São Paulo

One of the things I like the most about São Paulo are these small bars or cafes around the city, sometimes completely out of the commercial areas, that offer nice small food. I like particularly those run by immigrants bringing delicious things from abroad.

I´ve just found this "Caminito" establishment where we can eat Argentineans Empanadas and drink a nice wine or a coffee, near home at the Planalto Paulista District.

São Luiz do Paraitinga

The rainny season of 2009 - 2010 brought many tragedies in the southeastern states of Brazil. Dozens of deaths in Rio de Janeiro State, just like it happened in the same period one year ago in the southern state of Santa Catarina, for the same reason, as it has happened, unfortunately, often.

São Luiz do Paraitinga, a town located in the hills of the Coast of São Paulo State, was almost completely destroyed by the rain, thunderstorm and flood on January 1st. It is a historical town that preserved a past of splendour from the coffee culture in the 19th century. Preliminary studies shows that 80% of the houses and constructions protected by the Historical Society came down. It seems to have 400 buildings that were protected because its architectural value. More than 300 probably don´t exist anymore or are enough damaged.

We visited the city in a hot and sunny day of December of 2005. I didn´t take a picture of the Main Church (180 years old) at the Central Square, because it didn´t fit in my camera´s angle. I didn´t take many pictures around town either, because I thought the city would always be there to be pictured. And now most of it is completely destroyed.

We walked all over the place in that ocasion, and saw the little girls, dressed up (The "pastorinhas" or "little sheperd girls"), keeping an old catholic tradition of singing while walking through the streets in order to visit the crèches (nativity scenes) that the families prepared in their living rooms. The people kept their doors opened and the girls would come in to see the crèches and pray. Some hostess served coffee and breads. We were invited (every one is) to come inside two houses to see the scene. It´s something we don´t find anymore in modern Brazil.

I walked endlessly until I found the house where lived, when children, the great Brazilian Geographer Aziz Ab Saber and his sister Nidia, also a professor at the University of São Paulo, who was a teacher of mine and a friend.

All we wonder now is how the city is going to come out of this tragic flood of the Paraitinga River.