Dans la poche...

The sky turned completely black around three in the afternoon partly because of smoke coming from the Amazon rainforest, WHICH IS 2300 KILOMETERS AWAY FROM THE CITY, where the government has greatly increased the amount of land being burned for profit. People are getting sick, animals are dying, native territory is being lost to the flames.

This is what the sky looked like in my city yesterday, in the early afternoon.

It got so dark so fast the city had to turn on the lamp posts and night lighting.

Some brazilian folklore for you guys ( I love folklore creatures!)

Look. I need to give some background first. I’m Brazilian. Our country was colonized 513 years ago by the Portuguese. It is a fairly young country, if you think about it.

And you know how our culture is? Well, historically, there were the Native people, then came the Portuguese and some Spanish folk, later African slaves, a few Dutch invaded and ended up staying, after the end of slavery a surge of Europeans came, mostly Italian and German, and also a lot of Japanese people. And pretty much every one of these groups ended up mixing and matching and living together, not separated in groups by origin, but rather by money, status and stuff - and these people had a lot of sex with each other, pretty much everyone in Brazil is mixed on high levels, I’m part Native, Portuguese and Italian, mostly, but I heard of a German great-great-grandpa.

Yes, there was racism, there still is, but we never had, I don’t know, bus seats for white people or whatever happened at the US (sorry but I never learned your history well at school, US).

Our culture is a well-blended mix of all of the above. Our cuisine shows this the easiest way. We eat stuff that African slaves invented with what they had in hand at the time (feijoada) and love it as much as traditional Italian pasta, and both are very common lunch options on the weekends (restaurants usually serve feijoada on Saturdays and grandmas do pasta or lasagna on Sundays). And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Having said that, I repeat that I don’t get “cultural appropriation”. My country is made of that. And this was never a bad thing. In fact, this mix is what makes us so unique. I really love the cultural baggage my country gave me and wouldn’t trade it for nothing.

 The Pink/Amazon River Dolphin

(o boto cor-de-rosa, in Portuguese)

Originated in the North region of Brazil, within the Brazilian native indigenous communities, the legend of the Pink River Dolphin features the encantado*, a shapesifter whose forms are that of a handsome young man, who’s seductive and very attractive - tall, muscular, wearing white social clothing and a white hat to hide his blowhole -; and that of a pink colored dolphin.

It is said that, the Encantado gets out of the river to turn into his human form on Festa Junina** nights, or when it’s a full moon night, to look for beautiful young women, enchanting them with his charm until they agree to follow him to the depths of the river, where he impregnates them, and then turns into a dolphin as soon as the sun rises. 

The Pink River Dolphin is considered to be a great friend of the local people - helping fishermen, guiding boats safely during storms, helping people who are drowning, etc. And so, people believe one is to get terrible bad luck if they kill one of the creatures - stating even that if you eat the dolphin’s meat you’ll lose your mind, and it is said that if someone makes eye contact with them, they are doomed to have nightmares for the rest of their lives.

The Pink River Dolphin tale is used to give reason to children whose father is unknown - when a child is born and the mother doesn’t know who the father is, people say that child is the PRD’s child.

To be made sure a man is not an Encantado, it’s recommended you make him take his hat off, so you can see if he has or not a breathing hole on his head.

The tale is also used to justify outside-of-marriage pregnancies.

* Encantado = enchanted

** Festa Junina = Party of June, or “junine” party or parties, traditional Brazilian celebrations that happen throughout the month of June.