Brasilia-JK :Moon - JFK

Marques de Pombal, the Regent of the Portuguese Court imagined Brasilia in the times of the French Revolution, a safe place for Emperors in an age of beheaded kings.

But the city was materialized in 1955 when Juscelino Kubitschek was campaigning for president in Jatai, small municipality in the state of Goias. A passer-by, Mr. Toniquinho (little Tony) had studied the Brazilian Constitution two weeks ago, while preparing for a test to compete for a public job. He remembered that there was a vague chapter about re locating the Capital to the center of the country.

Mr Toniquinho used the moment of having the candidate in front of him (JK was speaking from the cargo bed of a truck) and asked if he was actually going to respect the Constitution. That was a charged question in a time of coups d'etat, and used this as an argument to ask about the Capital relocation.

Mr Kubistchek answered emphatically that all the Constitution was going to be respected, but the news on the next day took the part of the new capital as a headline and history changed. Nobody knew exactly how this endeavor would be done, and much less, how much it would cost. No cost-benefit analysis was even thought and the burden of building Brasilia kept Brazil in bankruptcy for years.

A few years later, other JK, John Fitzgerald Kennedy promised to go to the moon. In 1962 JFK made a speech in Rice University, Houston and committed an American in the moon before 1970. He had the rosy vision that it will cost 10 cents a week to each citizen ("less than what we spend on cigarettes"), But he was aware that was a bold act for the country in a time when the supremacy in science and technology was seriously threatened by the Soviet Union, and the whole "decadence" of the US was topic of discussion in the world. He even compared the US challenging the USSR, to the his guest, Rice University football team that continued playing with Texas University even when the odds were against them.

Both presidents in similar times committed, out of nothing but an ideal, the resources of giant nations to historic destiny condensed in one single project, with the only certitude of their will. No votes in the Senate, no popular referendums were conducted. Both were criticized, and partially failed. JK built Brasilia in the promised deadline (in these days, the government cannot even make a face-lift of a few buildings in time for Brasilia's 50th. anniversary). But the resultant bankruptcy contributed to the coup of 1964, and the resultant dictatorship lasted 20 years.

JFK was assassinated shortly after, but the promise hold its ground and an American man step in the moon in 1969. The whole spatial adventure lost interest and Houston Space Center is now a nostalgic theme park. President Obama decided to tackle health reform (far more costly than 10 cents a week!!!) and quietly buried the space program.

But both presidents were clear in proposing an adventure of the human spirit, in challenging times, to up the antes and both won. Both were threatened inside and outside (military power was a factor in both cases), and both tried to show their courage.

Will the moon be one day as pleasant as Brasilia is today? In that item I give the point to the Brazilian JK.

Raining here and there, ut not everywhere

Brasilia is in a desert, but has a rainy season. As I arrived in September, for me has been a rainy place all these months. People complain about the dry weather, and sometimes I long for a dry season. Probably I will regret my words in a few months.
But is not homogeneous. It may rain here and there, with some sun or clouds in other areas. Located in a high plateau, in Brasilia you are always able to see 360o. of sky, which will let you spot the places where the shower is, pretty much allowing to choose where you want to go, depending on the rainy spots.

Climate by design

As a non-English writer I always have problems with Climate and Weather.

But I am sure that climate (or weather) in Brasilia has been carefully planned. Being a tropical country, of course, they couldn´t get a snowed top mountain, as most Brazilians would like, but at least they created an oasis in the middle of a semi-arid area. The `Cerrado` region is actually a savanna with long drought periods and long, hot, dry months. But the designers found a combination of natural factors and topped them up with some clever engineering.

The central highlands of Brazil are the top of a giant table of granite that cover the heart of the continent. Under that table there is the largest reservoir of underground fresh water. The are where Brasilia was built is 1050 meters high and from that point most of the major rivers flow to the ocean. Some of the larger Amazon rivers, the Paraguay and Parana, the San Francisco, all have their sources in a circle of 100 kms, being Brasilia in the center of that circle.

In terms of natural factors we have: dry warm climate, cool nights (due to the altitude), many fresh water sources and in the center of a geological plate, sitting over a huge amount of fresh water. Today Chile was hit by a giant earthquake and reminded how geological factors are still poorly predicted.

As a side note about geological and other forms of stability, Brasilia was originally conceived as a safe area by the Marques de Pombal, after the French Revolution, seeing how easily Paris was taken by revolution. He thought that a far away capital was easy to defend and preserve, Probably in his view, the main geological factor was to avoid the cobblestones in the Lisboan citizens. But in any case, the region he enviisioned has no natural disaster factors. Except the drought.

Enters engineering. As the center of a granite and basaltic table, many streams begin their course in the area. The city planners just incorporated the geological ditches of those streams as part of the designs, creating barriers in key places and creating a lake (actually many lakes) that is functional to the city. Instead of adapting the city to the natural features of the area, they created `natural` features adapted to the city.

The lake acts as a giant air conditioner, cooling and humidifying the air, creating a longer rainy season and a fertile area around the city. As if this was a small feat, the dams of the lake provide a large percentage of the city energy. And in the near future, as the pollution of the lake is being controlled, the lake will also be a source of potable water. Talk about green and sustainable cities!!

Year-round warm days and cool nights; lakes, streams and waterfalls, claen energy and renewable fresh water. It seats in a stable geologic area and there are no hurricanes or other natural threats (except for the beautiful but deadly lightning). Who can ask for more? It´s in the middle of nowhere and it´s a little boring, but who cares!

Museum of Modernism

A popular song in Brazil talks about a " Museum of Novelties" and how new things get old soon. Brasilia is a good example of the old fashioned modern art, not so old to be classic, and not new enough to be still modern (even though anyone to designate anything as " modern" will think twice, and while is thinking twice, it will become "old"). Brasilia is not longer " modern" as Yuri Gagarin thought in 1964, but a open air museum of modernism.

