Do You Hear The People Sing?

While unrest in Turkey and Syria, among other places, has the US media's current collective attention, expect it's focus to turn south soon.  Brazilians are taking to the street!

It's no secret that Brazil has a love affair with soccer.  It's also no secret that the country has dealt with its fair share of corruption in government.  It's ironic then, that this soccer-obsessed nation is taking such a firm stand against the prestigious hosting of several major world sporting events - currently the Confederation Cup, the FIFA World Cup in a year, and the Olympics in 2016.

Many are upset at the use of government (and tax) money to fund these events when most citizens realistically will not only be unable to enjoy them, but worse, are being caused more financial hardship from increases in cost-of-living and supposed lack of funds going towards education, transportation/infrastructure, and health care.

All one has to do is read the signage as protesters have taken [mostly] peacefully to the streets of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizante, Brasília, Salvador, and other cities in recent days*:

"Excuse the disruption, we are changing Brazil"

"Welcome to Brazil
Where soap operas, soccer, and Carnival is more important than
education, health, and safety."

"When your son gets sick, bring him to the stadium."

The actual flag has the motto "Ordem e Progresso" (Order and Progress).
This altered flag blots out key letters to instead read "In Progress."

*All the images were taken from posts on Instagram or Facebook.

190 Candles

In the city of Campinas, the morning of September 7th would be a great day to rob a house and a terrible day to have a power outage or a heart attack.

That's because every single one of the city's police, medical workers, ambulances, utility trucks, and even school busses are making their way down the Independence Day parade route.  And based on this experience, Campinas does overkill well.

After a long delayed start, the parade began with a proverbial flexing of the muscles that every country is allowed to do on their country's birthday.  Every branch and regiment of the military and municipal police force marched down the street in full dress, lead by the (very good) Military Band.  This includes bike cops, police dogs, and ambulance drivers among others.

 

Then we all waited some more and along came the corps of public employees.  This being a national day off from work, I'm sure they were all thrilled to have to marching down the street waving at all those they service.  The crowning moment - after all the power, gas, and electric workers and their vehicles passed by - was the parade of never-ending school-busses.  

Arguably the worst part of the parade for all the kids trying to enjoy
their day off of school.

Now, I could be wrong, being that my Portuguese is still "developing," but I think these may have been new busses for the city's schools and this was their grand premier.  The crowd's excitement was moderate at the beginning and faded exponentially with each subsequent vehicle.

There was yet another long mysterious break, at which point various marching bands and city-wide organizations had their moment in the pavement.  I tried to use today as a practice session for future processional-like events I may want to photograph, such as Carnival, however, I may need a few more practices; parades are surprisingly challenging to photograph well.  Regardless, here are a few shots from the rest of the event:

I'm pretty certain this is the Campinas chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance.
But I don't speak Portuguese so I could be wrong.

Happy 190th Birthday, Brazil!