Bom dia! We have made it to Barretos safely, and in the past few days we have gotten to know this city a little better. Most people have heard of São Paulo, the massive city in the same state (with the same name), but most people back home had not heard of Barretos. I certainly had not.
Turns out that the day after we arrived was a holiday, so our supervisor Carolina invited us out to eat and visit around the city. The first place we went to is called Panificadora La Maison, a bakery where we had some delicious pão de queijo, essentially cheese bread, along with some specialty strawberry desserts, since the Strawberry Festival is also taking place right now.
Afterwards, however, we went to explore the legacy of Barretos, Brazil — the Parque do Peão (the Cowboy’s Park), where the largest rodeo in Latin America is held every year at the end of August. Every single person we have met so far has expressed disappointment that we are leaving at the beginning of August, because apparently this is one of the most exciting events of the year. Not only is it entertaining to watch the rodeo competitions, it is also a great source of pride of this town.
In visiting the Parque do Peão, we were greeted by the Peão himself, a colossal statue of a cowboy. After the obligatory tourist picture, we explored the museum that explained more about the founding of the Parque and the founding group, Os Independentes. With our limited Portuguese, we saw how it was slowly built up to become the huge event it is now. Rodolfo, Carolina’s boyfriend, was very enthusiastic in showing us all of the tools used in the competitions, and all of the famous people that have been to the rodeo. Even though neither Megh nor I are very knowledgeable in horses and rodeo competitions, we still enjoyed touring the museum and seeing the history behind the pride of this town.
The great Peão himself.
The rodeo arena — the scene of the greatest event of the year here.
As the days progressed, we also noticed that there is another growing presence in Barretos — the Hospital do Câncer de Barretos (HCB), the cancer hospital in which we are going to be working. Apart from the fact that the hospital itself is very large, Megh and I walked around the area one day and noticed that there is a good amount of construction and development happening around the area.
In visiting more panificadoras, bakeries that are very popular here, as well as the supermarket, we noticed that they all have little containers where one can leave donations for the hospital. And every single person we have met that works at the hospital (which is around five by now), has worked there for more than six years. In essence, so far as I can tell, the HCB has been growing steadily and is also an important part of the city’s functioning. I have only been here for a few days, but I am curious to continue to explore the hospital’s relationship with the city.
But while these two entities might seem contradictory or opposing, they are not. As we learned, all of the money from the Garth Brooks concert this year at the rodeo will benefit the HCB. Now to me, that is an amazing example of two important elements of Barretos’ culture working together for the community.
Needless to say, I’m excited for the next two months.
Barretos at dusk
P.S. It was my birthday on Friday, and Carolina and Rodolfo took us to the place they go every Friday — Samaúma — where we ate and listened to live music. Without my knowledge, they asked the band to sing happy birthday! It was a really fun evening and I had a great time celebrating my birthday surrounded by the extremely fun and welcoming people that are the Barretos people.