Barulho (also known as Noise)

As of Tuesday morning we are out of the house we had rented for June and July.  We are up in Aldeia on the Aldeia Training Centre, where the Wieskes are living.  I'll write more about that later, as I first have many other things to catch up with on this blog.  Today is a rainy, windy day, so we are hanging out inside and I'm hoping to write, write, write.  First I had planned to do an entry about the wonderful, noisy culture of living in small-town Brazil.  I meant to take pictures of many more things we daily heard at "our" house, but hopefully the pictures I do have will give you a bit of an idea.

In the background of the picture above you see a semi truck.  This is a truck advertising for the election coming up in November.  If you remember from a few pics back the parade that went by the church that one Sunday, this vehicle led the way, blasting music with people all on top with loudspeakers.  There is also a smaller truck behind the semi truck that occasionally drives around town playing music for the same guy.

So if the semi truck is for the big events like parades, this smaller van drives around town all day.  And I mean literally all day.  It blasts a song made specifically for the man running for deputy governor of Alagoas, which we have memorized, out of the speakers at the top.  And this van is not the only one doing this, there are ones with way bigger speakers as well.  One night at around ten we also had one go by our house playing "the song" and followed by a trail of cars all honking loudly.

This man also walks around town all day playing music.  I thought people requested specific songs from him but Shaun thought he walked around advertising, so I'm not quite sure what he does exactly.  There is also another much larger cart that another guy pushes around with hundreds of cds for sale....also playing music all day.

This is just an example of the many vehicles that roar past our house.  We also are right next to the main highway, so the sound of vehicles is constant. 

Another thing that we heard daily was a gentleman walking around shouting "Macacheira!" selling cassava to the neighbourhood.  Macacheira is a long tuber that you can boil like potatoes, make into a oatmeal or some stuff to sprinkle on ALL your food, make fries from, etc.  Brazilians love it.  Bel boiled it once for us and it is very fibrous and kind of thick and pasty with not much flavour (my opinion of course).  And lastly, the noise we heard from 6 in the morning to 10 at night...music from the gym attached to our house, or the gym instuctor counting out numbers during a class.

All this does not even begin to emphasize the noise from special occasions.  And Brazil has a lot of holidays which encourage the use of fireworks day and night!  This has definitely slowed down compared to the first few weeks we were here...or maybe we have become used to it.  Oh and I forgot about the animals at night...roosters crowing and dogs barking all night long.

Needless to say, there is rarely a quiet moment in Maragogi, and I think we've become quite accustomed to it, and in some ways enjoy it.  I will always remember Hazel running out on our deck everytime she heard the political songs and dancing away...  I wonder if the quiet in Canada will seem abnormal when we return!