A short trip to Africa

Milions of years ago South America was contiguous with Africa. Geologists claim that Bahia was neigboring to present-day Namibia.

Namibia was a country rich in minerals and diamonds. After the continental drift, great parts of those diamonds were swept into the depths of the sea that covered what is now inland Brasil. The seabed was turned to stone and after erosion the trapped diamonds were released to the area that is now called Chapada Diamandina.

The fever of diamonds brought to the area diamond-miners, adventure-hunters and vagabonds from all over the world, who ripped the area of all its diamonds and became rich by selling them to the European and North-America markets. The history repeats itself with the natural resources of South America...

However, all those "thieves"couldn't steal the natural beauty of Chapada Diamantina. It is an area of extreme natural beauty with numerous waterfalls, mountains, caves, plateaus, valleys, swimming holes, diverse vegetation and unique species of monkeys, deers, jaguars and ...you name it!

We spent 3 days in the small colonial village of Lencois, at the borders of the Natural Park. We visited the park, we swimmed in some of its waterfalls, we trekked in trails of unique beauty and we sensed the tranquility and friendliness of its residents. The residents of Chapada are mainly of African origin as in most of Bahia.

For over 300 years Brasil was defined by slave-trade. It is believed that about 3,6 million slaves were shipped from Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Sudan and Congo) to Brasil between 1550 and 1888 mainly used for sugar and coffee plantations. Portuguses prefered them from the local Indians as they were seen as strong workers and were very resistant to European deseases. Slaves were brought to Brasil in subhuman conditions, taken from their families and packed into ships all the way to Brasil (not all of them survived the "journey"). Needless to say that slave-traders covered their tracks by destroying all the documents related to their line of work.

Slavery was abolished in 1888 and about 800.000 slaves were freed. But were they really free? All illitearate, unskilled and unemployed were thrown at the streets from their ex-owners.

Some chose to be employed by their previous owners being paid miserable wages and living in worse conditions than before. They chose to remain "slaves".

Some chose to go to crime, the only way to support their living. Many of them are now residing the miserble Brasilian prisons, other have died and some are still out on the streets, untill they die or take the way to the prison.

Finally, some chose to go to the urban centers (where they formed the favelas) and compete with the much more educated and well respected europeans(descedents of Italian and German immigrants). But they forgot one thing ....their color. A black-man in Brasil cannot compete in equal terms with a white-man.

Brasil is an absolutely racist society. Where you see black people (rastafarians) you don't see white people (europeans) and vice-versa. Everything is very well-defined here. White-men live in well-guarded complexes, shop in shopping centres, drive their own cars while black-men live in favelas, shop in street markets and use public buses. There are jobs only for whites and others only for blacks (porters, maids etc.).

The stereotypes are supported by the TV. Every evening the whole Brasil is stuck in front of the one-and-only television network (owned by the king of Brasilian media) watching endless telenovelas who show love affairs between wealthy white families, served by black maids, having black gardeners, and black workers at their extense farms.

One might say that Brasil's blacks were freed from "the whips of the slavery" to be stuck "in the misery of the favela". And, believe me, it's really a misery...