|
For over 100 years, Brazil’s cowboys have earned a living and shaped a culture with their bare hands and sweat. The life of a cowboy in Brazil is not for the timid.
It is an intense existence filled with hard work on long, hot days. To herd cattle in the Midwest of Brazil is to live.
Brazilian cowboys lead simple lives. Most had a father or relative who was one. They do not regret passing by other opportunities, because their life is handed to them at a young age.
Cowboys, or peões as they are known in Portuguese, begin training very young. They accompany their elders until the day comes when they start the ride to herd beef cattle with other peões.
Most cowboys live their entire lives on the same ranch. As part of their pay, housing on the grounds is provided at least that’s how it works on the many ranches of renowned Porto Murtinho Fazendeiro, Nelson Cintra.
On Nelson’s ranches, cowboys like Rivalino receive a monthly salary based on skill and performance. They also receive housing in general living quarters, or in a small two-room house if they have a family. When they need medical care, all they need to do is ask, and the boss will normally pay.
This is not a bad life, considering the economic situation in Brazil. A small and wealthy elite still controls most of the land and resources, and much of the population continues to live in poverty.
In rural areas there is no middle class. Most of the simple shacks of rural laborers lack water supply, sewerage, and electricity, unless they are lucky enough to live on a ranch.
Brazilian society displays vast inequities between rich and poor, leaving a huge economic barrier. Despite economic progress, the situation in Brazil is that of a profound schism between the haves and the have-nots.
Those who become cowboys in Brazil live a simple existence, but are grateful for whatever little they have. They work hard during the day and play hard at rodeos at night, an occasional respite.
However, much of the rural population — especially cowboys and their families living on ranches — lack access to educational, social, and financial resources which could dramatically improve their position in life.
Being a Brazilian cowboy is not a revered profession. It’s not envied or sought after by many. There is even a stigma attached to it by some who see cowboys as uneducated, illiterate, and socially inept.
It may be true that most don’t receive an education past elementary school, if at all. And they rarely leave the ranch for excursions to the city. You can almost count on never seeing a cowboy visiting a museum.
But when we look at the beef surrounding us in supermarkets and restaurants, we can begin to appreciate these cowboys for dedicating themselves to their profession, day in and day out.
Alexandra Copley has been an aspiring photographer since she became first entangled in a Kodak Instamatic years ago. She attended Ohio State University and received her B.A. of Journalism in 2000 focusing on photojournalism. She began working with Children of the Future/AmeriCorps during and after university. She's an independent, free-thinking photographer whose ultimate goal is to work for a publication willing to fund her world travels. Her email: photochicki@hotmail.com
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.