The Gorey Guardian Newspaper saw this blogsite and asked me to write an article to let the locals at home know how I was getting on. It was published on the 23rd August. Here is the original article I sent. I am not sure of what was published as I will have to wait until next month for the newspaper to arrive in the post. Life moves at a very slow pace here.
LETTER FROM BRAZIL
17th August 2006
Caros Amigos / Dear Friends,
It is nearly a year now since I took my leave of the parish of Gorey / Tara Hill, and life has been very varied and different to what I have ever experienced. The Amazon Basin is a far cry from cutting rashers in my little shop in Carnew all those years ago. Since September last I have been living out of the suit case. Jesus was right “carry no haversack or sandal or purse” and I add “you wouldn’t have the bother when moving around”.
For the first three months I underwent some training and reflection with the Irish Missionary Union based with the Columban Fathers in Navan. Then Christmas and a month at home in Carnew with family and friends and auspiciously on the Feast of St. Aidan, Patron of the Diocese {30th Jan} I departed for Brazil to the city of São Paulo. I think it is the 5th biggest in the world, where the St. Patrick’s Missionary Society, Kiltegan, Co. Wicklow have their South American Regional Headquarters. At present I am a volunteer with the Society.
Here I spent six weeks acclimatising, learning some of the culture and language and more importantly trying to get my visa in order. I landed in the middle of preparations for “Carnival”, on every street and nearly every night the locals would practice their dancing and music. For the first few nights it was colourful and exciting but when it went into the early hours every night, the excitement soon faded away. I’ve never seen people so worked up as they prepared for “Carnival”. WELL! Except it happened again for the “World Cup”.
My visa was granted on the 30th December last but a new law was enacted here on the 1st January which affected my situation a lot. So I could not legally register. Thankfully some young men working in the Dept. of Foreign Affairs were able to help and as a bonus they spoke English, having been taught by an Irish Holy Ghost Father. I also had to pay many visits to the Federal Police to regularise my situation, photographing, and fingerprinting like a common criminal, which was a very weird experience. I now know what our migrant workers, asylum seekers and refugees have to endure with Irish officialdom, I’m sure it is no different.
Thankfully with just two days to go before my language school was to start, my visa was regularised, and so I set off for the capital, Brasilia, 14 hours away, in my second-hand Fiat Uno Alcohol powered car. I’m glad to say my car drinks more alcohol than I do. The school is a special school run for missionaries learning the language. People were there from all over the world, Vietnam, China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, USA, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Haiti, Congo, Burkina-Faso, Kenya, South Africa, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and one from Ireland, all of us speaking different languages, but now Portuguese was to be the common link.
Here I stayed for three months. Brasilia is a new city built in 1960 and already over 2m people live in it. It was built for the automobile, with wide roads and very few traffic lights, so the roads have fly-overs in place of junctions, and a junction called a “Rotorno” which would put the heart sideways in you, as the traffic here drives on the right hand side of the road but on the “Rotorno” the traffic changes over and drives on the Irish side {Left}. I called them the “PAI NOSSO” {“Our Father”} JUNCTIONS. With a little Fiat Uno crammed with about 6 priests or nuns, we needed a quick Our Father the make the turn safely. Needless to say, the first time I took the wrong turn I got blown off the road, thank God it was a quiet Sunday night!
Part of the language training was to send us out to live with a Brazilian family, I was sent to a family in the satellite city of Brasilia called Gama...
Three months later, I returned to São Paulo with some smattering of the language, definitely not enough.
Language or no language it was time to get down to The Lord’s Work. I took a 2 hour flight from São Paulo to “Cuiabá”, the capital of Mato Grosso state. This was followed by 14 hour bus journey to “Juina” our nearest big town. Half of this journey was on paved roads the rest were dirt tracks. Thankfully it was a night journey, because when dawn came and I saw the conditions of the dirt roads and the bridges that we were travelling on I was much less comfortable. Out came the rosary beads!
By the way “Highway Robbery” is big problem here. Often busses are hijacked on a lonely country road and the passengers are robbed of their possessions. If your shoes or clothes look new or expensive, expect to have to hand them over. One of our clerical students here was a victim of one such hijacking. The hijacker was searching his bag and saw some aftershave lotion and politely told him, as he confiscated / stole it, that his wife loved it when he wore it!!
In the town of Juina I was met by Fr. Michael Byrne {Soon to be the new Parish Priest of Cushinstown}. Ahead was another 4 hour journey in the parish 4x4 Jeep. I never saw such roads in all my life. Even the forest road up to Slieve Buí or Saleen Lane {apologies to the locals on these roads} are better. And so here I am now in the town of “Juruena” in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Fr. Michael has since returned to Ireland after a few short days of showing me the ropes. So now I have no choice, I must learn the language as there is only one other person who speaks English in the parish, now it is sink or swim.
