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Monday, October 21, 2013

Brazil - Part 06: Let's play a bit with salt and colours!

Ooohh yeah, finally another post about Brazil, even though it feels like it is ages ago! I just don't have so much time to post about it every day.
So from time to time there will be another post from my time in Rio de Janeiro this summer as I volunteered for the Confederations Cup and adventured so many other stuff :)

So that day I went to a house of a friend from the family I stayed with, I was persuaded because her daughter is learning English, so we could practice^^ On the way there I thought, that this is quite the picture of Brazil you normally have about the rural areas from TV:

Dogs on roofs...just seen in Brazil so far ;)

So that day I was invited to a traditional religious event of Brazil which is called "Tapetes de Corpus Christi" boooya!^^ Which is a tradition from the Catholic Church in Portugal and Brazil.
This is basically a carpet made out of different materials, mixed with colours to make awesome pictures on the street in a row, mainly - of course - religious, like a picture of Jesus Christ or other symbols.


So there are groups of people, for example from the same church, thinking about a picture they put on a paper to make the tarpete onto. So here my friend is drawing the lines, which is already an adventure itself^^


So later that day, I think about 11pm probably, we went to the center of Sao Goncalo, where I stayed with my friends (see a map in this post). I don't know why so late, but normally it is that way and they make the "Tarpete" all night long until 2 or 3 am, depends on how long you need....


So there are loads of different groups, each making one of those carpets. Here everybody took salt, because there is a salt mine close and it is just the cheapest thing you get basically, obviously cheaper than sand... and easier to colour it ;)


At first I was a bit reluctant to take part... don't know why^^ Maybe I was a bit scared to do something wrong (you know my Portuguese is not the best, so is the English of most of them). But then it was really good fun! Especially when we were almost finished and you saw the result!


Stupid me I didn't took a picture of our finished master-piece of art, but as we walked around the street to look at the other ones, I found one particular awesome:




Who ever did this, has a total understanding of art and perspective and shadow and so on!!! Just gorgeous!!

So what is the reason behind that?? Didn't really get that point, but the next morning, about 9am I think??? The "main guy of the church" (you see, I am not so into that religion thing^^) is basically just walking OVER it and destroys it... awesome!
But we were just way too tired to get up so early to see that :/ Maybe next year, when I'll maybe come back^^

So this was a really interesting experience with really good fun! We should do something similar around London, but maybe without a religious sense behind it.... just for fun^^

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