Brazilian Christmas

The Brazilians don't trade many presents during Christmas, preferring to have family/friends gatherings centered around "churrascos," or meat roasted on a spit. Some will offer huge churrascos, like Sr. Joaquim Miranda, one of the old coronels who took possession of thousands of acres of land around Barra do Bugres back in the late 1940's and early 50's.

Sr. Joaquim had two churrascos a year – Christmas and Easter. At one of his Easter parties, his help came to him to say that they were running out of meat to serve the guests. Without looking up, Sr. Miranda said, "Well, butcher another steer, then. What's the problem?" That was the spirit years back.

One Christmas I had four new volunteers staying at my house. They were finishing up their training, and the Peace Corps director sent them to me to experience Brazil from ground level.

So the five of us went to Sr. Joaquim's churrasco, where we ate and drank as much as we physically could. The ranch was to the south of Barra do Bugres, across the Rio Paraquai from town.

When we arrived back after the party, we found that the middle of the old wooden bridge had washed downstream. The bridge had been threatening to collapse for a year, creaking and wobbling when larger vehicles crossed. We spent over two years without the bridge, using a series of ever larger ferries to get vehicles back and forth to the few towns on the north side of the river.

I parked the vehicle on the far side, and we negotiated the planks, walking the mile to my house. I told my new volunteers that they were going to experience something special the next day. I needed my jeep for work, so I had to make a three-hundred mile circle and get to Barra from the north. It would take all day, but they would get to see the Serra de Aparecis, the huge plateau that separates the southern Amazon drainage from the northern tributaries of the Rio Paraguai. They were enthused.

So the next day we walked down to the river and across the devastated bridge. We piled into the little jeep and I headed due south on roads so bad I had seen bus drivers stop their buses and refuse to drive them, and only did so when threatened with a beating by the passengers.

The volunteers became quiet when I told them that we had almost 300 miles to go in a rough and dusty little jeep. I assured them that we were going to have a wonderful day to remember.

It took three hours to reach Jangada, a small, dirty settlement where the road split, going to the Serra then south to Barra do Bugres. We only had 200 miles of rocks and dust until we were home.

I turned the Jeep north onto a rough road filled with huge trucks hauling to the Amazon. The road was littered every km or so with the shards of broken windshields.

The canvas cab of the jeep leaked, so we sat in thick dust, borne on exhaust fumes which gave us all a headache. The jeep was quiet.

Finally we started climbing up the plateau and my companions became more animated. But the plateau had no more to offer than the lower cerrado – just miles and miles of dry earth and small trees.

There are a number of small towns on the road across the mesa. I gave my crew tours of Diamantino, Nortelandia, Alto Paraguai, and Arenapolis, all gold and diamond towns years back.

We finally arrived in Arenapolis, where we could turn south for the last 60 kms. It was there that my guests' lives got even more tedious. I've written of Nolan, who married a girl from Arenapolis, and I stopped at his in-laws' house to say hello.

Nolan happened to be there. For some time we only saw each other once or twice a year, if that, so when we did meet, the party was on. Nolan's father-in-law had a tiny little bar, so Nolan and I settled in to visit and drink. The new volunteers would drink, but not like Nolan and I. To add to their misery, Nolan and I spoke only Portuguese when we were together, so they were left out of the conversation. They were restless to get home and gave me some ugly stares.

After two or three hours, we crawled back into the little jeep and headed for Barra, about an hour away. We had a lot of jungle and mud to negotiate, and my companions got to see the tropics, albeit by dirty headlights.

They were scheduled to stay with me for a week, but next day they packed their bags and I hauled them to the early bus for the six-hour ride to Cuiabá. It was a very cold leave taking, but I'm sure they still remember that Christmas.