Para meus amigos brasileiros: Me desculpem, por favor, de escrever somente em inglês - aqui no Canadá estou treinando bastante o meu inglês e preciso explicar para meus amigos canadenses um pouco sobre o Brasil. Na próxima postagem, volto para o português para contar sobre o Canadá.
First stop: After an eight-hour bus ride from Santo André (in the state of São Paulo), we arrived in the capital of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, where we spent the night and visited the municipal market.
The next day, we continued on to Três Marias. We passed the time chatting with our friend, Seu Raimundo, president of the Professional Fishermen's Federation of Minas Gerais.
Next stop: Três Marias and São Gonçalo do Abaeté, where we stayed with Thaís and Edson, at the house that Thaís, Sarah and Alison used to share...now Thaís and Edson share the yard with chickens!
We went to Minas that week so that we could attend the graduation ceremony of a youth environmental leadership and training project that my mom and Thaís were involved in creating at the end of the Peixes, Pessoas e Água project.
We also accompanied Seu Norberto in his boat on a river clean-up day. I didn't help at all!
I did, however, (vicariously, if that's the word for it) enjoy the yummy lunch afterward, prepared by project participants from the Fish Smoking group!
My mom wouldn't let me take a bath in the water in Beira Rio - she says that it is an outrage that a community of several hundred people still relies on water from wells and the river, both of which have been shown to be contaminated. Accidentally ingesting some of this water was likely the reason that my mom caught toxoplasmosis, a parasite that could have caused me to be born with birth defects or other problems. The nearby city of Três Marias sends its sewage without treatment into the river, just upstream from Beira Rio. Luckily, Alessandra and her family were nice enough to allow me to take a bath with the treated water at their home in Três Marias, after we went swimming in the Três Marias Lake!
We visited many wonderful friends in Beira Rio!Here's me with Jaqueline, who makes beautiful jewellery.
And here's me with Gislaine - or maybe it's her twin Gislâne, I can never be sure - both active participants in PPA environmental education activities. We're at the Beira Rio Festa Junina, a traditional party held all over Brazil in June to celebrate the June saints' days (in this case, São Pedro - Saint Peter.) Note my lovely caipira, or country, dress that is worn to participate in Festa Junina square dances. But instead of the requisite straw hat, I have chosen a Canadian tuque to keep me warm....Beira Rio gets chilly at night in the winter, believe it or not!
And their parents Seu Manoel and Dona Odilia.
We visited Dona Zezé and Seu Raimundo's family one afternoon. Here's me with Osana.
And Obadias and Evelyn, from Chile. Their backyard is full of medicinal plants, rabbits, dogs, mango trees, sugar cane, lime trees, and just about everything else you could imagine!
We even went to the Beira Rio rodeo!
Pirapora is a city that's a few hundred kilometres away from Três Marias. Like Três Marias, it is famous for its surubim - a huge migratory catfish - although fisheries have declined significantly in recent years due to dams, industrial and urban pollution, and overfishing.
Evelyn with the dourado phone booth!
Pirapora is the city of bicycles. Here's us causing a bike jam on the old train bridge that connects the cities of Pirapora and Buritizeiro.
Visits with friends in Pirapora:
The Antunes family
Nicinha, Camila, Thaís, and Tiago at the Pirapora Night Market.
Nicinha and Socorro, from the Fishing Colony (association of professional fishers)
Well, that's enough photos for now! Next post will be my trip in Canada! Tchau!
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