Not sure how many actual Halloween parties there are in Belém but Tia Bola has you covered in case you need a costume, to buy or rent. Just click the link and choose Mens, Womens or Infants costumes. When I figure out how much they cost to rent or buy, I’ll add that information to this post. Stay tuned! In the meantime, there are pictures example of each on the site (although the little girls as Rebeldes…just plain weird).
Tia Bola
Tv: Castelo Branco nº 1803 entre R. dos Pariquis e Caripunas Bairro do Guáma- Fones:3249-0371, 3249-1496, 3032-9102.
If you need random elements of a costume you are putting together yourself, the Comercio district has plenty to choose from.
These days I read more in Portugese than I do in English, actually I finish the books faster when they are in Portuguese, which to some is strange. I think they think I mean that I understand Portuguese better than English, which isn’t true. It’s just that I am more motivated to have another book in Portuguese under my belt than one in English.
One tense has perplexed me for a while now and I never bothered to check it out until now even though after time, I started to get the gist of what it meant. The tense is called the “pretérito mais-que-perfeito” (past perfect/pluperfect) and I’ll explain it to you below using someone else’s response to a question on the matter here (click to learn a little more).
Take any verb and add an “a” on the end although not an accented “a” and what do you get? You get confused, or at least I did…until now. The tense in question for this post refers to a past event that occurs before another action in the past. Here are some examples.
“Ele nunca tinha comido salmão até visitar aquele restaurante = Ele nunca comera salmão até visitar aquele restaurante (He had never eaten salmon before he visited that restaurant)
Disse-me que não tinha pensado no assunto antes de chegar = Disse-me que não pensara no assunto antes de chegar (He told me he hadn’t thought about the issue before he arrived)
The tense is seldom used in the spoken language, although it appears in literature and in situations when someone is recounting a past event (e.g. historical documentaries).”
Seeing as how I’ve written about Italians in Brazil and Germans in Brazil, I figured I should check out other nationalities. Sure, there are many other groups which have a much higher number of immigrants than Greece but I was in the neighborhood, so to speak, and decided to drop by to see what was available.
Ever start something and a few hours later, you can’t remember how you started it? That’s what just happened to me and Greece. In checking my internet history, I see that I just all of a sudden checked Wikipedia’s page on the Greek language. Naturally, I dug a little deeper and then came to wonder about the Greek presence in Brazil. Ok, so I could just rewrite this whole paragraph or simply tell you that I remembered why. I’m watching a movie with a French title (L’Éternité et un jour), although the film is Greek, and thought to myself that Greek is a beautiful language. Ok, back to the post.
Apparently, there are about 50,000 Greco-Brasileiros living in Brazil, mostly in the Southeastern region, especially in Rio or São Paulo (the latter having 20,000). Additionally, in São Paulo there’s a Greek school where people can learn Greek language, dance and mythology, only I don’t know the name of it. A good place to start to learn more is the site Gregos No Brasil (in PT) which has slides, videos, interviews, etc on the Greeks in Brazil.
My friend from Rio sent me a clip of a Brazilian band I had never heard of (something that is hard to do, as I listen to *a lot* of music), and I’m ever so thankful she did!
Quinteto Armorial was an important group from Recife which formed in 1970. They played what can be called Brazilian instrumental music and during their 10 year career, recorded four LPs. The group was brought together by writer Ariano Suassuna in order to have a band that would play erudite chamber music with popular roots and that is exactly what they did when they fused traditional music from the Northeast with classical. The result is fantastic.
I’d like to make a list of free wi-fi spots in Belém but I fear the good spots are locally-known and as I’m no local, I can only offer a few tips as well as a page from the government’s site. The gov’t of Pará has a page called NavegaPará and one of the purposes of it is to share information on a project they are working on to bring wi-fi to many communities that currently lack it.
Their list of wi-fi locations pertains to schools (including universities like UFPA) and gov’t-related offices only at this point, but I’m sure they have considered placing wi-fi in public plazas, etc. As for non-governmental sources, I’ll start a list below…
- Val de Cans Airport
- Habib’s (Rod BR, 316)
- McDonalds (Av. Governador Magalhães Barata, 44)
- Fran’s Café (Comandante Bras de Aguiar, 304)
- Shopping Pátio Belém (Tv. Padre Eutíquio, 1078)
I’m sure there are more hotspots but I’ll have to return to this post when I get more information. If you know of any, feel free to leave a comment with the location!
Three-hundred thousand people took to the streets of the Nazaré neighborhood last week to take part in the Círio for little ones, formally known as the Círio das Crianças. Looks like a nice event but I must admit, a bit silly as kids often can’t tell their head from their foot so they shouldn’t be expected to understand the meaning of such a religious procession. I would probably opt for a change in the title to make it more true to what it really is, Círio for families.
“California-based Sambazon, a supplier of the Brazilian Amazon açaí juice, has now been certified as Fair Trade in Brazil. The certification by Ecocert, a global control and certification organization, guarantees that Sambazon ensures fair labor conditions and wages for workers, promotes environmentally sustainable farming methods and reinvests money into the community.” – Brazzil (more here)
I’ve gone through *a lot* of açaí drinks in the US in my quest to find something, anything that resembles the good purple stuff I wolf down when in Brazil and I’m almost always disappointed. However, Sambazon, makes a worthy case and while I do enjoy their curvy little bottled drinks (even if they are just a tiny bit too expensive), their açaí sorbet is great! It’s best to wait until it melts a little bit before diggin in so you can pretend its a little more like a smoothie and while I still haven’t quite figured out what “Rio Style” means, I’m sure it probably helps with getting newcomers to give it a try. Good job, Sambazon!
