Dulce et Decorum est Promoção Mori

Not as good as a mega, but decent all the same.

Promoção! Promoção! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,

Refreshing GOL – The Intelligent Airlines website just in time; 


But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 


And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Every few months Brazilians hit the hay early and excited. Young couples, aflutter with anticipation, sellotape their Visa or Master to each other’s palms before bed. Any advantage is welcome. Tomorrow is a big day and an early start will need to be had. The wilier ones don’t even go to bed, preferring to wait and get the bounce on the groggy. They’ve been burnt before.

You see, tomorrow there is a Promoção! on GOL – The Intelligent Airlines with deals so incredible that aliens will probably make contact just to get in on it. However, bleary-eyed gombeens with access to previously unattainable credit will immediately buy up the 4 seats that have been set aside for the national sale. They’ll have been hitting refresh while others were sleeping, waiting to be first, impatient to share news of their prowess at the office.¹

The deal is this. You pay for the outward leg of your trip and you get the return leg for R$1.

Thanks GOL, you think, you guys are great.

But wait, what’s this? The price of the outward-bound flight is twice the price it normally is. Shome mishtake, shurely? They wouldn’t do that. So you check another route. And then another and realize the bastards are in fact on the swindle. But then again, so are 97% of businesses in Brazil.

Recife-Sampa: Day of Sale

Strangely, this seems to go largely unnoticed amongst the populace, who are still throwing their newfound cash around like the sausage factory worker who won the lottery and just had to have a swimming pool in his kitchen (or vice versa). Once the word Promoção! is uttered the recently financially enfranchised reach for their plastic, eager to avail of some super mega fantastico Promoção! that can be divided up in 12 easy monthly installments that will make their friends jealous and impoverish them. ²

Mass stampedes have been known to occur on the hallowed turf of the Brasileiro, the Shopping, where there are always enough Promoções! to provide a fix, be they mega ones or just super ones. One of the genuinely great things about Brazil is that the locals will always try to help, even if they frequently know absolutely nothing about the subject at hand. In many ways it is like Ireland. Since the economy started booming, the banks realized what a good idea it would be to give access to credit to anyone who wandered into the bank, regardless of credit history (and even if they were lost or just taking shelter from the rain). Again, parallels with Ireland. However, whereas in Ireland access to credit was cheap, here in Brazil it is dizzyingly expensive. Banks will send you credit cards with generous limits even if you don’t have an account there (Bradesco). Others (Itaú) will surprise you with an unsolicited Visa to complement your MasterCard. Both charge crippling interest rates and like the supermarkets that proffer you a club card, offer little incentive for the consumer in return. ³

Recife-Sampa: Day after sale

One of the side effects of such a cavalier economic approach is the PTs (Promoção! Tremens), which share some characteristics with the DTs (Delirium Tremens). If the victim hasn’t had access to a Promoção! for 24 hours their hands start to shake uncontrollably. After 36 hours they can be found trying to insert their credit cards into any object with buttons and babbling like a lunatic about ‘good deals’ and ‘so-and-so will be jealous when they hear'. But this rarely happens. Being such a friendly country someone will always help out. A kind whisper from a stranger with news of a shop that has a Promoção! not far away will usually placate the sufferer and concentrate their mind enough to get to the shop safely. It may be noted that like the frantic alcoholic who doesn’t care what type of drink it is he's being poured the promoçãoólico is oblivious to what he is buying.

Sexy Easter Sales at the local puteria.

The lack of an empowered regulating body seems to be the culprit. As does an ingrained fear of inflations past. Things that shouldn’t, keep their value - like 20-year-old cars and dead fridges. Though perhaps there has been a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the word Promoção! Westerners will be accustomed to sales which involve a discounting of the stated price, which itself has been static for a set period of time. It seems that Brazilians understand it as a chance to pay even more for your goods. And any opportunity to display wealth must be availed of. Them’s the rules.

Look at me, I can afford to pay 40% more for this here [insert product] because I am considerably richer than you.

Supermarkets are by far the worst offenders. Extra, whose prices fluctuate wildly on what seems like an hourly basis anyway, are the king of the false Promoção! They have special midweek offers that promise to put a substantial dent in your weekly shopping bill. Lovely bright signs are hung up with great difficulty (in general) – remember all those silly work accident videos you’ve laughed at, well they are no cause for mirth here. ⁴

Brazilian style sales.