When Brasilia was being built, a public agency was created: NOVACAP, the new capital. Inmediately the soon-to-be old capital, Rio de Janeiro, coined the term BELACAP (the beautiful capital). As time passed the NOVACAP is getting old while Rio is still beautiful, in a cruel reverse version of the old joke of the drunk guy and the ugly lady (Yeah!, but mine is temporary...).

Brasilia will turn 50 next April 21. As any respectable lady, she is preparing herself for the mid-life crisis and getting as much cosmetic surgery as she can get. But inevitably the age of the project will still be there.

Foreigners in a village

After living a while in Brasilia, a paradox becomes evident: this a place of foreigners, but at the same time the largest village I have ever lived in.

Brasilia is ihabited by foreigners. Only in 2009 the Brasilia-born (Brasilienses) outnumbered for the first time the `foreigners`(Candangos). Due to the fact of building a city from scratch, the planners and builders forgot the detail that they didn´t need just stone, sand and cement, but people, to build it and inhabit it. There are no records of any plan about how to populate Brasilia.

Actually, one of the striking factors of the planning odissey is that the planners thought this place as a campus, with temporary assignments of housing, the way Harvard plans the dorms, mixing and matching Ministers and Janitors.

No one thought in living permanently here. But almost without thinking, the public officers discovered that was hard to move back and decided to stay. And the laborers that came for a while to do shovel services decided that here was better than the deserts of the Notheast. And, lone by one, they stayed and brought their relatives and in-laws.

But the point in this post is that, in spite of all these foreigners and the tens of thousands internationally recruited officers in several hundreds of multinational corporations, Brasilia still has the human feeling of a countryside village. It´s hard to hear any non-Portuguese speaking in the malls, and all the store attendants are shocked in awe every time we try to use other languages. They call their supervisors with terror in their eyes, saying: É uma estrangeira! (It´s a foreigner!).

It´s not even provincialism (which may mean a strong, even disdaineous stance against anything from the outside world). It´s more like the instinctive shock in front of the unknown. That reflects also a certain lack of worldliness that goes way beyond the language. It´s hard to get a waiter that knows about the food ihe is serving (I suspect that even the cook is just following instructions). It´s hard to get a haircut, it´s impossible to get bilingual service, even in the hotels, it´s impossible to go to a hospital with English-speaking attendants. Even the smaller -and much less cosmopolitan in numbers- cities of the Northeast, such as Recife and Natal have more natural acceptance of the fact of an external world.

Just one tracer of this isolation is the paradox of BSB, the Brasilia´s Juscelino Kubistcheck "International" Airport. It is the second busiest airport in Brazil, after São Paulo International and preceding Rio International. But only has one direct international flight to Lisbon, a direct flight to Buenos Aires was cancelled, and a flight from Atlanta comes non-stop a few days a week and returns via Manaos. So, strictly speaking has just ONE international daily flight out of hundreds of domestic flights a day.

Brasilia New Geometrics

Brasilia is a city created by geometrists, all referenced and traced with rulers and compasses, North, East, West, South (NEWS), as all the main buildings, with the straight lines and the curves of perfect circles. The geometric wizards of the planning team worked in a perfect flat sheet of red dirt in the middle of nowhere, no rivers, hills or even trees to be respected.

But the geometry fails in the roads: in Brasilia the shortest distance between two specified points A,B is

D(A,B)= 1 UT + SL + n RA + 1UT

Meaning: Any Distance (D) is composed by 1 U-Turn; Plus a straight line (SL); Plus n number of Runabouts (called here Balões, balloons); Plus at least one more U-Turn. This is a best case scenario, because the backbone of the city is accessed by 30- something pairs of mini clovers called "Tesourinhas" (little scissors) that are the epitome of the U-Turn, needing to turn South whenever you want to go North.

Of course, Descartes rationality embodies all these formulas, with any single house pinpointed like in a 1950's GPS: SHTN LT1 TR2 BlA Ap102 is where I live, looks like a Google Earth address or the asteroid addresses of The Little Prince.

Where is the Red Flamboyant House in Sighs' Alley of Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay? Where is the "100 yards up from the Old Parking of the Automercado Los Yoses"? , a place with fond memories of my first stay in Costa Rica. The poetry of tree or flower names, the exagerated memories of national heroes, or even the bad taste of a street called India Muerta in Montevideo, is absent here.

No street names here, actually no streets at all, no sidewalks, no corners. How can you call this a city?

Buroplex BSB or how to live in Brasilia. Or at least to die trying...

We face everyday a challenge: how to live in this strange place called Brasilia. This is not a city, but a giant campus for a human species, the bureaucrats.

It´s also a isolated Boomtown of the Brazilian boom, and the name of Boomtown.gov.br would be appropriate for this blog if only the URL was not restricted...

Can be called in many other ways, one of the bloggers in our team call Brasilia " the place of unhappy people". But that may be extreme.

There are hundreds of pages written in prose, verse and film about the experience of living in Brazil. Of course none has helped to change one inch the foreign stereotypes. Brazil is still a place where people dance with bananas in their heads (this is the best case scenario, some may be surprised that they don´t use sombreros).

But the experience of living in Bra-silia (no, it´s not the capital of the lingerie industry) has not been very much bloggers material. It´s as un-Brazilian as the sombreros. No beaches, no dancing in the street, not even drug traffickers.

BuroplexBSB will try to keep a record of our own daily awe of the experience of living in the Metroplex of the Brazilian bureaucracy, a city that was built the way Jorge Luis Borges wanted to build a world through human rationality. Such a giant enterprise is doomed to failure and at the same time merits all our admiration. And perhaps some day, our love.