Faraway, so close

When leaving from Rome, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil is more or less at the same distance as New York.
It takes six hours to get from one of the oldest cities in the world to one of the most vibrating ones of North America.
And that's the same when you leave, after a short break in Lisbon, towards one of the most vibrating cities of South America.
Salvador is the first big city of the NorthEast of Brasil, from there on, you understand that something is different, faces and colors change.
As an European, you think that Brazilian people should all look like Pele, but indeed, and mostly in the South you will find tall blond nordic looking people, and even some with German or Japanese origin.
That's because Brazil, like most of the Southamerican country was once the place of great immigration.
So that is why most of the South of Brazil, also maybe because it much closer to Argentina,where heaps of Europeans (and tons of Italians) dropped in the fifties, looks like Europe, while, from Salvador to Fortaleza, you get a reminder of both slavery issues and native indios history.
Once there, forget people moving by helicopter as you might have seen in Sao Paulo, here the struggle is to have something to eat everyday.
We were a group related to an association linked to the Sem Terra movement which helped the people of several “assentamentos” in the North East of the country to develop projects to fertilize the land they were living in.
Our aim was to testify that the projects were going on as they should.
Salvador was the first hit to the heart, a city where in opposition to what you are used to, the poorest live in the historical city centre while the richest live in front of the sea in sky high skyscrapers, with barbwire on the walls and armed guards to defend them.
And everybody lives in perfect indifference of one another.
Then you move on to the country, “O interior” and things change. Forget the skyscrapers, forget kids snorting glue or putting their little hands in your pockets in a desperate seek of money.
In some cases, you don't even have a proper floor and raw bricks are the walls of the house. And in this cases you are the rich one of the community.
That is what is like in villages like Alcantara, far NorthEast, in Maranhao, and pale people like us,“os branquinhos” are also a great amusement for the kids.
It is nice to be on the otherside and feel like what it is to be appointed as the different one, for once in a while.
In these assentamentos the most striking thing is the perfect organization in which alcohol is banned, inside the assentamento and everyone has the right and the duty to be part of the community.
Everybody is aware of the fact that he is essential for the wellbeing of the whole community.
The assentamento works for its own sustainment by teaching their kids the basics of education but also how to plough the land.
The point is trying to keep the youth in the country and not make them leave for the city, or at least make them love the land so much that once they got their higher education in the city, they come back to help improve the land.
It is an utopical situation made true, at least within the walls of the assentamento.