Where you from? asked the lady in charge of the internet at the bus station in Itajaí. When I told her she said that she was familiar with my accent, she had heard it from missionaries.
How do I get to the Niemeyer museum? The lady at the tourist information in Curitiba made it sound like a long and rather complicated undertaking. I decided to walk into the direction she had indicated. At the Praça Tiradentes (surrounded by quite some signs advertising the services of dentists) I was supposed to find a city sightseeing bus but it had just left and so I asked an elderly man how far the Niemeyer Museum was? On foot about fifteen minutes from here, he said, at a leisurely pace. I knew by then that this probably meant a good thirty minutes at a rather brisk pace - and I was right. Unfortunately, the Niemeyer Museum happened to be closed from 25 December to 31 December!?
Standing in front of the museum, I could see the sightseeing bus speeding by - I have so far never seen a sightseeing bus at such speed, the tourists on the open top deck appeared to desperately cling to their seats, I was glad I had not joined them.
A shopping mall near the Praça Tiradentes had toilets for men, women, and families.
The back pocket buttons of my pants are loose, my shoes are falling apart. I walk into a tailor shop, the lady in there puts herself immediately to work and asks for one real after she´s done ("para um cafezinho", she says). The shoemaker thinks that my shoes were made in Italy. Zimbabwe, I tell him. Good work, he comments. We chat for another couple of minutes. He says they will be ready by two o`clock. He didn´t recognise me when I showed up at twenty past two but the shoes were ready.
Curitiba also meant: a quarter pounder at McDonalds, a Subway sandwich, Chinese food, sushi (twice), mousse de maracuja in the Confeitaria Neuchatel (the waiter said it was a complicated story how the confeitaria got its name; the waitress said, well, the owner had once been to Neuchâtel) and visits to bookstores. Books are expensive in Brazil, in one store they had a table with special offers for 9.90. I leafed through some of them, on the front page of one the original price was mentioned as 5.90. I asked whether it cost 5.90 ot 9.90. Everything on that table is 9.90, the lady said. I did not buy it.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Monday, 28 December 2009
On the road (2)
I am aware that quite some men seem to love making contact in public toilets at train and bus stations yet it eludes me what kind of kick these guys at the bus stations in Lages and Florianópolis expected by trying to get a glimpse of my dick while I was standing at the urinal trying (unsucessfully, of course) to pee ...
When I got to the beach in Bombinhas, I suffered a shock: I had so far seen photos of over-crowded beaches but had never experienced such a scene in reality where one could hardly put one foot in front of the other. I decided to leave the place immediately that however was not an easy task for buses on Christmas day do not run frequently from Bombinhas to Itapema and when they eventually run then they move a few meters every couple of minutes. Once in Itapema I found the hotels considerably more expensive than in Florianópolis and decided to move on to Itajaí which, I was told, was not a tourist place. The first night my room cost 85 Reais, the second 119 Reais. The reason given was "temporada alta".
The next day, I went to see the famous Balneario Camborio. The man in his fifties sitting next to me on the bus introduced himself by saying that he worked as a mechanic at Brinks, a company originally from Chicago, he explained (he was suprised that "Brinkis", as he pronounced it, was unknown to me), and showed me his card to prove it. Where should I get off for the beach? I asked. He would show me where, he said. And so together we got off. He mentioned that he lived around the corner. When we reached his home, a five story apartment block, he asked if I wanted to come up for a juice? Was he gay? I wondered. Was this a trap? I was just about to excuse myself when he rang the bell, stepped back to the pavement and conversed with a woman on the second floor. Your wife? I asked. He nodded. I followed him up to the second floor where I was introduced to Sueli, who hailed from Mato Grosso and told me to be careful in the border region of Paraguay, and their two-year old daughter. João prepared the juice (a tasty carrot-orange-lime mix), I exchanged a few words with Sueli and played with their daughter. When the juice was ready, João turned on the TV, we sipped our drinks and chatted for a while. Did I want another one? No, thank you, I now feel like exploring the beach. "Vai com Deus", he said. The beach was almost as crowded as the one in Bombinhas (I later learned that there are many beaches in Bombinhas but all of them "bem lotadas" during the festive season) and full of colorful umbrellas. Not my idea of a beach.
