Semana Farroupilha

It seems that it is only when I sit down with nothing in particular to say that I am actually able to write anything. I don't know how to write about actual things. This past week has been Semana Farroupilha, which is, in short, a week long street party to celebrate a war that we lost. Any excuse for a party. But then, thinking about it, in New Zealand we have a day off in June, to celebrate the birthday of a queen we don't really care about who was born in April. There is no precedent for these things making sense. So anyway, some history. Rio Grande so Sul, where I live, is the southernmost state of Brazil, and is very keen on differentiating itself from the rest of the country. So keen that in the 19th century they had a revolution and declared independence, which lasted all of 7 years, the war of farroupilhas. This history is irrelevant, the point is, this part of Brazil has a very distinct culture and we just spent the week celebrating it.

With accordion playing. (the songs never seem to quite scan right. This may be a general problem that folk music has)

And little house things (casinhas I think) set up all around the park for the week. I think the deal with these was they are set up by the local council (thing, whatever, i don't actually know what it's called) and then you could rent one for the week. So we shared one with my host dad's work colleagues. There were people around all the time, but we ate there about 6 times during the week. Lots of churrasco (see the picture below) which is a kind of barbaque and incredibly yum. Not a good place for a vegetarian.

This is what the whole park looked like. Lots of people wandering around in their traditional outfits (including me, whoo! But I don't have any good photos of that, I will try to get one some time. Suffice to say I adore my gaucha pants (bombachas) and I see no reason to confine the wearing of them to this one week.

More churrasco, almost done now...

And there were concerts of traditional music and dancing

She probably won't thank me for saying this, but I think that Larissa and her dance partner are the cutest thing that ever existed. 

And finally a parade with people riding horses down the street.

Looking back at my photos there are a lot of things i failed to capture. Like there are no good photos of what the traditional costume actually is. There was also a lot more sitting around in the casinhas chatting (not my favourite, being as my chatting abilities are not exactly scintillating) and wandering around the park and a fair amount of drinking and playing cards (playing cards appears to be a manly thing to do here). It kind of reminded me of going camping over christmas in New Zealand, with barbaques and beer and sitting around in deck chairs. About the same amount of rain too.