Welcome to Pomerode! Another chill German town smack dab in the middle of Pomerania... Or is it?
It isn't!
Together with many other cities here in southern Brazil, we have the so called "German Route" or "Rota Alemã", where the bulk of German migration during 1824 to 1845, and a large wave during and after World War II (with my Großvater included) happened.
This map shows the German colonization between the southern Brazilian states in 1911, with orange being higher, and as you can see, my state wins by a landslide.
Whilst as Brazilians we do take pride in our diversity, it's still a wonderful thing to look back fondly at our ancestors and preserve their traditions, and how are we doing that besides welcome arches?
Architektur!
Whenever I go through the German Route, it does not only feel like I'm in a different country, but it also feels like a different time period. It all looks so antique and beautiful. I wonder if this is what my grandfather saw before war brought havock to Europe, and if it is, I'm glad we've managed to keep it here.
Architecture isn't the key to keeping a culture alive. Language is another key aspect to it, with 3 million people in Brazil here in Brazil speaking German, or how our dialect is called, Riograndense Hunsrückisch, with the vast majority of them being in my state and some in the northern part of Rio Grande do Sul.
The language is so widespread in fact that we even have things like these:
Yup, that's a bilingual school in Pomerode, a city where German is a co-official language.
I've encountered it in my daily life as well. Being a third generation immigrant, my grandparents are all Italian and German, hearing those two languages was not uncommon at all at the dinner table, and it's how I've managed to pick up some German, even if it's really rusty. I'm doing a concerted effort now to try and polish it up, and I'll get there eventually.
Some rural communities in the outskirts of Pomerode don't even speak Portuguese as a second language at all. The old folk came there speaking German and it was passed down like that, with their simple lives. And it's understandable considering how you actually get to the German trail, which the easiest way is through the Serra do Rio do Rastro... Which looks like this:
Honestly, it looks scarier than it is, I've been up there multiple times.
Now now, what's something that Germans and Brazilians have in common?
Beer!
And Oktoberfest is as much of a tradition here as it is in Bayern!
I've never been to an actual German Oktoberfest but what do we have here?
- Parades
- Flags
- Traditional clothes
- and metric tonnes of beer!
We always have the Princess Oktoberfest, which usually are locals from the German Route, which mean blonde German-descendant girls.
We have the drink until you fall, and a bunch of competitions like: If you can drink this whole glass you pay nothing, which I failed the last time and my dad won - he's got some experience.
And before COVID hit, we hit a massive local boost to our local economy. Unfortunately for the past couple of years it has been scaled down a lot, but it's still been fun.
If things go well, hopefully it'll be as fun as always soon.
So that was my overview of how we're keeping the traditions of our German ancestors alive and the architecture they brought here almost 200 years ago.
Our German past is something we'll always have pride in, while also having pride of being in the middle of such a great diverse people that's brought us many great things, the same as we brought them.
It's unfortunate this mix of people drove away those who were here originally, but at least the vast variety of new arrivals to this new world are now finally getting together on the right foot.
From the African mocotó, to the Italian pizza and the German sausages, we're all one. And we're all proud.