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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Local Mysteries – What am I?

A few weeks back Camillo and I went on a Sunday morning tour to a (non-working) coffee plantation just outside of the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan area.  If you read that post you would have gotten at least one of these mysteries.  Although not from ‘My Town’ these items could have been found in Nova Friburgo if I looked hard enough.  They are all very indicative of this area of Brasil.  Well maybe not the last one, but the timeline is right.

What am I?

DSC_4910 I am a hand made angel.  I am made of straw & grass with a bit of lace to dress me up and I carry real dried flowers for color.  I have brothers and sisters, cousins and aunts made of corn cobs and dried husks, and bright yarns and fabric, but we all have a family resemblance that is unmistakable in our hand painted faces.  I would make a very nice gift for the US Thanksgiving or a Christmas dinner table.

DSC_4893 I am another stage of a banana tree in bloom. These are my newest Bananas, when you buy a ‘chiquita banana’ at the grocery now you will know what the little dry stems, often hanging off the end of your otherwise perfect banana are.  I would even make Carmen Miranda’s hat proud.

(I have to admit I am fascinated with the banana tree. People plant them in their yards in Houston and they just make a mess, looking bug eaten and moldy.  Here they go through a continuous bloom and are quite beautiful, and this time of bloom I’d never come across before.  I will post a series soon to see if we can follow all the stages of a banana tree. GingerV)

  DSC_4857 I bet you guessed I’m a potty chair for the little master.  But my real use seems to be another mystery, even to me.  The little girl that tells you about the house and its contents says that the chair was too heavy so they drilled a hole in order to be able to lift it….?  That sounds just made up to me.  I have to say that the hole has been there since my awareness of time so I think it natural that I have a hole in my seat.   Maybe my creator needed to hole in order to make me round and concaved …. do you know why I have a hole in my seat?   If you do send me a comment.

8 comments:

  1. I've those banana bloom but I didn't associate your cropped picture with it! lol

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  2. Terrific mysteries, Ginger. I thought I'd seen a lot of banana plantation but have never noticed the flowers before. The section of the angel is very clever.

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  3. Wonderfully clever, Ginger. I've never seen bananas in bloom either.
    As for the chair, perhaps the seat was originally something else. The hole is far too small for a potty chair, and wouldn't reduce the chair's weight significantly.

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  4. The banana flowers I had were not pink, they were white.

    The christmas decoration, I have one like that.

    Finally that hole in the chair, hmmmm, if this was in China, I would say it helps the chair to cool down quickly. Chinese people do not like to sit down immediately after some one else. They think they will catcjh some one's hemmoroid. So if you are in the Far East, don't be offended if people refuse to sit down after you offer them in the bus.

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  5. Oh Ann you are always so full of interesting bit of information, this one made me laugh. I have a Chinese friend here in Brasil - I am going try and observe this habit.

    word verf. monialib... one ability to talk to ones self?

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  6. very good Ginger! the last one is great. I like Ann's idea for the hole. :-) I can understand that. I don't like to sit in someone elses warmth either.

    maybe it is a way of stacking them on a pole for transportation?

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  7. Great job with the photos, guess I really didn't have a clue

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  8. Emails to you are bouncing.

    ExpatBrazil

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