"And the times...." II

Stop the press - times are not changing at all. Politically, they are standing still - possibly going backwards. Why? Well, it's mayoral election time in Manaus, and the glorious Manaus electorate is about to elect the most (allegedly) corrupt, ignorant, stupid candidate - and they have some experience on which to base their opinions, because he's already been Mayor once before - by a landslide! Calloo Callay!

"And the times...."

Times have changed. Here in the middle of the Amazon, and with a few notable exceptions, you can now just about get anything you can in Europe or the States. But then of course it’s the notable exceptions that get to you: no unsweetened peanut butter, for example; no biodegradeable poop-bags (for the dogs, you understand); and no Pool Devil Automatic Swimming Pool Skimmer. I can get (but I don’t need), a laser measuring-tape-spirit-level-and-nail-detector. I can get an AB-Stretch-rowing-cycling-pushme-pullyou-machine. And I can get an extendable multi-function-all-purpose step-ladder. But I can’t get a simple, straightforward Pool Devil Automatic Swimming Pool Skimmer. No, sir.

Deeply Held Beliefs

Here in Brasil the population is predominantly Catholic. It’s the kind of good, healthy non-state state religion that I like, in that for the most part no-one takes a blind bit of notice of it. And normally, neither do I. However, two things I found odd recently which I feel inclined to pass on. Firstly, the Catholic population is apt to call Protestants – of the evangelising persuasion (you’re right, I’m not quite sure what that means – but then frankly I couldn’t care a fig) – ‘Crentes’. This word comes from the verb Crer, ‘to believe’, which begs the obvious question, does it not..? Secondly, Naice was informed quite matter-of-factly the other day by one of the Protestant (evangelist) community that they don’t attend any of the Catholic festivals (this is the only part of Catholicism that most Brasilians take seriously – the parties) because they would be poisoned. The comment was made when Naice was organising the local ‘Festa Junina’ for our neighbourhood. Festa Junina is a Catholic celebration of some description or other (please don’t enlighten me, anyone) to which the whole local community is invited, and it takes the form of a very pleasant street party, with games for the kids, food and dancing and drinking and a bonfire. Unfortunately she was unable to persuade a considerable number of the ‘Crentes’ that they would be safe to attend, which left her mystified until the above comment explained all. So that’s fine, then.

It’s comforting to know that religious bigotry is alive and kicking in even the remotest corners of the world, isn’t it? What would we do without religion?