Juruena has about two thousand people and is like an Island in the middle of the forest. We are connected to the wider world by microwave phones / internet and dirt roads. Even the radio is local. I haven’t received a TV signal in two weeks. It has to be the first time in a long time that I have seen teenagers that don’t have mobile phones, but they all have push bikes or motor bikes or scooters including the girls. There are diesel engines on the edge of the town that provides electricity. So when the wet comes I wonder how the fuel tankers will get here.
Did I mention the dust? No! It is the dry season here and the roads are dust roads. So whenever a lorry, 4x4, motor bike or a horse {few cars} pass by a dust storm is created. There is a special lorry that goes around the town watering down the dusty roads. The women in the home spend most of their time cleaning, sweeping and washing as the red dust gets everywhere. It is 36 degrees Celsius on average every day and always a blue sky and this is winter time. The wet comes with the heat of summer time and THEN the dirt roads become muck roads. This I have yet to experience.
The people are lovely, warm, welcoming and very understanding of my poor Portuguese. It’s a big struggle really, especially on my own. The children on the streets speak better than I do.
There are two churches in the town, a main church São Pedro, and a wooden church Santa Clara. There are 20 communities in the surrounding country side. Almost every day I visit a different community and so they have Mass about once a month. The distances are vast and the roads are bad. A couple of communities are in the forest. One community is so far away that I have to stay overnight in family homes, and on the way home the next morning I visit and say mass in another community. With the hijacking it’s too dangerous to drive at night. A few weeks ago the local bus was stopped by the highway robbers.
Some of the communities grew up from land invasions. This is where some rich landowner has so much land he cannot use it all, so the poor organise themselves and in their hundreds invade and set up their homes and proceed to fell the forest and burn the stubble to make a small farm. Often this has led to violence and murder. Politically this is a big problem for Brazil, and for the rich landowners, and sadly for the forest. Many are critical because of the destruction to the forest but there is really very little you can say or do, and I remind myself that I don’t have a family in need of food and shelter. The absentee landowner is not too happy either. Of course how did he acquire the land in the first place himself? Many of the indigenous Indian tribes have all but disappeared! It reminds me a lot of Irish history from the not too distant past.
The farming families here just about live off the land, raising cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, and growing coffee, rice, beans, maize and fruits such as pineapples. And despite all the food, the parish here runs a programme for children’s nutrition as malnutrition has its effect on the youngest. The staple diet here is rice and beans and the fatter the meat the better. Lard and Dripping like Ireland not so long ago are sold in the shops by the 2 litre Plastic Mineral Bottles full. The cheapest product to buy here is meat, every thing else is expensive because it has to be trucked in along the dirt roads.
At this stage I have visited all the communities and they are all at different stages of development, but not enough visits yet to get to know the people. So I will write another time and share experiences among the people there.
He is one story from my first wedding in Brazil.
It took place in recently invaded land, which really is still forest. The forest track is about an hour long off the main dirt road. It got narrower as we travelled along as the only thing travelling on them are motorbikes or horses. On the way I collected the people who were walking along, they just jumped on board in the back of the jeep. Now the parish jeep was the wedding bus. So in a sense I brought my own congregation with me.
The church was a lean-too with banana leaves and palm leaves for a roof. The bride and groom were already there as they had set up the altar, which was a table from the neighbour’s house. The wedding rings were made from wood. The wedding took place during the monthly Mass. When the Mass was over the bride invited me back to the home for the reception telling me that they had killed a pig for the big celebration. So everybody jumped on board, bride and groom included. Now the parish jeep became the wedding limo.
When I arrived the dishes were being washed in the local stream. The meal consisted of roasted pork, chicken, rice, beans, mandioca {root similar to a potato}, spaghetti, chopped greens from the river. The only item purchased was the spaghetti, the rest came from their own land.
The drink consisted of river water flavoured with oranges which was dished out of a Maxol 4 gallon oil can. I’m sure it was well washed but I didn’t try it!
When all was over, as I got up to take my leave, the bride asked me for a lift into town so she could do some shopping. I think that this has to be the first wedding that I have done where I brought the bride home with me!
Others used the opportunity to come along also as it was too good a chance to turn down a free life to town as the local lorry [yes a lorry not a bus] charges B$7 per person and the parish Jeep is free thanks to the generous people at home.
All in all the couple were as happy as any couple could be and for that matter so was I!
Até próximo tempo / Until next time.
Tchau / Bye.
Padre Denis Browne
My host family for the stay over in the community.
