On Friday our group visited some sites located in the historical section of Recife. One place that stood out was the catholic church Nossa Senhora do Carmo. Like many of the other older churches, this one had several heavily decorated altars where the wealthy families in Recife would sit by during mass.

While the picture is not the greatest, the details of the altar are still impressive, with the woodwork covered in gold leaf. One of the reasons that so many churches were decorated so heavily in gold was in order to keep the Portuguese from taking all of the gold mined in Brazil off to Portugal. By using it in the churches, Brazilians were able to keep a little of their own natural wealth.

During the month of June, there are several festivals and parties in Brazil known as the "Festas Juninas." They are especially popular in the Northeast, where people celebrate the birth of John the Baptist (São João) and the end of the corn harvest. During a festa junina, they play a style of music called forró, but there is also square-dancing where a leader calls out dance moves and the couples participating try to follow along. Foodwise, they typically serve corn pudding, corn cake, and pamonha (which looks sort of like a tamale and is also made of corn).
In the picture, Tawnya and I are standing in the cutouts for Lampião and Maria Bonita, famous folk heroes in the Northeast. Lampião became a type of Robin Hood for the region by stealing from the rich landowners, although I don't believe they did much to help the poor. Eventually one of the members of their group betrayed their whereabouts to the Sergipe state police and they were killed.

Due to the fact that we had mostly cooperative weather today, our group went to the Brennand Institute in Recife. There are three separate buildings: a castle museum, a gallery, and a library. Each contains art collections that focus on the time period when the Dutch had control of Recife.

This gate is at the entrance of the Institute. The lions guarding it are a symbol of the Dutch Royal Family.

Out of all the objects I saw at the museum, I think this one represents the Dutch occupation the best. They are goblets made of coconuts inlaid with silver. Under the control of Maurício de Nassau, the Dutch colonizers took the very raw and primitive Brazil and modernized it. Nassau helped the arts and culture in Brazil to flourish, similar to how the silver adds to the natural beauty of the carved coconut.

The museum also contains a HUGE collection of full size armor as you can see. There were also rooms full of swords, pikes, knives, daggers, pocketknives- basically any classical weapon you could think of from 16th and 17th centuries.

Today our study abroad group went to Olinda, which is a city just north of Recife. The older section of Olinda has many buildings, especially cathedrals, which date back to the mid-to-late 1500's. Catholicism definitely has had a large impact on Brazilian culture and it's easy to see why. Just in old Olinda we must have passed by at least 10 Catholic churches.

The church pictured above is Santo Antônio do Carmo, which was built in 1580. We also visited the monastery of São Bento. 

The altar is covered in gold leaf and weighs about 14 tons. It is also 13 meters tall. The painting on the ceiling shows the death of São Bento, who apparently was the only saint to die standing up. A few years ago the altar was transported to New York as an art exhibit. It is an early example of the Baroque style of art, which broke away from the classical style. As you can see below, the work on the altar has very fine details.

The work of art shown above is the first known Brazilian painting. It conveys feelings of pain and torment, as well as the desire imperfect humans have to make a connection with God. 

Originally, homes in Olinda didn't have addresses. The postman delivered letters according to the color of the house. Remnants of this tradition still persist, in that most Brazilians will use physical places to give directions instead of street names or numbers. For instance, they might say,  

 "Turn left at pharmacy,  I live in the green house on the right. "                                  

 

These are the original cobblestones first laid in the city. The black stones were called Negro's Head after the slaves who carried the stones from the beaches to the city hillsides.

From the newly constructed tower in Olinda you can see both the old city and Recife in the far background.

I believe that this is a costume some people wear in Olinda during Carnaval. During Carnaval, people from the region flood the city and meet at the main intersection where they dance, drink and just have a good time.

So today we went and met with the group here in Recife that we'll be working with for our internship. I think they're called CCJ and they work with recycling in the poorer communities here in Recife. We went and saw an art exhibit they have in Olinda. They take old clothes and objects that people have discarded and use them to create new objects of art. I didn't bring my camera today, so I don't have any examples to post, but I'll try to be better about taking pictures from now on.

What I like best about the exhibit were the photographs they took of people from the community and from the organization creating art from the trash the found around the river. 

There's so many people in this picture, it reminds me of Where's Waldo?