On Fox news, a passenger of the Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit that a young Nigerian had tried to blow up said that while the whole thing happened (he sat three rows away from the Nigerian) he did not really feel scared but later, at home, it really hit him. It was worse to imagine what happened than actually experiencing it, he said.
A security expert on the same program: we spent billions of dollars and we could not stop this guy. It seemed beyond his imagination that money could not be the solution.
How long do I walk to the beach from here? Ten minutes? Fifteen, the guy from the hotel said. After I had walked for fifteen minutes in the direction indicated, I asked again. Ten minutes? The two guys smiled, twenty are more likely. They were right. In the end, the original fifteen minutes had turned into close to forty-five.
The most used words in Brazil are probably "talvez" (maybe), "pode ser" (can be) and "legal" (cool). Given the fact that when Brazilians are confronted with a law their natural impulse is to find a way around it, it seems rather peculiar to use "legal" for "cool".
When I got to the beach in Bombinhas, I suffered a shock: I had so far seen photos of over-crowded beaches but had never experienced such a scene in reality where one could hardly put one foot in front of the other. I decided to leave the place immediately that however was not an easy task for buses on Christmas day do not run frequently from Bombinhas to Itapema and when they eventually run then they move a few meters every couple of minutes. Once in Itapema I found the hotels considerably more expensive than in Florianópolis and decided to move on to Itajaí which, I was told, was not a tourist place. The first night my room cost 85 Reais, the second 119 Reais. The reason given was "temporada alta".
The next day, I went to see the famous Balneario Camborio. The man in his fifties sitting next to me on the bus introduced himself by saying that he worked as a mechanic at Brinks, a company originally from Chicago, he explained (he was suprised that "Brinkis", as he pronounced it, was unknown to me), and showed me his card to prove it. Where should I get off for the beach? I asked. He would show me where, he said. And so together we got off. He mentioned that he lived around the corner. When we reached his home, a five story apartment block, he asked if I wanted to come up for a juice? Was he gay? I wondered. Was this a trap? I was just about to excuse myself when he rang the bell, stepped back to the pavement and conversed with a woman on the second floor. Your wife? I asked. He nodded. I followed him up to the second floor where I was introduced to Sueli, who hailed from Mato Grosso and told me to be careful in the border region of Paraguay, and their two-year old daughter. João prepared the juice (a tasty carrot-orange-lime mix), I exchanged a few words with Sueli and played with their daughter. When the juice was ready, João turned on the TV, we sipped our drinks and chatted for a while. Did I want another one? No, thank you, I now feel like exploring the beach. "Vai com Deus", he said. The beach was almost as crowded as the one in Bombinhas (I later learned that there are many beaches in Bombinhas but all of them "bem lotadas" during the festive season) and full of colorful umbrellas. Not my idea of a beach.
On Fox news, a passenger of the Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit that a young Nigerian had tried to blow up said that while the whole thing happened (he sat three rows away from the Nigerian) he did not really feel scared but later, at home, it really hit him. It was worse to imagine what happened than actually experiencing it, he said.
A security expert on the same program: we spent billions of dollars and we could not stop this guy. It seemed beyond his imagination that money could not be the solution.
How long do I walk to the beach from here? Ten minutes? Fifteen, the guy from the hotel said. After I had walked for fifteen minutes in the direction indicated, I asked again. Ten minutes? The two guys smiled, twenty are more likely. They were right. In the end, the original fifteen minutes had turned into close to forty-five.
The most used words in Brazil are probably "talvez" (maybe), "pode ser" (can be) and "legal" (cool). Given the fact that when Brazilians are confronted with a law their natural impulse is to find a way around it, it seems rather peculiar to use "legal" for "cool".
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Through different eyes
I wrote on the board one of my favourite lines from the German thinker Theodor Adorno: "The highest form of morality is not to feel home in one's own home." I explained that most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes.
Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran
Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
On the road
Since Friday, 18 December, I`m on a bus trip through Southern Brazil.
The time table said that the trip from Santa Cruz to Caxias do Sul would take 2 hours and 50 minutes. Well, it took 4 hours and 15 minutes.
