I arrived in Brazil yesterday and will be staying here for the next 45 days. Carrying my passport everywhere I go, did not seem like a smart thing to do. In Brazil, you can go to a “Cartorio”, a person who authenticates copies of your documents which you can use in place of the originals. I decided to get an authenticated copy of my passport and Brazil visa which I could use instead of carrying my passport around.
Usually Cartorios have huge lines, maybe that reflects the amount of paperwork Brazilians have to put up with while dealing with their government agencies. Luckily for me, when I reached the Cartorio, it was empty and getting an authenticated copy took less than 10 minutes. On the walk back to the apartment, I came across a beautiful building “Palace Catete” with a huge signs “Museu de Republica Brasieira”, Museum of the Brazil Republic. Now that I have quit my job and have nothing much to do with lots of time on my hands, I decided to go in and see what this museum had to offer.
I walked in and was heading straight into one of the rooms when a security guard called me from the back and said “Precisa Pagar”. He meant “Dude, Don’t just waltz right in, you need to pay”. Ticket paid, with a brochure in hand I walked around the museum with photographs, portraits and displays chronicling the lives of former presidents of Brazil who lived in that building which served as a seat of government for over 80 years.
Before getting to Brazil, I read a fair bit of Brazilian history. Walking through the museum, I could put pictures and faces to the words I read about Brazilian history. One picture was with the current President of Brazil, Lula in a TV debate with the former president of Brazil, Collor de Mello. Lula lost that election to Collor de Mello in part due to TV Globo’s editing of the debate showing Lula as a bumbling idiot and Collor as a handsome, educated man. Collor de Mello proved to be an utterly incompetent president, looting the Brazilian government treasury with impunity. Globo, years later apologized to Lula.
One of Brazil’s popular politicians in the early 40’s, Getulio Vargas, killed himself with a gunshot to his head when he was about to be deposed from his presidency in a military backed coup. In Getulio Vargas’s bedroom in the museum, the Pajama and the revolver he used on his last night were on display.
When not in a hurry to get to work, we look around, notice and observe small things around us. We take the time to explore things we observe and it is in those moments that our understanding of the surroundings we live in increases. All in all, an educating morning on Brazilian political history and a good start to my 4 months of traveling.
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