The customer is bombarded with just how spectacular the discounted lettuce is, never mind the eight centavos you’re saving on every kilo of batatas inglesas. ⁵ If you only shop on these days then you’d be none the wiser. By treating their customers like idiots, the customers behave in kind, like particularly stupid sheep. A kilo of poor little chicken fillets that costs R$8.78 in the Promoção! will set you back R$7.09 on non-sale days. Similar slyness abounds with products being labeled with so many prices that they would confuse a calculator. What chance then does a Recifense have, being famously renowned for not understanding the concept of numbers? Any man with a drop of fair play in him would straighten his shoulders, breathe deeply and declare -

There are shenanigans afoot in this here supermarket I tell you! Shenanigans!

In a society where the consumer has rights, this would be a normal course of action. But this isn’t such a place. Consumer rights are as dirty a word as communist was in 1950s America or Protestant was until quite recently in southern Ireland. When making a purchase, the onus is on the customer to have the correct change, otherwise the transaction may not take place. Pernambuco Gypsy has often been asked for change while cashing cheques in banks.

Nothing is sacred.

But a consumer class that accepts being charged astronomical prices for products and services that even a Russian oligarch would think twice about can have little to complain about. Once the price is associated with the word Promoção! all critical faculties seem to switch off. ⁶ This is a country where it can be cheaper to fly to another continent and back (and still be left with change) to buy an iPhone. Unless of course you manage to get one of those mythical GOL – Linhas aéreas inteligentes promotions that hide in the ether and dance on the wind.

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory, 


The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Promoção mori.

– Wilfredo Owen

¹ Incidentally these occasions are possibly the only time public sector workers arrive early in Brazil, their productivity is unaffected mind.

² Whiskey, cat food, possibly cats, washing machines, socks and other fabulous products can be bought over the course of a year. Last years Easter egg payments will overlap this years due to Easter being earlier this year. 

³ Supermarket club cards double up as another credit card that you can only use in the store!

⁴ For the average ‘working’ nordestino potential death dozes around every corner. The variety of ways the Pernambucano can muster up to accidentally do away with himself is another blog post onto itself.

⁵ There are no 1 or 2 cent coins in Brazil, so these supermarket-marketing mandarins really are clever fuckers indeed.

⁶ This also happens with the words Deus, Jesus, futebol, mulher linda and popozuda.

⁷ Pernambuco Gypsy’s favourite Promoção! was the coconut promotion of 1 January 2011. The price of coconuts had increased overnight from R$2 to R$2.50, presumably because the World Cup was a little closer. All the kiosks along the beach had hastily constructed signs - Promoção! Coco R$2! - in what smacked of price fixing. 

If you don't have at least 6 of these you are a loser.

Photos not my own.

The 'Working' Classes

Class IV -  Idler - Indistinguishable from Brush

An early morning stroll around the waking streets of Recife allows one to categorize its citizens into four distinct groupings. Firstly, there is the motorized classes, who after a hearty breakfast prepared by a peasant, get the elevator down to the sub solo and prepare for the day with a good five minutes of dry beeping and a litany of excuses as to why they won’t be as productive as they should be. If you halt outside one of the high rises you can hear the monkish chants of

Jeitinho brasilEIRo…. Jeitinho brasilEIRo

Then, like lithe greyhounds snarling to get at a hare, their porteiros open the traps and they scramble out onto the street determined to get to work as fast as they can. Bulling their way onto the road with the manic rage of a greyhound whose just had his testicles squeezed, no one is safe, least of all those in close proximity to roads.

Class I

The second social stratum is the unfortunate bus taker. They congregate around bus stops that are occasionally marked, spilling onto the street with the lethargic ooze of a burst Sicilian volcano. Tight slacked offices boys compete for space with large bottomed ladies holding big hospital x-rays. Receptionists with hair pulled back so far you would have fraught visions of what they must look like in the evenings when they relax. Perhaps they all go to a large open space, unclip their hair and let their faces deflate like a grounded hot air balloon. Unless they get promoted, they’ll enter a vicious circle of spending every last penny of their disposable income on freezing their faces, neglecting other vital womanly areas until it is too late.

