Yesterday was our ecology day - we went to an in-city green space devoted to ecology of native plants and conservation, took a short walk, looked at a three month old baby boa constrictor - I took a picture! We had a short presentation about water cycles and recycling. The best part was being introduced to the work of Brazilian born artist Vik Muniz who produced a PBS documentary called Wasteland. I'm going to request our WCU library to purchase it. I looked it up online and found out what Muniz was doing. He went back to Brazil documenting the people who make their living at the huge garbage sites near Rio de Janeiro and with their help, photographed them, then made portraits of them with recycled objects based on the photographs and then photographed those works of art. All proceeds go back to the garbage workers for education, health care, etc. It kind of reminds me of the zabaleen of Mokkatam in Cairo. There is a book as well based on his work though it is only written in Portuguese. Muniz lives in New York and is a photographer, mixed media artist and performance artist. His medium is sometimes very ephemeral; some criticize him as not being original but I was suitably impressed. I got some good ideas for my Fulbright project about having our students create art with recycled trash or as someone termed it by "dumpster diving."
We went to an Asian Fusion restaurant after that called Soho where I had a great lunch of Robalo which translates to some sort of sea bass. Excellent! Today's lunch which we paid for wasn't so great but it was cheap. I had been complaining about too much salt in my food and so I got what I thought I wanted - absolutely no salt and no taste!
After yesterday's lunch we visited the Church of the Senhor do Bonfim - a place absolutely festooned with ribbons on the doors and fence. Multicolored ribbons printed with the words Lembanca do Senhor do Bonfim. You tie a ribbon around your wrist - some say you should wrap the ribbon around three times and you get three wishes. The ribbons are multi-colored and our hotels puts out a few different colored ones every day. Kids will approach tourists with these ribbons demanding a lot of money but you can get 22 ribbons for 1 $Real. We did a little shopping after that and still had time to go to the Modern Art Museum near the Bay of Salvador,
The Modern Art Museum was once the home of a wealthy guy - they showed us the area where the slaves were kept who worked there. I think he may have been in the sugar cane or cotton business. Anyway, the outdoor sculpture was OK, I took pictures. Not that impressed with the current exhibition but bought an assorted box of postcards with their permanent collection of Brazilian artist paintings.
This morning, Wednesday, we got to sleep later and didn't leave until 9:00 am. Our speaker was Livio Sansone, an ex-Sicilian anthropologist who has taught in Brazil for over 20 years. He gave a very interesting talk both in the minibus going into town and later after lunch in the conference room of the hotel. He took us into the upper part of Salvador and into the Franciscan Church. You know St, Francis was once rich and then took the vow of poverty and founded the Franciscans? Well, as soon as I entered the church, I gave an audible gasp. The interior was covered in gold leaf to the tune of 900 kilograms. The carvings and wood are of imported cedar from Lebanon. I have never seen so much gold. It is said that some of the Afro-Brazilian carvers took a lot of artistic license with carving the angels, making them male and female with some hermaphrodites, some with huge penises and some of the female angels visibly pregnant. I only wish we had had more time for me to find and photograph some of them.
Pelgy, one of my Fulbright buddies, brought me to a part of the church with the ex-votos - life sized wax legs, feet, arms, hands, and other body parts all hanging from the ceiling in big clusters. The walls of this room were covered with photographs of people who had been cured. Some of you know how much I love this sort of thing. I got some pretty good photos today as well - I was caught taking a photo of a Candomble dressed Afro-Brazilian woman so she agreed to pose with me for 2 $Rais which I figured was worth it. Then I bought a praline like coconut thing which the Afro-Brazilian women make in the street stirring vigorously and I asked to take her photograph. We have gotten into the routine of taking pictures of each other.
Tomorrow we take off for the beach town of Recife so Bom Viagem to me. I'm pretty much packed. It is 6:50 pm right now your time and 8:50 pm my time. As you can see, I'm only two hours ahead of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment