Browsing through my CD’s I just came across Bnegao from Rio, who recently toured with Maga Bo as MC. Formerly he was singer of the hip hop rock band Planet Hemp, which was founded in 1993.

“Planet Hemp began attracting attention because their shows always ended up in big fights and confusion. In 1994 B Negão joined the group, they signed up to Sony Music and put out the disc Usuário, which shed light over the band and produced a number of hits, like Mantenha o Respeito and the polemic Porcos Fardados (or Pigs in Uniforms), criticizing police brutality. It went Gold. Planet Hemp has played along with big hip hop names, like Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill. The follow-up, Os Cães Ladram Mas a Caravana Não Pára, was made by the end of 1996 and went Platinum. Due to their engagement with legalization and their explicit lyrics, Planet Hemp has suffered a lot of legal distress. Seized albums, cancelled gigs and arrests are still part of the band’s routine.” (source www.cliquemusic.com)

Lateron Bnegao teamed up with his own band Os Selectores de Frequencia and toured Spain 2004. One song from their last album is like a freaky hybrid of hardcore rock and Baile Funk, which I think is a must for those of you collecting all this cheesy bad lyric Baile Funk from nowadays. Take a leap back in time, when Funky Carioca was just swapping over to Europe. And get a full version of the Funky Carioca History here!

Max

Here goes a little excerpt from his last posts about a funny ghost story among Taxi drivers in Belem.

Taxi Belém #6

As the ghost stories told by other drivers have caught my attention I keep asking the ones I come across and here another convo on the theme.

19:20 30/1, WSF UFRA – Cidade Folia.

“Ghost in Belém, yes, I know about her. Ha, I know where she´s buried. “

Me: What, where?

T.D: She´s lying in Santa Izabel. I know, because some drivers goes there every now and then to light a candle. Her name is Severena Rumana.

Taxi Belém #7

After googling Severena Rumana Belem I find out that she´s probably spelled Severena Romana and is so famous that there´s a film about her, if it is the same which I have to presume. How ever, it´s sure interesting and I keep asking and telling drivers about what I´ve heard so far.

14:00, 31/1, Hotel Santalice – Mst camp with secret whereabouts..

¨Hahaha, you´re mixing the stories. The one who got run over is another girl and Severena Rumana is the legend. The girl is the one stealing your money and leaves everyone frustrated. Or, wait, yeah she haunts the drivers who passes her ¨spot¨- where she got runover. ¨

Me: Have you seen them?

T.D: They don´t exist!! I´ve been driving for 32 years, trust me boy, they don´t exist. I´ve never seen them.

Me: Fair enough, you´ve experienced anything strange apart from un- existing ghosts? 32 years is a lot of memories right!?

T.D: Eh, yeah, I once, about 15 years ago when I drove a VW beetle, picked up a pregnant woman hitchhiking to the hospital. Suddenly she screamed to me ¨STOP!¨ and right after hitting the brake I was delivering a baby. Inside my own car. I´ve been running as a ambulance several time saving kids and pregnant women.

And here comes a new travel report from the far South of Brazil. Max is travelling around and doesn’t seem to come back. At least that’s what he last said. Even squat movements in Sweden and his future career as a graffitti artist in Sweden don’t seem to appeal too much to him right now. Oh well, globalization…

The spectacle has just begun and we´re gathering in the front to watch it. This is not any sunset, it´s the sunset. The sky is covered with different shades starting from the depth of a dark brown cloud which eventually fades into deep purple outlined by fuchsia edges. Closing into the epicentre of this light show the clouds gets grey pink and at one stage they´re all clear pink. Just before turning peach and changing spectra entirely going from orange to white with the grande finale hidden by the landscape, fortunately, approximately 300 meters ahead quite a bend is located. Which will allow our boat to float exactly where where the best view for the last episode is available and, needless to say, the revelation of the whole gig.

We´re on the Amazon river, departing in Belém and heading for Santarém. It´s my third time in a vessel like this on the very river. The people travelling here by boat go for various reasons and there are always some backpacking gringos on board. The category I find myself filed under.

Hippie new-ageism seems to not be only the culture of the backpackers around, but the obligatory lifestyle; carrying a heavy rucksack equals sporting a Rasta inspired bracelet, multi coloured t-shirts and at least one tattoo (go get one in case you plan to do a journey). The origin of the majority is South America in general, mostly big cities such as Caracas, Buenos Aires and São Paulo. Travelling clandestine with enough money to roam the jungle for at least a couple of months you can tell they´re at least upper middle class and do have a stable background. Go rob a hippie and you´ll find out for yourself so to
say. My point is not whether it´s a good deal robbing hippies or not but the very fact that this group is, at least in theory, the most educated one on the riverboats. Considering this fact, and the whole hippie mentality, I find it really odd seeing a German rastafari tossing a coke bottle into the river. He´s not alone.

Yeah, I find it as repulsive when seeing a priest throw his whole aluminium plate into the brown water. I get the same reaction when I discover our boats cleaning policy: which is simply to throw all un-wanted material into the river. I just sigh when I find out that the villages along the Tapajós, probably the Amazon as well, use the shore as dumpster. All this though, believe it or not, is some what logic and digestible (link:http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/02/09/two_cultures_of_recycling/index.html).Education has something to do with it. The very same education that most likely gave the german rasta inspiration to his way of living and all the other hippies on board. That is what can make one start off whining like this.

Visiting Peru and Bolivia, following the backpackers unwritten main path (Salar de Uyuni, La Paz, Titicaca, Cusco and Lima), the behaviour repeats itself. Eh, add more litter and more hippies to be more accurate.

Climbing the andes in a rusty old bus is quite an experience, for each peak climbed new ones are to be seen and the horizon shifts rapidly. We, the passengers – the hippie backpacking ones, are sitting with our faces glued to the windows chewing coca (link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca) and/or local sweets. The wrappers and the accompanied bottles goes out of the windows. I tilt my head to keep track of a plastic bag but instead stop and stare along the ditches where piles of the mentioned runs as if rain was multi coloured. An Israeli girl in front of me shoots some pictures of the horizon before the sky line gets bothered with the suburbs of La paz and the obvious littering. She seems content with the results and by the angle of the action I´m sure there´s no signs of human presence. As asked for.

A silent countdown is being held and cameras are being switched on as we´re about to make the bend and enjoy the climax of this sunset. Cluck! A bottle gets tossed into the water. Click! Flash after flash goes off.

“You never know, you never know with these things…”

My Swedish collegue Max from Barcelona just went off to Santarem, Brasil, to give some video workshops to the kids down there, together with three other friends. They work together with an organization that offers a lot of different social projects in Brasil, and they are part of the video section. Since it’s amazing to have someone directly down there, I asked him to provide me with some info about “how life in Santarem” really is. He runs his own blog called www.greenerthanparadise.wordpress.com too, but agreed to support me with more text info directly here. Well, here goes the first story.

A little travel story from the South!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

This is Santarém.

09:15.

The sounds of the city starts off around 6.00 and is more handy than a regular alarm; you get to snooze for a while but the heat and especially the noices from buses, moto-taxis, cars and radios definitly wakes you up in a few.

In general the breakfast consists of a cup of coffee and pastry, or at least what i´ve seen so far since i´ve woken up much later than the average citizen. After downing a cup of the way to sweet coffee it´s time to hit the streets.

Normally people go either by bus, moto-taxi or taxis and there´s not that many pedestriants around. The sidewalks are really poor and the sun´s undescribably hot that it turns the unshaded areas into melting pots. You´re actually able to spot lots of beer caps and other metallic items stuck in the road looking like urban fossils. People don´t necessarily go out in broad daylight but when doing so you can see women passing with umbrellas or people resting every 20 meters under a mango tree.

If not staring the whole walk into your coco water you´ll be able to see iguanas, different types of lizards, rats, vultures, stray dogs and cats hiding in the green areas along the so called sidewalks.

The lunch is supposed to be the most important meal among brazilians according to our portuguese teacher Eddy but I can´t completly agree on that after having a couple of meals here. Anyway, he´s brazilian and i´m not, grilled fish with rice, beans, lettuce and some farofa is a typical plate during the lunch hours.