Brazilians are great flaggers down of buses. Approaching this swelling mass from a distance one could be forgiven for thinking it could take off at any moment such is the synchronized hand flapping. Like a flock of migrating birds, they shimmy and dart in unison all in the hope of getting to work before their car driving overlords. Packed as tight as a busload of Italian men with swindled discount coupons going to a Mothers Day Sale at an out of town retail village, their thoughts are fixed along gendered lines. * The men on how to look sexy/how much sugar to put in the plastic coffee flasks and the women on how to parry (or not) the inevitable sexual advances that will come their way before their bosses tire from a three hour lunch and much work dodgery.

Class II

Group three consists of the cart hauling class. The lucky ones go to the beach, while their hardier cousins haul their health and safety disapproved wagons into the city centre to fry artery clogging snacks for the bus taking masses. Hottie Doggies (hot dogs), X-burgies (cheese burgers), deep fried French fries and a heart attack of fried pastries give off a wonderful hungry smell that wafts down the hot and narrow alleys before being sucked into offices through dripping air conditioning machines to even further weaken the work ethic of the average underworked Recifense.

A delicate eco-system is at play here. Were you or I to sample the wares of the grubby handed hot dog whoppers we would immediately collapse with any number of deadly ailments before being rushed to hospital.** Doctors would take one look at us before chalking our foreheads with the sign of the damned. In short, we’d have about the same chance of coming out intact as an ice cube dropped down the back of a wobbly woman in a packed sauna. Your average bus commuter has built up an immune system so powerful and effective that they are almost impossible to kill – only car accidents, love triangle murders, normal murders and more than three hours hard graft a day can finish them off. Years of grimy bus contact with all sorts of bacteria and vat loads of fried snacks have altered their DNA to such a degree that international medical experts get funding to study their habits.

Class V snacks provided by Class III for Class II & the 
odd Class I renegade

The final genus is that of the idler. While mortal man can learn the art of idling, it takes a special sort to acquire mastery of the craft. Awoken way too early by the shouts of early morning pizza/ice pop salesmen and the beeping of the perpetually late, the idler gradually lifts his gaze from the horizontal to the land of the upright. The idler will wander round his patch (usually 1km² ) chatting  to people with carts and marking his territory with the ferocity and obliviousness of a tiger. He can be spotted by his slouch though can also be identified by his tendency to resemble whatever it is he is doing. My local idler has recently turned his hand at collecting brushes and as a result has grown a bristly moustache and lost weight on the torso, giving him an unseemly gait. Unless you squint you can miss him. Like The Third Policeman, he seems to be swapping DNA with his brush and it with him. This is the big fear of the wastrel for he is drawn to collect and cherish inanimate objects.

Most don’t miss the idler at first, his talent for idleness having been earmarked at an early age. Lounging his way through life as though his future has never been in doubt, much like a dauphin.  Most will shuffle by an abandoned plastic paint bucket or not even see the mangy old office chair guarding the street against something or other. But rarely will anyone stop and engage it in conversation. A simple

It’s grand weather entirely, is it not?

While ambling by the above will either illicit a

Good morning good sir. And tis’ fine weather we’ve been having, glory be to God.

Or the stony silence of a man who has sat on the same chair or has become overly acquinted with a paint bucket for too long, his physical form having been subsumed by the inanimate, his vocal cords turned to plastic. True he’d little to be doing, but it would be a confident soul that would argue he was any more productive than anyone else.

* Pernambuco Gypsy was recently slighted by a handsome group of Italians while queuing to buy manly things. He normally has nothing but the highest level of respect and mirth for them.

** Nobody is rushed anywhere in Recife, even by ambulance.

The Benefits of Study

Testament to the virtues of study.

Every once in a while picking up the landline is worthwhile. I usually ignore it- countless calls from Bradesco et al have removed this excitement. But I’ve resolved to answer more often…

-  Good afternoon. Who am I speaking to?

-  Who wants to know?

-  My name is Maria Eduarda.

-  Do I know you?

-  I have a fantastic opportunity for you. It’s…

-  Are you selling something? I’ve absolutely no interest.

-  Do you have a hairdresser in your house?

-  Em. Not right now but go on.

-  Well, you’ve been lucky enough to be selected for our distance learning hairdressing course. It’s a highly reputed qualification.

-  Tell me more.

-  We provide interactive lessons on skype and by phone.

-  I see, and how long does it take to graduate?

-  Our intensive course lasts two weeks but we also have another option that takes 3 months.

-  Which is the best? And what do I need?

-  I recommend the intensive course. It’s super legal!

