WELCOME TO CACADOR

OLA
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 2013
LOCATION: Canoinhas / Cacador

Today we said good bye to the lovely people of Canionhas and drove to Cacador which is about 2 hours away. After we met the Cacadorian Rotarians and checked into our hotel (which interestingly enough had no elevator, just a luggage lift) we were whisked away through the streets and headed towards SESC. SESC is a cooperative made up of members of commerce which provide services to its members. This location was a mix between an after school facility, community center, and fitness club for the members. They provided a wide range of services from literacy programs for the elderly, to teaching English to children and even had weightlifting classes. Thanks goes out to Vilma, her two students, and the rest of the staff for their warm hospitality.

After leaving SESC we headed to the local museum that is housed in an old train station. The museum put together all the pieces of the railway war we had been hearing about throughout our entire trip. The "Guerra Do Contestado", translates as the Contestado War, stared because there were people living on the land that bordered the states of Santa Catarina and Parana. These people technically did not have any rights to the land but had been living there for a long time. In the early 1900's the Brazilian government along with the railroad company decided to build a railway along this stretch of land. The Brazilian government gave the railroad company 10 kilometers (6 miles) of land in each direction of where the track was being laid. The 10 kilometer range directly ran through these peoples' land. A war ensued. During this time there was a man by the name of Sao Joa Maria, who was said to be a miracle worker, who led the rebellion against the railroad company. (There was a cool mural on the wall of the museum that depicted a train with two open hands coming towards the people and three guys with white mask and billy clubs in their hands. To me this symbolized the impending taking over of the land, by force, by the railroad company ).

Cool mural

Upon completing the tour of the museum, the team and I decided to take some action shots outside of the local museum.

Tonight we attended a ceremony at the city hall. The event  was standing room only and was set up to honor all the community service  organizations in the city and surrounding area. It was really good to see the organizations and some of the projects that they sponsor to help those in need.