Sitting on a bench on the main square of Caxias, I was approached by a young woman who asked me to participate in a survey for a chain of drugstores. That is probably not for me, I said, I am a tourist. Ah, where from? Switzerland. She smiled and said she was from Torres. Did I know Torres? I said I did. Where will you spend the New Year? I don`t know yet. Well, Torres is the place to be, she said, it has the third biggest firework in Brazil. By the way, Caxias is great. I am here with my husband. Just the two of us. His daughter from another woman is with her mother. So it is just him and me here. Fantastic. We both work. Here it is easy to find work, in Torres it is very difficult ... Okay, gotta go, see you. And off she went. Such chatting - that may seem somewhat personal to a European - is fairly common in this country for Brazilians simply love to chat, with whom is secondary.
I walked around the center of town, got hungry and had a not very good "pastel". I returned to my hotel, asked for a place where they served good "pastéis" and then had a good one. Later, again on a bench on the main square, I watched the world walk by. Caxias has a center that I instinctively liked, it has a big city flair but is still not too big and that makes for good vibes. At 18 hours sharp, it was sunny and warm, loudspeakers in front of the cathedral filled the air with "Ave Maria" - it felt terrific.
A guy in the Internet Cafe was convinced I was from Uruguay. When I told him I was from Switzerland, he just laughed and said for him I was from Uruguay. I assume this has to do with my Portuñol, a mix of Spanish and Portuguese mainly spoken at the border of Brazil and Uruguay. No, I have not picked it up there, I have developed it myself and added a Swiss German accent.
Brazilian men, when saying hello or good bye, often tap other men on the shoulder, Brazilian women often kiss you on the cheek. In a bookstore, a woman in her thirties suddenly turned around and bumped into me. "Desculpe", she smiled, tapped me on the shoulder and left the store. She was beautiful, I would have preferred a kiss.
On the bus to Lages, my neighbour explained that he had lived for 30 years in Porto Alegre but was originally from Santa Catarina. People in Rio Grande do Sul are arrogant, he whispered.
In Lages, a gentleman in the hotel elevator, after he learned where I was from, told me he was from Santa Cruz and started to speak German to me.
In the bus from Florianópolis to the island, a young man behind me threw up - I was lucky that his vomit was all over the floor and not on me.
At the island junction, people were standing in line for the bus to the South of the island. When it finally arrived, many young men literally stormed it. One youngster pushed me, I got hit on the head, lost my sun glasses, stumbled. A young women with her son on her knees shouted at them ("são terríveis, são mal educados") and offered me the seat next to her.
After my first night at the Praia da Armaçaõ, my arms were covered with mosquito bites. The dona of my pousada said that only yesterday the government had anounced that there was no dengue on the island. Until then I had not worried.
The time table said that the trip from Santa Cruz to Caxias do Sul would take 2 hours and 50 minutes. Well, it took 4 hours and 15 minutes.
Sitting on a bench on the main square of Caxias, I was approached by a young woman who asked me to participate in a survey for a chain of drugstores. That is probably not for me, I said, I am a tourist. Ah, where from? Switzerland. She smiled and said she was from Torres. Did I know Torres? I said I did. Where will you spend the New Year? I don`t know yet. Well, Torres is the place to be, she said, it has the third biggest firework in Brazil. By the way, Caxias is great. I am here with my husband. Just the two of us. His daughter from another woman is with her mother. So it is just him and me here. Fantastic. We both work. Here it is easy to find work, in Torres it is very difficult ... Okay, gotta go, see you. And off she went. Such chatting - that may seem somewhat personal to a European - is fairly common in this country for Brazilians simply love to chat, with whom is secondary.
I walked around the center of town, got hungry and had a not very good "pastel". I returned to my hotel, asked for a place where they served good "pastéis" and then had a good one. Later, again on a bench on the main square, I watched the world walk by. Caxias has a center that I instinctively liked, it has a big city flair but is still not too big and that makes for good vibes. At 18 hours sharp, it was sunny and warm, loudspeakers in front of the cathedral filled the air with "Ave Maria" - it felt terrific.
A guy in the Internet Cafe was convinced I was from Uruguay. When I told him I was from Switzerland, he just laughed and said for him I was from Uruguay. I assume this has to do with my Portuñol, a mix of Spanish and Portuguese mainly spoken at the border of Brazil and Uruguay. No, I have not picked it up there, I have developed it myself and added a Swiss German accent.
Brazilian men, when saying hello or good bye, often tap other men on the shoulder, Brazilian women often kiss you on the cheek. In a bookstore, a woman in her thirties suddenly turned around and bumped into me. "Desculpe", she smiled, tapped me on the shoulder and left the store. She was beautiful, I would have preferred a kiss.