-  OK, does it include mega hair?

-  Of course. Our service is all-inclusive. It’s been on Globo.

-  It must be pretty good so. And how well will I be able to cut hair? My current barber came third in the South American hairdresser of the Year Awards in Montevideo in 1989. He has countless Paulista Championships too. I might consult him.

-  You’ll be excellent.

-  Right. I’m very interested Maria Eduarda. I think this is just what I need.

Recife is the capital of cursinhos. If you can think of a job then Recife has a course for it. Fancy a dual qualification in Cell phones & Port Logistics? Or missed your calling for catching crabs in a mangrove swamp? Look no further. The tourist board is missing a beat here. Where else can you qualify in fixing watches at a bus stop? Any semblance of talent is deserving of a certificate to that end. I’ve long been of the opinion that mini ceremonies occur daily in households all over the city for those who manage to put on their clothes in the correct order. While weighing up a service I will always demand a qualification or at the very least evidence of study. For it is common knowledge that Dr. Nick Rivieira is a graduate of Recife.

The most popular cursinhos are focused on preparing for public concursos. And concursos are the ticket onto the pigs back. * Once you pass a public sector exam you’ve made it. A sedentary life of late starts, long liquid lunches and extensive holidays beckon. Granted, this sounds a lot like every job in Pernambuco but the difference is the kings ransom you trouser every month. Unsurprisingly, competition is heavy.

One day I'll be a traffic warden.

A recent concurso for a career trudging the streets issuing parking fines attracted more than 80,000 applicants. The lucky 20 will occasionally venture outdoors in their prim uniforms and sexy hats to make up their quota for the month. But otherwise, time will be wiled away studying traffic flow charts, conducting internet affairs on MSN and suffering from mirages in a sea of bureaucracy. And, most importantly, disguising an alarming lack of productivity by carrying around a thick ACRONYM heavy book and muttering like a martyr that you are studying yet again for another useless qualification to put on a wall.  But one must feel a modicum of sympathy. For a week every two years there are elections. Some local bigwig gets elected and demands action. The traffic wardens are forced onto the streets to drum up some positive news stories. And after striking for a few weeks, trudge out fearfully to meet face their nemesis. The Flanelinha.

Flanelinhas patrol the roads they don’t own and extort money from the car driving class. The scourge of motorists, they extort a couple of reais for the privilege of looking after their cars and ensuring that said flanelinha doesn’t strip the car bare like a gypsy who’s been given the keys of a van factory as payment for a slight on his good name. Most are unaware of the diligent study that is required to stand on the street and wave a red cloth, wag their palms towards themselves and say

Bit more. Liiiiitle bit more. Opa! Easy does it.  Keep coming. And stop. **

All done online by certified experts

Anyone who has been to Croke Park for a GAA match will be aware of this practice. Usually carried out by young gurriers in training, failure to pay results in a key scraping or if your car is fancy, a liberated stereo and a poo in the boot to boot. Traffic wardens are frightened of the flanelinhas and rightly so. In knowledge retention terms they are like the London cabbies that take The Knowledge. They are trained to remember every car in the city. As a result, their brains enlarge, inadvertently unlocking previously unknown depths of consciousness.  A traffic warden, despite his study, is no match for these boys. And so the two adversaries revert to Brazil’s second most popular pastime.  In return for turning a blind eye, the flanelinha is slipped a few bob to give the reg number of repeat offenders and when understanding has been met, entrusted with a council notebook to issue fines.

That History & Politics degree was a waste of time

The depth of study required to hold down any job in Brazil is oft overlooked by the well to do. The next time you have the misfortune to need new brogues and are accosted by a pack of commission hungry attendants, spare a thought for the intense training your assailants have undergone. Respect the guy who gets there first with his photocopied slip of paper, his name scrawled illegibly, who thrusts it into your palm and becomes your best friend and laughs at your obligatory smelly sock joke. This man has stood in a warehouse somewhere with hundreds of other hopefuls and come top of his jostling techniques lecture. No mean feat in itself.

Once, hundreds of miles from the sea, Pernambuco Gypsy witnessed a man successfully hawk a fresh octopus at a dusty crossroads. There are some things that no amount of cursinhos can teach.

* The government issue you with a pistol for shooting into the sky and whooping. None of this shaving half an eyebrow look at me I’m so special nonsense that is associated with rich kids that pass the Vestibular.

