Sept. 11

The Brazilian countryside was our destination today. We took a nice air-conditioned bus out to farm communities and walked around. At all these style SAS tours we have transportation provided and a local guide to show us around. The market there was huge and selling all kinds of locally grown products like papaya, tomatoes, manioc, tobacco and various meats. We went to a farming community, which is part of a local farmers ownership program. The movement seeks to empower farmers and communities by providing them with their own land rather than large private landowners sharecropping the land out or in most cases leaving in undeveloped. We went to one of the co-ops which specializes in cacao growing along with their plots of subsistence farming. The cacao plant grows in these big pods and when you open in there’s this white pulp over the beans. The pulp tasted like a slimy sweet and sour candy sort of and the beans were really bitter. The final chocolate product, which was basically the cocoa powder with a little coconut packed together so it has an almost crumbly texture and lacks the milky favor associated with store bought chocolate. The Brazilian countryside was so green and hilly and pretty underdeveloped- lots of random livestock, crumbling buildings, dirt roads…
We went to the town/city of Cachoeira which was at one time the capital of Brazil in part because of its prominence as the center if the sugar plantations. It holds significance in the Brazilian fight for independence and is the heart of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble. It’s a colonial town that’s still fairly agricultural though you see random satellites for tv and cell phones on these crumbling Baroque architecture buildings. We went to various sites in town like a Candomble sisterhood center where women have joined together sort of like an abbey for the part Catholic and part African cult religion of Candomble. We also went to a cigar factory and museum, which actually smelled wonderful. We saw the women roll cigars in the traditional way and the long and somewhat complicated process, which adds value to the cigars and makes them expensive in the U.S. I obviously didn’t get any cigars but it’s always interesting to see what the local goods are, who makes them and who buys them. For example most of the tobacco growing labor is done by men, but the rolling and manufacturing is done by women and 80% of the cigars are exported out of Brazil.


Apparently it’s election time here in Bahia (the state of Brazil we are in) and the election process is a bit different here. On a side note people have come up to us and wanted to talk about the American presidential element often and all are Obama supporters. I’ve seen Brazilians with stickers, pins and T-shirts with Obama on them. Brazil actually has one of the most sophisticated ballot counting systems. It’s all on computers which have the candidates name, picture and the candidates election number and they use touch screens so illiterate people can vote. It’s mandatory to vote in Brazil and Brazil’s political system and many government system have major corruption problems but since the voting is computerized and extremely quick they’re created an almost fool proof electronic voting system. The campaigns are different too because as I said each candidate has a number so you see posters and graffiti with the name and the number like “Carlos Martinez 1415” on a wall. There are tons of big posters on the streets, on the sides of buses and on people’s car windows (like the entire back window is a color photo and name). Candidates and supporters’ cars covered with the picture and info drive around the city with speakers blasting music, which I guess are like the theme songs for the candidate. In a span of like 15 minutes in a major square like three candidates’ covered cars will drive by blasting the music.

While I wandered Bahia other people traveled to other parts of Brazil. SAS planned overnight trips of hiking, waterfalls, the Amazon and Rio de Janeiro. People can also travel independently as long as they are with other people though in this port I obviously elected to stay in the original port. This combination of port activities, SAS planned overnight excursions and independent travel possibilities are how the rest of the ports will also work. Tonight we left Brazil and headed out to the Atlantic. We have seven days until Namibia- 6 class days and one free day. I have to get use to the motion of the boat again. I already got sick though I’ve just medicated up again so hopefully it will be fine.

If anyone has good ideas for what to do for three days in Namibia or Cape Town (or for that matter any of the other ports) let me know!