On the bus to Lages, my neighbour explained that he had lived for 30 years in Porto Alegre but was originally from Santa Catarina. People in Rio Grande do Sul are arrogant, he whispered.
In Lages, a gentleman in the hotel elevator, after he learned where I was from, told me he was from Santa Cruz and started to speak German to me.
In the bus from Florianópolis to the island, a young man behind me threw up - I was lucky that his vomit was all over the floor and not on me.
At the island junction, people were standing in line for the bus to the South of the island. When it finally arrived, many young men literally stormed it. One youngster pushed me, I got hit on the head, lost my sun glasses, stumbled. A young women with her son on her knees shouted at them ("são terríveis, são mal educados") and offered me the seat next to her.
After my first night at the Praia da Armaçaõ, my arms were covered with mosquito bites. The dona of my pousada said that only yesterday the government had anounced that there was no dengue on the island. Until then I had not worried.
Monday, 21 December 2009
Petropolis
"Petropolis" ist ein ganz tolles Buch: flüssig geschrieben, anschaulich erzählt und spannend geschildert. Es verschafft einem Einsichten in teils groteske und sehr menschliche russische und amerikanische Befindlichkeiten, die einen immer mal wieder – es ist dies nämlich ein ungemein witziges Werk – laut auflachen lassen.
"Petropolis" beginnt so: "Im Herbst 1992 hatte Ljubow Alexandrowna Goldberg beschlossen, ihrer vierzehnjährigen Tochter ein ausserschulisches Betätigungsfeld zu schaffen. ‚Kinder der Intelligenzija hocken nicht nachmittags zu Hause und frönen der Idiotie’, erklärte sie. Am liebsten hätte sie Sascha am Klavier gesehen, aber Goldbergs hatten kein Klavier, und in den beiden vollgestopften Zimmern, die Sascha und ihre Mutter bewohnten, war nicht mal genug Platz für den Gedanken an ein Klavier."
In der Folge wird Sascha, die mit ihrer Mutter im sibirischen Gulag-Aussenposten Asbest 2 lebt, ungewollt schwanger, dann als Kunststudentin in Moskau aufgenommen (es geht dabei zwar nicht mit rechten Dingen, doch sehr lebensecht zu und her) und kommt schliesslich als Mailorder-Braut nach Phoenix, Arizona, entflieht ihrem Amerikavisum-Aufenthaltsbeschaffer nach Chicago, wo sie in privilegierten Umständen als Quasi-Sklavin gehalten wird und schliesslich für ein angemessen glückliches Ende der Geschichte in Brooklyn landet, wo sie auch ihren nach Amerika abgehauenen Vater aufstöbert.
Soweit die Rahmenhandlung, die natürlich nicht allzu viel darüber aussagt, weshalb sich dieses Buch zu lesen lohnt. Warum sich die Lektüre aber ganz unbedingt lohnt, mögen ein paar willkürlich ausgewählte Textausschnitte illustrieren:
An diesem Morgen hatte ihre Mutter ihr sogar schon ihren kostbaren Kaffee spendiert, allerdings im Gegenzug verlangt, sie solle während des Vorstellungsgesprächs auf keinen Fall:
mit offenem Mund wie ein Karpfen an die Wand glotzen
an den Haaren herumzwirbeln
Fingernägel knabbern
sondern vielmehr:
die Knie zusammenhalten
die Zunge im Mund lassen
lächeln
Zu den Nationalfeiertagen brachten die Eltern Geschenke, meistens Wodka und Pralinenschachteln, die entweder so angeschimmelt oder so zerdätscht waren, dass sie für Ärzte oder Klempner nicht mehr taugten.
Den ganzen Sommer lang hing die Sonne jeden Abend bis elf am Himmel über der Stadt und zahlte ihre Winterschulden ab.
Die Wohnung ist russisch eingerichtet, Tapeten mit Blümchenmuster, an einer Wand hängt ein roter Perserteppich und vor den Fenstern viel Tüll und Spitze, in einer Ecke steht eine schwarze Porzellanvitrine. Rita wirkt wie ein Insekt in einem Käfig aus düsterer Opulenz.
"Und wo bist du her?", fragt Lika.