** Sleeping under trees and being woken up by the hum of an engine not from these parts is a skill. Make no mistake.

Onibus - A Tale of Two Cities

Waiting to let people off before you get on is seen as a sign of weakness

About eleven years ago someone had an idea in Recife. Unfortunately the idea came from a man who wielded power. He was a transport man. A college boy and motorist. Sticking rigidly to Pernambucano custom he thought about it long but not that hard, pausing regularly for breaks so as not to raise the suspicion of his colleagues. Funds were tight and the mayor’s reelection plan of building another massive bridge bearing his name (but in essence ‘for the people’) needed to be addressed. His brainchild was simple. Turn off the air conditioning on all of the buses and instruct the drivers to open the windows and drive even faster. And, obviously, after a couple of hours when Recifences had tired of protesting or forgotten, up the fares. And if conditions were ripe, implement phase 2.

Phase 2

He’d recently been at a national bus conference in Curitiba where plans had been hatched to colour code the buses according to the districts they serviced. The Curitiban think tank also floated an idea so radical (cylindrical bus stops) that when he presented it to his bosses in Recife he induced a spate of strokes that rendered Recife’s transport mandarins incapable of even mild infidelity. He was a man eager to make a name for himself. The Curitiban initiative was thought dangerous, much too subversive to implement. * Surveys were conducted and all the results pointed to mass confusion and  fears that buses that were 'the wrong colour' would be torched by rattled commuters. **

Ventilation in 30° heat is necessary

It was decided that the current system whereby buses had random numbers and came and went as they pleased in the general direction of some barrio or other worked perfectly well. This complimented the convoy system, whereby four buses grouped together so the drivers could race each other and banter about the football when stationary at traffic lights (or more frequently not), was a well-oiled modus operandi. Today, Curitiba is a place Brazilians want to live. It works in a kind of boringly mundane fashion. There’s no madness and that’s because Recife hoarded all of it. But it works.

And while the two cities went their separate ways in terms of human development, it must be said that Curitiba lost something. Tourists go to Curitiba and get the bus and think

Lovely buses. Very efficient. Now, is there anything interesting at all here?


To which the answer is negative. 

Tourists in Recife get an altogether better deal. Taking the bus in Recife is like being in your own snuff movie. With drivers receiving bonuses for reaching 100km per hour between traffic lights a hundred metres apart and days in lieu for taking corners at 80km per hour, you’d be foolhardy not to quickly toss 50 centavos at the popcorn salesmen that swarm around when the bus is forced to stop. Hell, you might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. *** Those in the know avail of the popcorn sellers that brave the erratic traffic to provide you with a snack to enjoy your impending doom. You can tell a rookie by his white knuckles. And it's not unusual for groups of youths to commandeer a bus and surf it while extolling the merits of their quite rubbish and provincial football team.

Wearing a jumper? Me hole.

To add to the excitement, occasionally a bus is hijacked and everyone robbed. But this is quite rare these days, as are the police stopping the bus and bringing on scary dogs to sniff the passengers for drugs, firearms or the heinous crime of having watches synchronized to Greenwich Mean Time. Even Johnnie Cochran once turned down a case saying it was

Just damned unwinnable.

Once you’ve accustomed yourself to the pace of your journey there is a veritable funbag of things to enjoy. You can tickle the teenagers that are hitching a lift on the side of the bus or wonder why Recife women shave their moustaches but not their arms. Hawkers are officially banned from annoying people but like Gary Glitters Vietnam visa, some do slip through the net. Naturally assumed friends of Jeebus make up the majority of the peddlers, who spiel off some guff and hand out pens, CD marker pens, authentic leather wallets and warm nutritional yoghurts. But sometimes someone sneaks in at a stop and is passionate about their product. When this happens it’s a good idea to have both hands occupied. Popcorn is good but that only leaves one hand free and unless you have a bible handy or a student textbook, reading is frowned upon. At times like these, most lads bury their hands in their pockets and scratch their balls, but that doesn’t always work.

