). So, the economy is booming but I often wonder what that actually means for the people from different social and economic backgrounds and parts of the country - how far that booming economic growth can reach. I wish I could go back (soon) and find out more... sometimes I feel like I need to read up on it, but don't know where to start - how do I know which literature is good and how best to reflect upon it? Then I think, well traveling and living in Brazil for a while would probably do me more good in that sense (plus I can dance samba there)... :p
A little while ago, I read Laughter out of Place, an anthropological study carried out in one of the favelas in Rio by an American anthropologist (with Russian roots!), and published around 2002-2003; and in the introduction the author notes that as the book is going out to publishing, Lula has just been elected president, and reflects briefly on what this can mean for Brazil. The book concentrates on the stories of a number of women - domestic workers, largely - living in Rio's favelas, and it is extremely interesting. At the same time, I would also be interested in what it'd be like if it was published now, keeping in mind all the changes that have taken place in Brazil in the last decade. I wonder how much has changed for these women and how the growing economic prosperity in the country has actually affected them. Economic growth is good, but you also need to think about how big changes on the national level reflect on the lives of individuals from different layers of society. Oh I do love talking about all this don't I - (Brazilian) social inequality and development.. and ok, samba ;)
In Brazil, I saw what I would describe as both higher and lower ends of economic reality, or I should say, inequality. One day I was in this cool car driving to a nice beach in Buzios and taking photos with M'me Brigitte Bardot... (ok, a bronze statue of her which looks out on the port of Buzios... as she was the one who made Buzios such a hip place to go to)... and the next day, or day after that actually, I was sitting at the back of a motorcycle, wizzing up to the top of Rocinha, the largest favela in South America. From experiences like that I have different perspectives on Brazilian life... and I'm glad I got to experience them.
Some months ago, I went to a lecture at a Latin American institute in Amsterdam given by a Brazilian scholar on the post-modernity in Latin America... or something along those lines. He gave the example of Brasilia, the country's capital which was built a little more than half a century ago, and thereby connected the previously middle-of-nowhere area in the centre of Brazil with affluent cities such as Rio and Sao Paulo. As many of you might know, Brasilia features very unusual modern architecture, and I believe the city is even 'shaped' as a plane (if you look at it from above). It was meant to represent modernity and Brazil going forward, or so I know. The architect was Oscar Niemeyer, who is still busy with new architectural projects up to this day. I visited a famous design of his in Niteroi, an (almost) island connected to Rio de Janeiro, from the banks of which you can still see Christ the Redeemer standing on top of the mountain. Niteroi is no tiny place though, and feels like a city of its own - this is where I also bought my long summery dress, which were so popular in Brazil, and which I never get to wear here in Holland. Here at the top of my post you can see the famous Niemeyer museum in Niteroi, with a view of the city and the beach.. many of my photos in Brazil look idyllic like that.. and yet I know that it's not always so, of course; but where is it?
But, I always like to end on a positive note. Just a few years ago I could not have imagined traveling to Brazil and living there for five months. Who knows what kind of great adventures the future will bring? Hopefully I can still learn and write more about all this from Brazil, while sporting my long (or short) summer dress.
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