"Asbest 2. Das ist in Sibirien, bei Prostuda."
"Irrer Name."
"Tja, na ja, der ist einfach eindeutig. Mehr als Asbest ist da nicht."
"Kennst du das Gebet von früher?", fragte Alyssa.
"Nein, Liebes, sie kommt doch aus der Sowjetunion! Ist das nicht toll?" Mrs. Tarakan klang wie eine Naturwissenschaftlerin, die soeben herausgefunden hatte, dass Saschas Hirn grösser als erwartet war.
"Ich hab keine Fragen", flüsterte Sascha.
"Doch, hast du."
"Ach, kannst du Gedanken lesen?"
"Die ganz primitiven schon", sagte Jake und rollte an ihr vorbei aus dem Raum.
Heidi schüttelt den Kopf. "Victor, das geht so nicht", kommt sie Sascha zu Hilfe. "Du kannst nicht einfach dein altes Leben verlassen und ein neues anfangen. Du bist nicht Buddha. Menschen haben Bindungen. Menschen kümmern sich um die Dinge."
Anya Ulinich
Petropolis
Die große Reise der Mailorder-Braut Sascha Goldberg
dtv, 2008
"Petropolis" beginnt so: "Im Herbst 1992 hatte Ljubow Alexandrowna Goldberg beschlossen, ihrer vierzehnjährigen Tochter ein ausserschulisches Betätigungsfeld zu schaffen. ‚Kinder der Intelligenzija hocken nicht nachmittags zu Hause und frönen der Idiotie’, erklärte sie. Am liebsten hätte sie Sascha am Klavier gesehen, aber Goldbergs hatten kein Klavier, und in den beiden vollgestopften Zimmern, die Sascha und ihre Mutter bewohnten, war nicht mal genug Platz für den Gedanken an ein Klavier."
In der Folge wird Sascha, die mit ihrer Mutter im sibirischen Gulag-Aussenposten Asbest 2 lebt, ungewollt schwanger, dann als Kunststudentin in Moskau aufgenommen (es geht dabei zwar nicht mit rechten Dingen, doch sehr lebensecht zu und her) und kommt schliesslich als Mailorder-Braut nach Phoenix, Arizona, entflieht ihrem Amerikavisum-Aufenthaltsbeschaffer nach Chicago, wo sie in privilegierten Umständen als Quasi-Sklavin gehalten wird und schliesslich für ein angemessen glückliches Ende der Geschichte in Brooklyn landet, wo sie auch ihren nach Amerika abgehauenen Vater aufstöbert.
Soweit die Rahmenhandlung, die natürlich nicht allzu viel darüber aussagt, weshalb sich dieses Buch zu lesen lohnt. Warum sich die Lektüre aber ganz unbedingt lohnt, mögen ein paar willkürlich ausgewählte Textausschnitte illustrieren:
An diesem Morgen hatte ihre Mutter ihr sogar schon ihren kostbaren Kaffee spendiert, allerdings im Gegenzug verlangt, sie solle während des Vorstellungsgesprächs auf keinen Fall:
mit offenem Mund wie ein Karpfen an die Wand glotzen
an den Haaren herumzwirbeln
Fingernägel knabbern
sondern vielmehr:
die Knie zusammenhalten
die Zunge im Mund lassen
lächeln
Zu den Nationalfeiertagen brachten die Eltern Geschenke, meistens Wodka und Pralinenschachteln, die entweder so angeschimmelt oder so zerdätscht waren, dass sie für Ärzte oder Klempner nicht mehr taugten.
Den ganzen Sommer lang hing die Sonne jeden Abend bis elf am Himmel über der Stadt und zahlte ihre Winterschulden ab.
Die Wohnung ist russisch eingerichtet, Tapeten mit Blümchenmuster, an einer Wand hängt ein roter Perserteppich und vor den Fenstern viel Tüll und Spitze, in einer Ecke steht eine schwarze Porzellanvitrine. Rita wirkt wie ein Insekt in einem Käfig aus düsterer Opulenz.
"Und wo bist du her?", fragt Lika.
"Asbest 2. Das ist in Sibirien, bei Prostuda."
"Irrer Name."
"Tja, na ja, der ist einfach eindeutig. Mehr als Asbest ist da nicht."
"Kennst du das Gebet von früher?", fragte Alyssa.