Recife came out better in the driver exchange with Curitiba

One such occasion saw a well (enough) to do lady announce that she’d taken the day off work especially to share her amazing chewing gum with us (one part gum, eight parts chalk). She worked in office in the city centre and was heavily involved in the computers game, apparently. But on her way to work (she didn’t go too much into details) she happened upon an amazing opportunity and just didn’t feel right in passing it up. Deus inspired her, she said. **** She patrolled up and down the bus waving various flavours that were stuck between each finger, like a one armed kid trying to unstick a particularly sticky stickle brick by shaking it. If only there was a Brazilian version of The Apprentice I thought as I buried both hands deep in my pockets and hoped she’d pass. Hawkers are drawn to gringos like Ricky Teixeira is to shady dealings. I was put in an impossible position.

You can be shamed into parting with a few shekels, harassed – as being a gringo; you are obviously rich - or just plain SOLD SOLD SOLD! I bought two packs due to change issues. I wanted to just give a donation but she was in high heels, admittedly high heels that looked like they’d been swiped from a murder victim, but high heels nonetheless. And if you can navigate in those things on a Recife bus you deserve payment.

When you arrive alive at your stop, you alight and vow to wash your hands at the first available opportunity. Then you think that the Recife Tourist Board is missing a trick here. Alongside

- Beautiful beaches

- Year round sunshine

- Great music

- The Annual National Goat Congress

 - Carnaval

Chaos Tourism's guinea pigs

surely there is space for the untapped mine that is Chaos Tourism. Ship in the tourists, give them a bus pass and a bottle of Cachaça and Bob’s your uncle. And if the police would only come on and haul off all the hairy armed women and make them wax on the side of the road then, and only then could you say Recife is catching up on Curitiba on the Human Development Index.

* The Curitban Proclamation also included the introduction, on a trial basis, of bus timetables. At this point, the Recife delegation walked out in protest. Looking back with a cold eye of an agenda-less historian, it’s hard to look past the positive input Curitiba’s German heritage played. This pales in comparison with Recife’s Teutonic brigade, albeit seasonal, which was making inroads at this time into the burgeoning sex tourism trade.

** What if two red buses passed each other on the same street going in opposite directions? Is that possible? Being the main concern amongst those surveyed.

Get out of my seat or I'll eat you!

*** Rollercoasters are not common in Recife. Partly because the buses have monopolized thrill seeking and also due to the unspeakable horror of getting on a rollercoaster that was bolted together by local handymen. The 5° Rei being the exception of course.

**** If you don’t mention Deus at least once or twice, you lose customers.

***** A sign that Recife is catching up with Curitiba is the appearance of obese seats and signs on the buses. What is more troubling though is that people let them sit down where they can be nearer to the window and have easier access to wandering cake salesmen that may pass by the window, which is more common than it sounds. Wily street vendors are stocking up on cake and it's hard not to wonder whether there has been collusion with the Prefeitura and the cake baking sector. Corruption is rife in Brazil. However, this cannot be measured in terms of development as obesity here is seen as an affliction rather than a person gorging themselves on coxinhas & Guaraná and refusing to eat any vegetables. Further study is needed.

Whole Lotta Nossa Senhora da Conceição

But Mam! All the cool kids have these!

Back in the days before Recife was Brazil’s next Babel*, important bishops converged on the city to select a patron saint. Sent by papal envoy with impressive hats, an oxymoronic group of knowledgeable clergy decreed that auditions would be held to determine who would be poster boy for this soon to be great city. Thanks to the slap shod saint anointing procedures of the day certifiable miracles weren’t necessary and anyone (except non-Europeans) could throw their hat in the ring.

L-R - Bodeson, Thrombus Oliveira, Hornaldo, Mary X2

Hornaldo was the crowd favourite. Aside from inventing the car horn (and by local logic, pre-inventing the car) two things made him stand out from the other contestants. Firstly he was able to able to dress himself unaided. Several witnesses swore testament, including the local parish priest. Secondly, he had been on time for an appointment on more than three occasions in a six-month period. **

His main rival was the rural hotshot Bodeson. He had the gift of the goat and had commanded a strong following amongst Pernambuco’s many frisky farmhands. His other supernatural gift was his innate ability to let someone out of a carriage or doorway before pushing his way in. This was popular with the womenfolk although they didn’t yet know why. With chivalry not due to arrive in Recife until sometime in the latter half of this century, it could be said that Bodeson was a visionary. A Galileo of the nordeste.