The Rubber boom (or Ciclo da borracha) constituted an important part of the economic and social history of Brazil, being related with the extraction and commercialization of rubber. This boom was centered in the Amazon, facilitating a large expansion of colonization, attracting wealth and causing cultural and social transformations, along with encouraging the growth of Manaus, Porto Velho, and Belém, which today remain major cities and the capitals of their respective Brazilian states, Amazonas, Rondônia and Pará. The rubber boom occurred largely between 1879 to 1912, and afterwards experienced a revival from 1942 to 1945 during the Second World War.
For the first four and a half centuries following the discovery of the New World, as no gold or precious stones were discovered in the Amazon, the native populations lived practically in isolation, as neither colonial Brazil nor imperial Brazil was able to create incentives for development in the region. Living with an economy based on vegetable extraction, the regional economy developed for centuries, accompanied with the interest of the market of diverse natural resources in the region.
Rubber Growth
The development of the Industrial Revolution in Europe was the fuse which made natural rubber, until then exclusively found in the Amazon, a desirable commodity, valued at a high price, and creating wealth and dividends for whoever would dare invest in the trade.
From the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, rubber began to exert a strong attraction to visionary entrepreneurs. The activity of latex extraction in the Amazon revealed its lucrative possibilities. Natural rubber soon achieved a place of distinction in the industries of Europe and North America, reaching a high price. This caused various people to travel to Brazil with the intention of learning more about the rubber tree and the process of latex extraction, with the end of achieving wealth.
Because of the growth of rubber extraction numerous cities and towns swelled. Belém and Manaus, which already existed, became transformed and urbanized. Manaus was the first Brazilian city to be urbanized and the second to be electrified (the first was Campos dos Goytacazes, in Rio de Janeiro).
The Spoils of Rubber
Belém, the capital of Pará state, as well as Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, were the most developed and prosperous cities in Brazil during the rubber boom, not only due to its strategic position, but also because a large number of residences for the rubber extractors was there. Both cities were electrified and given running water and sewers. Their apogee was reached between 1890 and 1920, due to technologies that other cities in the south and southeast of Brazil still didn’t have, such as electric trams, avenues built on cleared gullies, as well as imposing and luxurious buildings, such as the polished Teatro Amazonas, the government palace, the municipal market, and the customs house, in the case of Manaus, and the fish market, the iron market, Teatro da Paz, corridors of mango trees, and various residential palaces in the case of Belém, constructed in large part by the intendant Antônio Lemos.
The European influence later became notable in Manaus and Belém, in the architecture and the way of life, making the 19th century the best economic phase endured by the two cities. The Amazon was responsible in the era for nearly 40% of all Brazil’s exports. The new riches of Manaus made the city the world capital in the sale of diamonds. Thanks to rubber, the per capita income of Manaus was twice as much as the coffee-producing region (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo).
As payment for the export of rubber, the workers were paid in pounds sterling, the currency of the United Kingdom, which circulated in Manaus and Belém during this period.
The End of an Era
The Amazon was already losing primacy in rubber production due to rubber trees planted by the English in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and tropical Africa. These rubber trees were planted from seeds that Henry Wickham had smuggled out of Brazil in 1876. These plantations were able to produce latex with greater efficiency and productivity. Consequently, with lower costs and a lower final price, the British Empire assumed control of the world rubber market.
The Second Boom
The Amazon again experienced a rubber boom during the Second World War, although it was of brief duration. As Japan dominated the eastern Pacific Ocean from the beginning of 1942 and invaded Malaysia, the rubber plantations there came under their control, which resulted in the loss of 97% of Asiatic rubber production.
This resulted in the implementation of new elements, including infrastructure, in Belém and Manaus, this time on the behalf of the United States. An example of this is the Grande Hotel, a luxurious hotel constructed in Belém in only three years, which today is the Hilton Hotel.
For more on the Second Boom, below is a documentary (in PT) on the rubber soldiers and the second-coming. In English, here’s a story on the subject from the NYT.
The Secretary of Agriculture of Pará is trying to repopulate the southern region of Marabá with the castanheira tree, which is threatened to extinction. The purpose is to jump-start a regional business model which has 150 years of history behind it, collecting castanhas-do-Pará (Brazil nuts) for cash.
Considered the “queen” of the forest for reaching up to 200 ft tall, the famous tree used to be the base of the local extractive economy. In the 1970′s, over 70 thousand tons of castanhas-do-Pará were taken out of the region per year. These days, the figure rests at around 20 thousand tons per year.
The Secretary started up a project which had been on hold for six years and hired 45 people to learn how to plant the giant tree. Brazil nuts come from this tree and when they fall to the ground, they are collected, dried and sheared. The problem with new growth in the area of Marabá is that nearly 90% of the Brazil nuts that fall, are collected, therefore cutting short the opportunity for new trees to grow.
Even of those that fall naturally, only 50% germinate to form new trees. On the other end, getting the Brazil nut ready to sell is a multistep process which includes shearing, chemically protecting and cleaning. With some training, the new team will be able to plant new trees on their own and with time, both the trees and the bounty will grow.
