I was in the busy downtown of sweltering Goiania, a couple hours from Brasilia. It was a Greek restaurant, or so the sign said. The décor of the restaurant did indeed give a slight passing impression of the Mediterranean, although, the reality was pure Brasilian. It was exactly like the many “Brasilian” restaurants I saw in Spain that had nothing to do with Brasilian food. Maybe it is an American expectation that a themed restaurant should have the corresponding food. Regardless, the selection of food was wide-ranging and amazingly high quality for a buffet. The most amazing part was the price. My loaded plate had a large assortment of seafood, meats, salads, and fruits. I grabbed a Coke and it came out to a whole $4.50, including coffee afterward. That readily explained the other hundred or so people in the restaurant. I love how cheap food is here. I can even get my fill of sushi for $12.
I had gone traveling with Patrícia’s parents for a few days while she worked. The plan was that we would go ahead, making a few stops on the way to visit relatives, and she would meet us at the family’s farm for the weekend. I knew I was in for a lot of sitting around smiling and listening to conversations I could not understand. I was right, but it was better than it sounds. When I get fatigued trying to understand the discussion, I pay attention to nonverbal cultural details and surroundings. And to be fair, a few of her relatives speak English so I was able to talk quite a bit.
The stop in the religious town of Trindade was interesting. The town is dominated by a giant box-like cathedral on a hill, replete with long, twisting, freeway-style, elevated drive ramps to the font door. It is the site of a yearly pilgrimage and was sized to accommodate the occasional surging throngs of the devoted. The rest of the year, the under-decorated, voluminous box seems ridiculously out of place with its setting in the little lower-income town. The interesting part of the cathedral was the Room of Miracles underneath. First, there was an inexplicable display of general antiques ranging from old tv’s and typewriters to farming equipment. Second, there were tens of thousands of photographs of people, in various states of health, mounted on panels throughout the room. Some were before and after photos, others were only before shots. It looked as if some represented miracles and others were prayer for them. Lastly, two walls were covered with amateur paintings of violent accidents. There were machinery accidents, landslides, horse falls, fires, dog attacks…all violent and frequently bloody. Unfortunately, no one could explain the purpose of these “works of art” to me. I especially was baffled by the mural by the door in which a man in a normal looking religious scene is unperturbed by having his leg eaten by a dog. Weird.
