The Iguassu Falls Area Guru

Artist Giovanni Vissoto working on restauration If you look for information (in English) on the subject of this post, that is, on the Saint Francis Statue in the Morumbi sector of Foz do Iguaçu, you will find none. If you are looking for info on this subject in Portuguese you will find very little.  An exception is for the period from mid November   to the end of December. Most local headlines will tell you that the Statute has been reformed for the first time since its creation back in 2000. Construction began in 1997.     The reason for nobody caring about letting the world know about his beautiful statue is somehow linked to prejudice against this area of town. You probably have heard about the Itaipu Brazil –Paraguay (Binational) Dam on the Parana River, the absolutely world’s largest dam until the inauguration of the Three Gorge Dam in China and still keeping that claim to fame as far as production is concerned. 

Muslim women from far away in many colored dresses   This post is about a specific visit on October 20th, 2018, according to my notes.  There were lots of people. The water discharge at 3 p.m. when I got there was 3.030 cubic meters per second roughly 8000 gallons or over 3 million liters of water per second.  When I left at 6 p.m. the water flowing had jumped up to 3.300 cubic meters a second which made me think of Euraclitus’ quote: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” First I learned that the water had gained 300 cubic meters before my eyes, I saw it swelling. But as Eraclitus says not only the water is not the same as the people going into the river is no longer the same. Something changes in the river and in the beholder’s eyes.