As the afternoon comes on more cars and pedestriants are filling the streets but it´s not the regular rush hour we´re talking about. The school classes are scheduled either on breakfast hours or during the afternoon so obviously lots of them are running around in frenzy or hiding under mango trees. And it seems to me as if the school´s not alone on this schedule; construction workes, billboard painters, waitors and likewise are mixing with the usual crowd. Lots of people uses bicycles as transports and during these hours it´s not totally surprising site seeing an entire family on one single bike.

When done working lots of people drag out rocking chairs, crates and other “sitting devices” on their front porch or in the middle of the street and just relax as the sun sets. There are some who actually bring out a whole churrasco, grill, and invites by-passers to join for a few reais. The meat is good and you get a whole dinner for less than 2 usd on these barbeques.

The smell of grilled meat wakes the dogs all over the city or, perhaps, it´s the lack of burning sun that is the actual culprit. Anyway, while walking you need to pay attention to upcoming fences or at least be aware of sudden surprises. The dogs chew saliva as if suffering from rabies and barks at anything. As one dog starts off barking the whole neighbourhood is quickly turned in to a concert or noice filled hell, depending on the spectator, of dogs barking. The dogs are being accompanied by crickets who are a quieter and, to weigh things up, a lot more longlasting.

Digesting requires cachaça or a dozens of beer, at least if you pay attention to the local boys. Fernando and Mar explains some customs to me and Bill when we, randomly, happened to stop at their corner shop.

“One bottle of decent cachaça is 4Rs. (2 Usd)” says Mar while pouring up another plastic cup for his friend Fernando. The scent of hot Cachaça is awful and the taste on a hot sunday night doesn´t change my opinion. I asked them what there´s to do on a sunday night and Fernando, a bit tipsy to say the least, explains:

“There are lots of parties around, one on Phoenix tonight… We usually drink cachaça like this and then get together with a bunch of friends for soccer at the square or down by the beach. When sweaty we get some ice cold beers and have some more cachaça.”. By the look of his 20yr old face I can tell that there´s some truth in that quote even though the macho way of dictating it reveals some good old bragging.

After a long day a taxi is helpful for your feet blistered from the first week wearing flip-flops. Or just because you´re a lazy gringo with way too much money. Anyway, the cab drivers in this town can be divided into two groups; the ones who´ll take you on an unguided and unwanted gringo sightseeing letting you pass everything but your requested direction. And then, fortunenatly, there are the ones, in fact the majority, who are really helpful and proud to know their city as the inside of their pockets and drives with admirable accuracy. When going with the latter you still get to see things but this time with an actual guide who´ll present every important building you´ll pass.

“They´re constructing a shopping centre here, the first one in Santarém!” explains Ignacio while passing a construction site. Curious I therefore respond:
“When will it be finished?”
“Nobody knows, you never know with these things..”

We pass a pick-up with girls standing on the back of it pounding the rhytm of Forro music onto it´s roof. Another cachaça bottle is opened in some part of this town and my hammocks is more tempting than ever.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Language difficulties

So three of us has finally found a good house here in Santarém and the usual stuff is missing out such as furniture and so on. Since we´re staying for just a few months there´s no need of getting anything fancy, or at least we´ve got a silent agreement on that. After looking around for tables and chairs in different stores the plastic ones seemed most tempting.

There´s a radical overpopulation of plastic chairs in almost every bar so when having a cold Brahma the other day we believed that we´ve stumbled on what would be the treasure chest of the day; the bar was offering tables and chairs according to a sign. We waived over the waitor for another beer and a confirmation of the offer.

“Are we able to buy some chairs and a table here?”
“Yes.”
“How much are they?
“The table? 20rs.”

In swedish we consider this to be the best deal so far and probably the cheapest table in the state which raises suspiciousness among us and another round of questions to confirm the offer.

The deal remains solid and the beers keep coming. As the clock strikes bedtime we order the check and ask for our new furniture. In return we get, not one but, two notes. First off, not that surprising, our check and second a small flyer with a picture of an old man with an ill suited microphone. It turned out that our expectations of getting a table was just bogus; there was no physical tables at sale just the seats for a couple´s night accompanied by the guy with the mic.

All out // Max.