Bizarre Brazil

So this southerner young couple was a bit bored with urban semi-civilized Brazilian life and decided to live Diogenes style: in a barrel, literally. They bought a big oak barrel from a neighboring winemaker, and installed it in a small patch of land in a hill (1400 meters above sea level) far from any town in a mountain called Montenegro (Black Mountain) in the southern Rio Grande do Sul state. In this video you can see them showing to a national TV reporter how they use and recycle everything on their property, how they live “close to nature and birds” and so on.

“In a full moon night I can read without artificial lights” says the girl at the ending. Diogenes “get out of my sun, Alexander of Macedonia” of Sinope should approve of them.

Thanks for the hint, Träsel.

For some strange and unknown reason, Valentines Day in Brazil is June 12th. This video shows a reporter from Jornal Nacional talking about the holiday in a shopping mall in Rio. Jornal Nacional (something like ‘National News’) is the most important and viewed TV news program nationwide, with more than 50 million viewers each day. That’s why this guys behaved like ‘tards*. Click on the video to watch.

*I guess I’d do the same if I had the opportunity, just for fun.

Everyone knows how soccer is Brazilian national sport and blahblahblah. There are several leagues every year - state leagues for most Brazilian states, minor regional leagues, 2 national Cups among the country’s most important teams and the South-American Cup, Libertadores da America or “America Liberators”, the South-American counterpart to Eurocup. The winner of Libertadores is one of the teams who play the FIFA Club World Cup. Among the club supporters nationwide one of the most known for its supporters fanaticism and motivation is the Gremio from Porto Alegre (Fifa Club World Cup champion in 1983).

Yesterday Gremio qualified to the final match of Libertadores (which it won twice) and I told Ira if it did, I’d publish a post about it here. So here it is. It was a dramatic match against Santos (who also won two Cups) and not decided until the last minute, as good soccer match must be, heh.

But Gremio supporters are famous by their “avalanches” (human landslides) after a goal scored by the team. Bellow you can see Danny Dyer talking about Gremio in a real match footage last year in Porto Alegre. Danny is a British reporter whose show/documentary - The Real Football Factories International - was broadcast in UK by Bravo last 25th may.

This is the video showing a impressive “humanslide” in a match last year.

And this one shows a human landslide from inside the mob of supporters, after a penalty kick scored against Santos, last week:

As a curiosity, Ronaldinho started his successful career at Gremio and won a Brazilian League in 2001 with the team. And, yep, Porto Alegre is my hometown and, yep, Gremio is the soccer team I support.

As I promess some images from Parque da Juventude (Park of the Youth) in Sao Paulo where used to be the terrible Carandiru Prison.

Photos from Parque da Juventude Official Site

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Winter apparently arrived one month earlier in Southern Brazil this year. As a rule of thumb you should expect this kind of temperatures only by mid June or early July on the Southerner states and some mountainous regions of Sao Paulo state (and Sao Paulo City itself). Like Australia and South-Africa, winter in Brazil and Argentina occurs between June and September. Yes, we are the antipodes.

As a note, Sao Paulo state plus the three southerners are responsible for half of Brazilian GDP (PPP) of U$1.55 trillion (9th) and for 36% of the country population (67 million people).

Yesterday in a town in Santa Catarina state temperatures plunged to -3C (26F) and school classes were suspended:

Photo: Paulo Afonso Silva
Aulas sao suspensas em Sao Joaquim devido ao frio (.br)

And in my hometown yesterday it plunged to 3.4C (38F):

Photo: Ronaldo Bernardi

Now the Pope is gone, back to business. Every time a foreigner friend say me how violent is the US and blahblahblah I tell he or she about the incredible number of deaths every day in Brazilian slums, trench towns and downtowns. There are weekends in some cities (especially Rio de Janeiro, but also Sao Paulo and other minor metropolitan areas) where body counts can be as large as three, four, five Virginia Techs. I’m obviously not proud of this numbers, as you can imagine, but I won’t start a personal crusade either.

Well, enough said. And some numbers from World Health Organization Statistical Information System to compare the 2002 body count. This numbers are sent to WHO by the governments, so it’s all official figures.

In 2002 in Brazil the leading causes of death for men in all ages groups were:

• 40812 deaths from: Unattended death (R98)*
• 35886 deaths from: Acute myocardial infarction - Acute myocardial infarction, unspecified (I219)
• 22360 deaths from: Stroke, not specified as hemorrhage or infarction (I64)
• 14708 deaths from: Assault by other and unspecified firearm discharge - Assault by other and unspecified firearm discharge, unspecified place (X959)

In 2002 in United States of America the leading causes of death for men in all ages groups were:

• 106814 deaths from: Chronic ischaemic heart disease - Atherosclerotic heart disease (I251)
• 93643 deaths from: Acute myocardial infarction - Acute myocardial infarction, unspecified (I219)
• 89577 deaths from: Malignant neoplasm of bronchus and lung - Bronchus or lung, unspecified (C349)
• 48472 deaths from: Other chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, unspecified (J449)

*(what this number don’t tell is that many of this deaths were caused by firearms shot or other violent means)

You can see more numbers and information about your own country here.

Pope Benedict XVI de the “thing” (I have read somewhere that the name in English is “Popemobile”) in Aparecida, at his last day in Brazil.

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Bom Jesus Seminary, where Pope Benedict XVI is hosted at Aparecida city.

Pope Benedict XVI at Esperança [hope] Farm, in Guaratingueta (Sao Paulo county) to drug addicts, surrounded by the people.

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Campo de Marte Airport, at Pope’s mass, 11th May 2007.

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The Pope is hosted at this beautiful monastery.

The Pope and Mr. Serra, Governor of Sao Paulo (county) and his wife.

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