Even Nossa Senhora needs her Me Time

A third candidate, Thrombus Oliveira, made a late surge by claiming a miracle. In an act of self-serving martyrdom, he claimed that he had never ‘chased skirt’ and that his own wife was the sole benefactor of his affections. His subsequent burning at the stake by the local menfolk was only right and proper. Even the de-tonguing of his wife to stop her spreading vile rumours about non-philandering Brasileiros didn’t do enough to impress the papal plenipotentiaries, who being of male persuasion themselves, viewed such fidelity with suspicion and downright hostility. Only after the event did someone point out that women couldn’t vote anyway. Thankfully Jeebus hath forgiven them.

After a confusing proportional representation system of voting, which involved numbers, chaos ensued.*** Head nor tail could be made out of the vote, so a papal safeguard was brought into play. Sensing that Recife was not a modest city, the bishops announced to the crowd that after consulting with the heavens via secret voice, Mary herself would only be too delighted to moonlight as the patron saint, should they want her.

"The moustachioed shall crawl or be smote." John 3:19

And like a PlayStation friend who always picks Brazil, Recife went for Mary herself. No local lad done good here thank you very much. The only stipulation was that every 8 December the good citizens of Recife should climb a big hill in the district of Casa Amarela and ask her for something. Signed, sealed and shitting after the meal.

Tradition demands that all sorts of beggars, ne’er do wells, lepers and hawkers line the narrow streets that lead up the hill. Unfortunately for the revelers, modern medicine has eradicated leprosy in Recife. If there was a fee you’d ask for a refund. Busloads of the supposedly destitute arrive from as far away as Fortaleza to beg for alms and in some case, arms. Setting up shop early is vital. As any sem teto will tell you,

If you don’t get a good spot early, you might as well go home.

Holy loan sharks

Umpteen families with matching holy T-shirts bound uphill with the open-mouthed awe of the truly stupid. They stop off at stalls that specialize in Mary effigies. And every stall specializes in miniature to life-sized statues of Nossa Senhora. You can tell who the most touched is by the size of the statue that they stare at, looking for movement or the hint of a tear. 

Up ahead is a young woman who looks like she’s being dragged against her will by a couple of loyal sisters acting under their crazed mothers instructions. In turns out though that Rosielle is quite happy. She’s convinced herself that if she walks up this hill backwards then Nossa Senhora will give her a husband. She doesn’t intend on walking down hill backwards though, which seems like a half-measure. I warn her that if she doesn’t, Nossa Senhora could present her with a half-wit. She finds this amusing. Looking around it becomes apparent – it’d be an upgrade. I see Rosielle further on up the hill. Her sisters are looking at some religious tack at a stall. Rosie is still between them, facing onto the street. When she wants to have a goo, they all arc around so that Rosie is facing the clobber and her sisters the street, eyeing up potential suitors.

Perhaps their attention is drawn to the gentleman crawling and sweating his way up the hill. There is something strangely comforting about watching the moustached crawl up a hill. Again, I ask him if he will be crawling back down the hill. He fails to give me a thumbs up. Later it strikes me that perhaps his punishment was for crimes of the upper lip. Never trust the moustached, especially if they are on their hands and knees. A stout woman overtakes him with two bricks balanced on her head. I don’t think she is part of the pilgrimage, but you wouldn’t know. She could be just going for a walk.

Sambos ✔ Soup ✔ Arms ✔ Alms ✗
 
 

Just like in the bible, near the church are hot-panted girls giving out money lending leaflets. With a prayer on one side you have to doff your hat and commend InterCrédito for tailoring their loan sharking activities to suit the market. The hawkers at the temple are only selling boxes of candles to put in the fire pit for Mary so revelers are forced to buy a box of eight.**** This smacks of cheating. Asking Mary for eight different things seems a bit much especially since multiplication guidelines currently aren't working in Recife. She may need to return to space to tot up the requests.




It was the most soul cleansing day I've had in Recife in some time. 

* Diario de Pernambuco, Saturday 10 December 2011. 

** Whether he was just late for a previous appointment and early for another has never properly been established. However, his idea to paint wristwatches on every crucifix in the city as a means of combatting the Recifense time concept void has to be looked up as visionary.

*** The city annals recorded that this was the day that Recife lost knowledge of the number 3. Soon afterwards correct use of the multiplication sign also slipped from local memory. These incidences are unconnected. Recife has since reclaimed understanding of the number 3 but at a cost of losing the number 99, which clarifies why shopkeepers never advertise products ending in 99, for example NOVA TECNOLOGIA – R$22.98! X3 Parcelas de R$7.68

**** The fire pit awaits...