Ciudade de Alegria
Posted in Quote of the Day on Dec 14th, 2008
“Yes, it is violent. But there’s also happiness and music, that more than compensates” – A resident when talking about Rio de Janeiro
Monthly Archive for December, 2008
Finding Community in Panambi
Posted in Brazil on Dec 10th, 2008
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With Dalva |
Visiting Panambi – Community – A talk. (Map this!)
“Panambi?, Where’s that?” The immigration officer at the border at Saõ Borja asked us. Panambi is a small town of 30,000 people in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The residents are mostly German immigrants, the Portuguese spoken here varies quite a bit from the language we heard in the Northern states of Mato Grosso do Sul and Parana. Set in a hillside among trees, the town with its German architecture is quite pleasing.
Utopia: Guarani Missions of South America
Posted in Brazil on Dec 4th, 2008
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Madonna |
Utopia – Happiness – Jesuit Missions – Seductive idea
According to the Cambridge dictionary Utopia is defined as “a state where everyone is happy”. All of us may not agree with this definition, since the word is quite overloaded and seems to be interpreted differently by almost everyone I talked to. The Colombia Encyclopedia defines Utopia as “an ideal state where all is ordered for the best for humanity as a whole and where the evils of society, such as poverty and misery, have been eliminated”. Already we have significant disagreement between these two widely used and respected sources; the first is tautologically equivalent to unreachable, while the second may perhaps be achieved through very hard work.