Actually 2005 started for us at Christmas 2004. No snow, no ice, more than 30 degr. inside and outside, 12 hours day, 12 hours night, no real christmas tree but one out of the box, made in China.

Christmas is not a big event in Recife. Some decorations but no real christmas atmosphere. Also in the marina it was very quiet. The Brasilieros were at home and there were only a few foreign boats in port.

For reasons that we donot quite understand there are only a few yachts that put into Recife. The marina is ok, the authorities friendly, the town offers everything one needs. But in the pilots there is a lot of fuss about the 'dangers' of Recife which in reality donot exist. And Salvador or Rio are the real carnaval destinations for many yachtsmen.

At 31.Dec Els flew to Switzerland and Holland to visit family and friends. Unfortunately she had a dental problem and needed an implant which took more time than planned. She will be back mid-february and i have been single with liesje for 6 weeks.

Recife is not a tourist town. It is difficult to obtain cohaerent information because a good tourist organisation is missing. It took me a while to understand the public bus system. I have been lucky in finding a city guide who showed me the different aspects of the town and its environment as well as life in Brasil. Here it is not dangerous, as described in the pilots. I use my bycicle into town daily. The Policia Militar is everywhere. The problem is language. My Portuguese is marginal, my Spanish helps, but English is of no use in the streets.

One aspect of life here is the big difference between poor and rich. On one side, the Favelas of the poor. Houses in the river, no electricity, no water. On the other side the high rises with large appartments at the beach. I've seen some with 7 rooms, 8 berth, 7 bathrooms/toilets, huge terrace. In such a place 1 or 2 housekeepers are normally employed. A housekeeper earns 260 Real/month (100 USD). A university educated teacher gets 2000.

Seeing the large number of expensive private hospitals one does assume that the public health system is not what it should be. A halfway usefull health insurance costs 100 Real/month. For the poor there is a free health service.

For us as foreigners life is cheap here. The inland value of the Real is about 1 USD. The exchange rate is 2.6 to 1

 

One of the difficulties is the education system. I visited Recife's large state university where i found that the large majority of students is white, though almost 50% of the populations is of African or Indian origin. The background is, that the public secundary schools do not give direct access to universities. For that purpose a private school must be visited and that's expensive. The same goes for foreign language which only the private schools offer.

Recife has an interesting history. After the 'discovery' of Brasil by the Portuguese in the 16. century, the north-east was conquered by the dutch 'West India Company' in 1630 with the goal to get a hold on the slave-, sugar- and wood trade. Recife was Dutch for 24 years. The governor Mauritz von Nassau-Siegen had an enormous influence on the economical and intellectual development of this region.

This period may be found back in many musea but also in town. There still are many names dating from this period. Also the jewish influence during this time has been documented very well. There exist a very interesting jewish cultural centre with a splendid exhibition. At the site of this cultural centre in 1637 the first synagoge of the American continent existed. After the Dutch had been thrown out in 1654 the Brasilian jews founded the first jewish congregation in 'Nieuw Amsterdam', today New york.

One of the very beautifull musea is the Instituto Ricardo Brennand with a very interesting collection of maps, books and painting of the period 1630 to 1654.

Sugar played and plays an important role in the Brasilian economy. Today (sugar)alcohol is an important road fuel. A bottle of Cachaca (rhum) costs 4 Real.

During an excursion i visited an old sugar plantation, an 'Engenho'. Apart from the sugar cane fields, an Engenho comprises 4 main components: the main house (Casa Grande) where the owners lives, the chapel, the sugar mill proper and the slave houses (Senzalas).

Slavery was abolished in Brasil in 1888.

The work in the mill was very heavy because of the heat of the sugar cristallisation process. There was a regular death toll.

From landscape point of view the excursion was very interesting. Partly sugar as far as the eye can see. A very beautifull garden at the plantation.

 

An interesting side of life here are music and dance. The European tourist brochures make us believe that it's all Samba. Not so. There are a number of different types of music and dance that mostly date back to the slaves. This could be clearly seen during caranaval.

There are a number of movement dances which resemble martial art, for example Capoeira. During the slavery period this was a dance with knives which easily developed into fights. It was therefore forbidden. Now it is done without knives. In many types of dance small umbrellas are being used where knives were used a hundred years ago.

 

Again the large difference between poor and rich. At this plantation the slaves had family huts. At other plantations it often was 1 single room for all. This plantation was 500 acres, employed 120 slaves in the fields and 20 in and around the Casa Grande. They produced sugar untill 1937. Annual production was 22.000 tons, worth approximately 400.000 USD todays value

.

 

In the picture to the left a 'Beija Flor' (= kiss flower), a colibri alike bird that flies from flower to flower. A difficult picture to take.

 

And then there was carnaval. 5 Days of Colour, Fun, Music, Dance, Parades, Concertos. It was called 'Carnaval Multicultural do Recife' and that's what it was. Unique. Very well organised and to top it all, there was a printed program that allowed me to pick certain events without having to see it all. Main difficulty was the traffic because half the town had road blocs.

There were many parades, with and without dance. During the evenings and nights the streets were really crowded. Beautifull and interesting costumes which belonged to the different dancing styles. Samba being only one of them, Maracatu another one.

 

 

 

 

And of course there was food and drink everywhere, everytime for everyone. But i could not stand that for the whole 5 days but selectively visited some nice events and enjoyed them.

And then the major catastrophe after caranaval: a hard disk crash on my notebook. A real catastrophe because e-mail is my only means of communcation outside the country. Our Brasilian fone functions inland only.

Fortunately I had a spare disk and was able to rebuild my PC for 95% in 2 days of sweating with good support from my 'helpdesk'. My backup was up-to-date untill 04.feb.2005!!!. Now remains a good internet connection to get the service packs and updates.

Thursday Els comes back home. Probably we will stay here for another few days and then head south to Bahia.