Portuman

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Witmarsum

From Mato Grosso do Sul (the state Bonito is located in) I took a bus to the state of Parana, to search out Witmarsum, a Mennonite colony I had heard much about from Melissa (my girlfriend) who has family there. Bonito... Curitiba... Campo Largo... Witmarsum. After many bus changes ("trocar") and too many confusing directions in Portuguese, I made it to Witmarsum and the house of Frieda Janzen, Melissa's aunt. Her dad, Hermann, happened to be there at the same time. Thank goodness that they both speak English! Yet most of my stay I spent trying to understand conversations in Portuguese and German - Portuman, I call it -both of which are spoken by nearly all the locals.

Witmarsum is mainly a farm town, with a large agricultural co-op that handles all the milk, soy, and corn from the local farmers. I was really pleased to find that the co-op also produces fine cheeses: brie, camembert, ricotta, blue cheese, aciago, etc. The population is mainly Germanic, although other races have trickled in over the years to establish a more truly Brazilian community (I say this because Brazil is a land of mixed races). A beautiful bucolic landscape dotted with houses and adorned with strange araucaria trees envelopes the town, a gorgeous view from the local mount JungedBerg.

Much of my time in Witmarsum was spent visiting people with Hermann and Frieda, drawing and painting, and visiting. On JugendBerg I made friends with wasps, as you can see in the previous post. Later I found out that some Witmarsumians have died from killer-bee stings, so I guess that I got off lightly (I was stung at least 6 times).

On my last weekend in Brazil we took a trip to the south with Frieda's 18 year-old grandson Klaus. We saw the beaches at beautiful Florianopolis and Camboriu and visited the very typically German city of Blumenau, and the cities of Timbo and Itapema. The wealth in these places was quite impressive. I was told that Florianopolis is the most wealthy state capital of Brazil, due mostly to the fact that there are no poor people in Florianopolis. Klaus and I were going to surf in Florianopolis but circumstances thwarted our attempts.

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