Venice of Brazil

I guess I should explain the name of this blog. Recife is marketed as "The Venice of Brazil" due to the many rivers and canals in the city. Most people in Recife mock this as the "venéreo de Brasil" (venereal). According to a friend of ours who works in the field of water treatment, only about 20% of the city (total pop: 3 million people) is on the sewer system. And the rest? You guessed it. They even have a riverboat catamaran tour that they promote as a tourist attraction. I have thought about it, but then I smell the river from about a block away.

Nevertheless, at the right time, in the right light, and from a safe distance, it can be quite beautiful. In Recife Antiguo, there is a place with a nice lookout over the river with the colonial buildings in the background, and if you squint your eyes a little, it could be Venice--kind of. The buildings in Recife Antiguo are amazing, and they are just waiting for you to discover them for the first time. Some have been restored, the majority haven't. Their neglect makes them and Recife what they are. It is a trip back in time without fancying it up for the tourists.

Sunday is my favorite day in Recife. I think last week I said that it was the only day I like Recife--about 52 days of the year. There is no traffic and it is possible to ride your bike anywhere without fearing for your life. Bus fare is half price and the city just feels calm. You can breathe and feel the city breathing. Last Sunday reminded me of a warm September day in New Mexico. There is a feeling in the air--a feeling I can only relate to being in New Mexico during my favorite time of year with chile roasting, warm days, cool nights, barbeques, driving around with the windows open, and a slight cool breeze under the warmth of the sun. We rode our bikes down in Recife Antiguo to Marco Zero. From there you can see the reef and the port. The reef has a lot of interesting sculptures by Brennand and a path that you can ride your bike on that eventually leads to Pina beach. The guys in the rowboats will take you and your bike over there for R$1.50. We went to the artesian fair in plaza arsenal and ate a coxinha (chicken wrapped in dough shaped like a teardrop that is deep-fried--delicious!), and finished off the day by riding around and taking photos of graffiti and a quick stop at the bookstore. That is one of the things that makes life wonderful in this crazy town.

Tomorrow is another Sunday (yeah!) and we are going to paint graffiti at the mutirão de graffiti. It is held on the last Sunday of every month at a different neighborhood in and around Recife. The mutirão is one of the events that the Rede de Resistencia Solidaria organizes. Different members of the Rede host the mutirão in their neighborhoods. It is part of the community liberation movement. It is a chance to connect all of these communities together and dialogue about different issues. They are working on making their own clothes, running their own stores, starting community gardens, and creating self-sufficient communities that don't have to depend on the city and the formal economy to get by. The Rede works on a horizontal structure--it is not an NGO or an organization; it is a collective of people who want to see things change in society. I think that we are going to a neighborhood in Olinda...but I am not sure.