The Museum

I have a new job tutoring at Caixa at 1pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and at 12pm on Wednesdays and Fridays...which is great, but it creates a long gap in the day, which isn't quite long enough for me to go home...but is quite a while to just hang around the Caixa building. My morning classes usually end between 9am and 9:30am.
So my friend Enrique offered to take me to the museum durning one of my morning breaks. He met me right after my morning class and we started our walk over to the museum. On the way there we ran into my other friend Alex. Alex and Aline are students at Yes, and Alex works for Caixa but in a different building. It was really odd to see in downtown Brasilia (or in other words, the Plano). Apparently I have been in this city long enough to run into my friends all over the place.
Anyway, we got to the museum, which is a very modern white dome building, but it was closed. It was suppose to open at 9am, and even though it was almost 10am it still wasn't open...huh. Enrique said to me, "Welcome to Brazil, it looks good, but it doesn't work." Which has sort of been the theme of our whole experience here. So we decided to walk over to the Catherdal while we were waiting. The Cathedral is a very unique building made up almost completely of stain glass...yet it is really cool inside. Enrique and I were expecting it to have more of the greenhouse effect.


After a short look around we went back to the museum, but some how entered the wrong door. They were having some sort of forum on Brasilia culture...but it wasn't much of a museum...just an auditorium. We were about to give up and leave when we realized that the upstairs entrance might lead to the real museum...and it did. It was nice...quiet...but not terrible unique or extrodinary...except for this native Brasilian tribe weapon. I am glad to see that the coke bottle has come to good use. I am still looking for a glass one for my collection.


Enrique has actually been a really great tour guide, because he is rich with information on Brasilian culture. Apparently there are areas of the Amazon rain forest that are completely primative and have not been contacted by outside civilization. These pictures were take earlier this year by a helicopter...when the trible people saw the helicopter for the first time they atempted to attack it with their bows and arrows.





Also, I learned that Capoeira is a very popular martial art form here in Brasil. They are still not sure if it originated in Africa and was brought over by the slaves or if it originated here in Brasil. Either way, they combate to the music of drums and tambourines, apparently because they needed to make it look like dancing. The slave owners would never have allowed their slaves to practive fighting skills, but they didn't mind them dancing. It is a really beautiful martial art.