Assentamento Zapata

Supporting nearly 60 families, Assentamento Zapata is a small, struggling farming community which has become the direct result of social declaration exerted by Landless Movement affiliates. Situated nearly 20 km east of the city of Ponta Grossa, the 620 hectares which encompass the settlement has been occupied for nearly six years without the inhabitants obtaining the legal title of the land. After just recently straightening out legal ties with surrounding large scale farming operations, the government has approved the surveying and mapping of this land in order for it to became an established assentmanto. Because the settlement has not been able to gain title to the land up until this point, the families have not been able to receive any source of governmental funding for agricultural practices, and were left to accumulate financial endowments through personal practices. The primary production has been concentrates on corn and soy beans, but with objectives to use newly developed sustainable agriculture methods, the members of this community plan to collectively cultivate a variety of organic vegetables as well. Our first task, after discovering an appropriate irrigation system, was to build an organic compost primarily of cow consisting of fresh cow manure and last years corn husks. Nothing welcomes you to a new place better than shoveling a healthy six hours of hearty cow manure with your bare hands. Although this work was hardly appetizing, it was satisfying and filled me up on my fare share of dirty laundry.

Celio Rodrigues, a leading member of the Landless Movement, sits in his home sipping a cuia as I was able to speak to him about his influence in the largest social movement in Brazil.

Meu favorito.

Today I picked avocados as big as your head right from the tree, juggled oranges, and managed to eat the best, and only, papaya ice cream of my life. Dear God, my productivity level is heavily increasing.

A cidade das luzes.

I am currently living in the prosperous city of lights; Ponta Grossa, Paraná, Brasil. It is not a charming city, but it serves it’s purpose well. Ponta Grossa, comprised of 300,000 inhabitants, is home to several universities, and is the primary hub for agricultural industries in the Campos Gerais region. My home has become a small collective dormitory like building that houses nearly 30 other students. My single room is equipped with a dresser, desk, and bed, as well as paper thin walls that offer the soothing sensation of the particularly boisterous boy adjacent to me. Almost as if he is breathing on my neck, I feel his presence upon me. Although I rarely see him, and have never spoken to him, I have become quite acquainted with his living habits. When I do see him, it is primarily masked by the shadows, for he is the most rare and exotic animal I have come across thus far upon my travel. He has recently taking a liking to the band Creed, listening and attempting to play their songs on guitar for a minimum of 4 hours a day. Other melodic jams which accompany me as I lay in bed in an attempt to fall asleep include “Carry on My Wayward Son” by Kansas and Alice Cooper’s infamous “I’m 18”. These facts only further develop my hypothesis that the country of Brazil is stuck in a past wave of American music and media. Although this data does not personally confirm my presumptions of the era being the 1980’s, I have never met as many people that enjoy 80’s hairs bands living this close in proximity to one another. It is just fascinating, however, I did not come to this foreign country to examine the current fads in Brazilian culture, but rather to develop better and more productive farming methods for family farming communities linked to the largest social movement in South America, The Landless Movement (MST). I am currently working on three different assentamentos, family farming settlements, which vary in both size and successfulness. It is interesting to compare and contrast the differences from the more established assentamentos, to the just recently formed, still not legal, Assentamento Zapata. I hope to further research the social struggle which these inhabitants have undergone, and how better methods of production and legislation can further advance their quality of living.

Pickled Pineapples

“I just don’t know what to do, I have so many different options. I am stuck in such a pickle”

In Portuguese there are two ways of describing a difficult situation by using fruits and vegetables. The first way, similar to the English language, is as follows:

Meu deus, eu tenho um pepino resolver.

The other, and my personal favorite, relates the peeling of a pineapple to the hardship of performing a difficult task or having the chore to make a decision:

Eu não posso, tenho um abacaxi para descascar.

It's only natural that a country which has so many different types of fruit use it in their slang. This has been my favorite discovery of the Portuguese language yet, only further aging myself into the old man which I have often been percieved as. Not many youngsters have been describing their problems with pineapples apparently. For shame.

Até uma outra vez que grande cidade

Monday morning I was on a bus heading for the rural city of Ponta Grossa. This is the view I saw as I leaned up against the window at 8:00 in the morning. It was an eight hour bus ride, and quite the transition from the largest city in Brazil, to one of the most heavily farmed regions in the country. As I looked at the city of São Paulo rising in the morning, I was baffled at the amount of space and people that it inhabited . The diversity is clearly the most noticeable part, for each neighborhood is extremely different from the next. From the prosperous business district of Avenida Paulista to the lively neighborhood of Vila Magdalena to the favelas which surround the city, São Paulo is crawling with an assortment of different breeds.