"Nein, Liebes, sie kommt doch aus der Sowjetunion! Ist das nicht toll?" Mrs. Tarakan klang wie eine Naturwissenschaftlerin, die soeben herausgefunden hatte, dass Saschas Hirn grösser als erwartet war.
"Ich hab keine Fragen", flüsterte Sascha.
"Doch, hast du."
"Ach, kannst du Gedanken lesen?"
"Die ganz primitiven schon", sagte Jake und rollte an ihr vorbei aus dem Raum.
Heidi schüttelt den Kopf. "Victor, das geht so nicht", kommt sie Sascha zu Hilfe. "Du kannst nicht einfach dein altes Leben verlassen und ein neues anfangen. Du bist nicht Buddha. Menschen haben Bindungen. Menschen kümmern sich um die Dinge."
Anya Ulinich
Petropolis
Die große Reise der Mailorder-Braut Sascha Goldberg
dtv, 2008
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Tao Te Ching
I open it at number five on page five. I let my eyes run across the words. I let my brain process them. I let my heart feel them. Number five is like the rest. There is no good or evil, no Sinner or Saint. There simply is what is and that is it. You can use that to be and that is enough. Don't talk about it or question it. Just let it be. Just be.
It still affects me and it still makes sense. It still moves me and it still rings true. That is all that matters. The truth. Does it ring true it does. I can feel it.
Number six. The Tao is the Great Mother the Great Father the Great Nothing. It is empty and inexhaustible. It is always present you can use it or not. Does it ring true it does.
Seven. Infinite and eternal. It was never born and will never die. It is just there. It wants nothing and it needs nothing, it is just there. Stay behind and get ahead. Detach and become. Let go of all and you will be full. Let go of all and you will be full.
Eight and nine say the good is like water that nourishes without trying. They say in thinking keep to simple, in conflict be fair. They say don't compare or compete simply be yourself. They say fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill, keep sharpening your knife and it will dull. They say chase after money and your heart will never unclench. Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.
These things, these poems, these words, these meanings, they make sense to me. They do not tell me to do anything or be anything or believe in anything or become anything. They don't judge me or try to convince me. There is no righteousness or pretension. They don't fight me or insult me or tell me I'm wrong. There is no Authority and there are no Rules. They are just words strung together on a page sitting and waiting patiently for me to accept or reject them. They don't care if I do either or bother nothing at all. They will never tell me I'm wrong. They will never tell me I'm right either. They just sit there.
James Frey: A Million Little Pieces
It still affects me and it still makes sense. It still moves me and it still rings true. That is all that matters. The truth. Does it ring true it does. I can feel it.
Number six. The Tao is the Great Mother the Great Father the Great Nothing. It is empty and inexhaustible. It is always present you can use it or not. Does it ring true it does.
Seven. Infinite and eternal. It was never born and will never die. It is just there. It wants nothing and it needs nothing, it is just there. Stay behind and get ahead. Detach and become. Let go of all and you will be full. Let go of all and you will be full.
Eight and nine say the good is like water that nourishes without trying. They say in thinking keep to simple, in conflict be fair. They say don't compare or compete simply be yourself. They say fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill, keep sharpening your knife and it will dull. They say chase after money and your heart will never unclench. Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.
These things, these poems, these words, these meanings, they make sense to me. They do not tell me to do anything or be anything or believe in anything or become anything. They don't judge me or try to convince me. There is no righteousness or pretension. They don't fight me or insult me or tell me I'm wrong. There is no Authority and there are no Rules. They are just words strung together on a page sitting and waiting patiently for me to accept or reject them. They don't care if I do either or bother nothing at all. They will never tell me I'm wrong. They will never tell me I'm right either. They just sit there.
James Frey: A Million Little Pieces
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Brazilian Cemeteries
It has been mostly raining since I arrived in mid-August in Southern Brazil. One of the few exceptions was the very hot Sunday of 1 November (36° Celsius) when Ricardo, a native of Santa Cruz do Sul, drove John (from Bakersfield) and me to the "interior" which in our case meant a ride on dirt roads into the middle of nowhere where we also came across two cemeteries - one showed a very colourful mix of styles, the other was more of the traditional European kind with one tombstone already displaying the date of birth and the photograph of a woman who however is seemingly not yet buried there. Extraordinary planning, I'd say.
Copyright @ Hans Durrer
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