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A distant farm, oil on card, 16 x 12.5 cm
A view of Mafra, oil on card, 14 x 12.5 cm - available
Mafra, simple houses, oil on card, 14 x 14 cm - available
billowing of paper in middle of picture (above)
Mafra, man with a back pack, oil on card, 18 x 16 cm - unavailable
Mafra is a smallish city in the North of Santa Catarina which merges with its neighbour Rio Negrinho across the river. Its inhabitants are largely Polish and Ukrainian in ethnic origin and there are various very Eastern-European looking wooden buildings there, a big Ukrainian church and blond people.
It`s prettily sited on a series of wooded hills, which are where I did most of my work. I could, I think, have spent a few more days here quite happily, although the food was dismal and costly (though don`t they say, "bad food is always expensive" ?): I had a particularly vile hot dog (what Brazil has done to the hot dog would cause nervous breakdowns in Frankfurt) and a foul Burrito. But the town seems orderly and prosperous and has none of the squalor that mars so much of Brazil.
I had originally intended to return to Florianopolis via Lages, but felt that this would, without a night`s rest somewhere, ìnvolve far too much driving in one day. I regret now that I didn`t consider this properly when planning, and added another day or two to my itinerary, as I was therefore forced to return via the route I came: via the tedious expanse of Teutonic suburb towns that stretches from Joinville to Brusque to Blumenau and Jaranagua. And the area between Lages and Mafra remains, for me, still somewhat unexplored.
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The pictures are mostly quite good, if occasionally generic in composition (especially the first and third). I am working on a larger scale these days, and am feeling very confident.
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