Pato Branco

Pato Branco from the air, the yellow church is in the
middle of the shot

I must correct a terrible omission…  I have a blog about Brazil but have not written about the one place in which I have spent more time than anywhere else in Brazil – Pato Branco!  I have been coming here since December 2008 and have lived here since December 2015, how could I have missed this place?!

You can be forgiven if you have never heard of Pato Branco, it is a relatively small city deep in the countryside of southern Brazil.  With a population of just under 80,000 people, it is considered to be the capital of Southwest Paraná, one of the 3 southernmost states in Brazil.  I should point out that residents of neighbouring Francisco Beltrão (the “little city” is actually a bit bigger than Pato Branco, with a population just under 85,000) do not necessarily share this opinion, so I’ll move swiftly on. 

Where is Pato Branco?  From Google Maps

Pato Branco (meaning White Duck in English) is a very young city, marking its 65^th birthday in December 2016.  It started life as a colony called Colônia Bom Retiro, founded in 1918 to resettle people unsatisfied with the result of a border dispute with the neighbouring state of Santa Catarina.  The name Pato Branco comes from a telegraph station Posto do Rio Pato Branco (station of white duck river) and people began to refer to the region as simply Pato Branco, becoming official in 1938.

Two Haitian immigrants in Pato
Branco (photograph by Dan Jaeger)

The majority of the population is descended from European immigrants, in large part Italians from Veneto, in the North of Italy.  This has a marked influence on the culture of the city with many Italian-based customs and parties, a fondness for pasta and polenta and many shops and restaurants with Italian names.  There are also a significant number of people descended from Ukraine, Germany and Poland.  There is even a Ukrainian church in the city with Ukrainian parties and food.  This being Brazil, many of the cultures and traditions mix and it is not uncommon to meet people with recent ancestry from Italy, Ukraine, Germany, Portugal in various combinations!  Relatively recently, there has been a wave of immigrants from Haiti, with the largest community of Haitians in Paraná.  After the devastating earthquake in Haiti, several companies helped Haitians to obtain documentation to work, helping them to find housing and bring their families.  The Haitian community is generally happy in Pato Branco (except maybe for the cold in the winter months!) and are integrating well into the community.

 

The Ukrainian church (Paróquia Nossa Senhora do Perpétuo Socorro) in winter

Empty streets

The city is a small rural city with an economy based on agriculture, although in recent years it has seen growth in the areas of IT and electronics.  The city has been growing rapidly as a result of this change, with an increase in population from 72,370 in the last census in 2010 to an estimated 79,869 as of 2016.  This has changed the face of the city, even in the few years since I started coming here, there are considerably more apartment blocks, with several new buildings under construction.  In anticipation of further growth, there is a plan to relocate the city centre to an area just north of the city.  People have been buying up plots of land in anticipation of the move, although no one really knows when this will happen.  With the current recession in Brazil, the worst on record (according to the BBC), development has slowed somewhat with new roads running between empty plots of grassy land, waiting for movement. 

One thing that I have found funny since moving to Pato Branco; no one has asked whether I like living there, only whether I am “adapting”!  I’m not sure whether they are referring specifically to Pato Branco or to Brazil in general, but yes, I’m adapting!  It is a lot different to what I’m used to – it’s certainly not a large metropolitan area like London or the Bay Area and neither is it like a small town in Britain.  It has most of the services you would expect of a city – supermarkets, pharmacies, post office, hospitals etc – but the supermarkets close at 8pm and you’ll be lucky to find anything open on Sunday.  There is a cinema now though!  It opened a few months ago and means that you no longer need to drive 2-3 hours to find a cinema, though it does only have 3 screens (though having said that, it’s no different to where I grew up in a small town in Northeast Scotland.)  So yes, it is different to what I’m used to, but I am getting used to it, and it is a pretty town.

Praça Getúlio Vargas

Like many cities in Brazil, the centre of Pato Branco is well built-up, with several colourful apartment clocks, approximately 15 to 20 stories high.  This, as well as the numerous steep hills, gives the impression that the city is bigger than it is.  All the same, when you crest a hill and see the city spreading out with smaller houses, it’s clear to see how the city is growing.  It does still maintain a small community feel though.  The yellow church forms a scenic centre-point, and the fountains and trees of the Praça Getúlio Vargas directly in front of the church makes the centre of town a pleasant place to walk or sit and relax.  Indeed, at weekends and summer evenings, it is fairly common to see families gathered in the square talking and drinking chimarrão (a hot, yerba mate drink typical of Southern Brazil and Argentina.)

The accent and dialect is one area that I did struggle with, though.  When I started learning Portuguese, I mostly heard accents from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with the São Paulo accent relatively easy for me to understand.  In Pato Branco, though, the accent is markedly different.  In much the same way as rural English accents can differ from more metropolitan accents, the rural Paraná accent is a lot different to the accent from São Paulo and even Curitiba.  Even now, having lived here for about 15 months, I can get caught out by some unusual expressions!

Birds flying around the church (Paróquia São Pedro Apóstolo)
(Photograph by Dan Jaeger)

The increase in population has resulted in increases in traffic, which has forced the city to make a string of changes to the roads to cope with the increased demand.  Some changes, such as replacing stop signs with traffic lights have greatly improved things for road users, while some changes are less welcome, such as changing some one-way streets (which worked due to alternating the direction of traffic on parallel streets) to two-way without reconsidering the traffic signals, which no longer leave time for pedestrians to cross, meaning you have to take your chances and hope that a car doesn’t come flying around a blind corner.

Pato Branco = White Duck

The city become well known in Brazil as a result of a comedy, “Toma Lá, Dá Cá,” which featured a character from Pato Branco with a strong countryside accent constantly telling long-winded folk tales about the people of the city.  The first time I became aware of this, I was in a restaurant in London with my wife (girlfriend at the time) and she noticed that the waiter was Brazilian.  The restaurant wasn’t busy se we chatted with him and he burst out laughing when she said she came from Pato Branco – he thought it was a fictional city!  It wasn’t the first time I found Brazilians laughing about the name of the city.  The city is also known for being the home of footballers Alexandre Pato (who played for the national side, and teams including Corinthians, Milan and Chelsea) and Rogério Ceni, the former goalkeeper of São Paulo.

Pato Branco is a lovely, peaceful city that’s perfect for raising a family.  There is a strong economy and, with the upcoming opening of the airport to commercial flights, I am sure the city will continue to grow and prosper.

The city centre, shortly before a summer storm