1960

April 21, Thursday

Today we inaugurate Brasília, hacked out of the scrub of the high plains of central Brazil in just forty months, fulfilling our president J.K.’s promise. The blood and sweat of so many nordestinos who left their homes in northeast Brazil to find jobs, working hours and days on end, made it possible. We are proud to be candangos, the name they call people who made these modern concrete structures rise from the red dirt: Luiz, an electrician, his brother Chico, a carpenter, and so many others; people like me, washing the vice president’s wife’s clothes in the creek, ironing them in the tent-camp cookhouse until we got our little house in Cidade Livre.

Luiz, Chico, Sónia and I have lived together in our small shack with our kids for the last year, after Sónia traveled from Picuí to join us. The house is small, with a roof that leaks in summer when it rains, and in winter the chill wind coats everything with dust. It’s rustic and cramped, but we don’t care because we feel like we are living an adventure and everything is possible in the future, just like the capital itself. Sónia and I find ways to make money cooking, baking, and washing clothes.

We dress up in Sunday best and join the surge of people riding in the backs of trucks to the Esplanade of Ministries, the huge open area outside the Palácio do Planalto, the official offices of the president. The sight of the long line of tall ministry buildings rising up from the red dirt gives me goosebumps, and the Congress building with its upturned bowl on top looks like it could lift up and fly away to the enormous sky. The day is sunny, but towering gray clouds are gathering, riding along above us.

We arrive at the big open area where everyone is gathering below a marble ramp and viewing tower overlooking the crowd where J.K., as we all call President Kubitschek, will conduct the ceremony. The crowd keeps getting bigger, and everyone is smiling and feeling the excitement of this historic day. The inauguration doesn’t begin on time, but we don’t lose our enthusiasm as we wait. Finally, J.K. and other dignitaries walk up the ramp to the speaking platform in front of the Palace, the swooping curves in front of its glass walls so clean and modern. Our hearts swell with pride as J.K. speaks to our new capital and a bright future for Brazil.

”From this central plateau, this solitude that soon will become the brain of high national decisions, I cast my eyes once again upon the tomorrow of my country and I foresee the dawn with unbreakable faith in her great destiny.”

After several speakers and the military band playing the national anthem, the city is inaugurated and the crowd begins to disperse. Everyone will be back at work tomorrow as there is still so much to be done to make the city ready to officially move the capital from Rio to Brasília.

“Eva let’s go up on top of the Congress building. I want to see the upturned bowl and look out over the city.” Sónia is excited but I’m afraid of heights.

“Sónia, you go ahead with Chico and Luiz. I’ll stay down here with the kids.” They head off and the kids run around and play, giggling and getting red dust on their nice clean shoes.

Soon enough, our two families are on the way back to our home in the Cidade Livre. We are tired but happy, proud to be part of something bigger than ourselves, part of the limitless future of our great and modern country, with the promise of order and progress, just like it says on the flag.