The second night in the city I had been taken to the classiest bar I had ever stepped into. The bar was situated on top of a hotel that was shaped like a ship, and for only R$ 840 a night, this beautiful hotel could be all yours equipped with a double bed and warm running water. It was a completely different experience from what I am used to, and the balcony offered magnificent views of this endless city. In every direction you looked there were buildings that seemed to stretch fro here to Chicago. I sat in the hotel, contently sipping my cachaça, soaking in this urban jungle as well as the 47% alcohol content this strong beverage offered. And now I sat looking at the favelas which seemed to stretch for miles. The separation of class is very evident throughout the city, yet the majority of people clearly reside in unhealthy living conditions. Although it was a sad way to say goodbye to São Paulo, it was reality. My journey ahead awaited long winding roads through the campos, small hilly regions, and thick forested regions, followed by small stops in rural villages. On the bus, I prepared myself to get ready for the ranch life I was soon to experience.

Comida para o pensamento.

It was my last day in São Paulo, a Sunday. Most places of business are closed on Sundays, but I managed to have a wonderful day walking around the once lively, and now abandoned, city. I went to a market in the Praça da Republica, which featured a variety of art vendors including such works of carvings, paintings, and various types of rocks. There was a great variety of food vendors as well, and I could not help but devour the best looking, and tasting, lime tart I had ever had. My eating habits were improving as my speaking capabilities enhanced. I learned that in order to eat, I must speak. After the first few days of light eating, due to the mere uncertainty and fear of trying to order food, I could now order my food with dignity and confidence. I am growing up, as I am now able to feed myself. Not only was my Portuguese improving, but I was learning about standard Brazilian cuisine as well; rice, beans, and ungodly amounts of meat. The previous day, I had gone to lunch at a local restaurant, ravished with hunger from hardly eating the day before. Colette, my companion for the feast, and I were about to learn a thing or two concerning the expected meal portions. After not recognizing anything on the menu, we decided on the one thing we did know, Feijoada, a traditional Brazilian meal consisting of pork and beens. Because this ever unique meal takes a considerable amount of time to cook, it is traditionally served one day out of the week. It was our lucky day. There were three options of course sizes: large, medium, small. Just to be safe, I went with the medium, as to not seem like to much of an American. Little did we know, Feijoada is an extremely large meal, and is expected to be shared between several people. We doubled down, and each ordered the R$ 14 meal for ourselves. So here we were, white, American and hungry, with two large portions of Feijoada and just barely enough room for the two large pitchers of juice we each ordered. The meal was satisfying, and could have fed roughly six people comfortably. At least I didn’t have to speak up for another meal for a while.

Casa doce casa

This was my place of residence for the next three nights, Hotel Rivole. It was in a decent neighborhood, Praça da Republica, and quite close to the metro. Although I was terrified of my own shadow after dark, I managed to walk these streets as if they were my own. The room was small, but sufficient. It had two twin beds, a private bathroom, and came with a complimentary breakfast, oh my. The trechorous hike to the third floor proved to be difficult with a 67 pound bag, but after the first attempt, I became quite acquainted with these narrow halls. I often had to go down and up again, as I would forget how cold it was in Brazil. Its percieved as a tropical wonderland, equiped with coconuts and palm trees, but it gets rather cold in the winter, and sweaters are a necessity. None the less, this $R 59.00 a night suite managed to far exceed my expectations, and proved to serve its purpose quite well as a small sleeping nook.


Accompanied by three fairly large bags, a foreign accent, and a baseball cap, I was quickly tagged as the American the minute I walked in. After abruptly knocking a picture off the wall, and taking two trips to get my oh so necessary luggage up the stairs, I comfortably settled into my room. As I fumbled over my words in an attempt to ask the attendant where a restaurant was, what was the time, or where to get a beer, the confused man behind the desk could not help but smile and nod. In a helpless effort to practice my Portuguese, I realized something, I need a lot of work. For all they knew I was speaking German with my horrendous accent. After a few days of listening to the language, my main method of communication, hand gestures, had slowly faded. People in public places began to understand me slightly better, and just as I got the city language down, I left for the country.