São Paulo – How about taking a day off, in the middle of the week, to get to know the Arab face of São Paulo? This is the proposal behind Carona Cultural (Cultural Lift), a company which offers cultural routes in the state of São Paulo. On November 13th, it will promote a tour to show some of the city’s most Arab places. The participants will go to the Orthodox Cathedral, the Arab Hall at Club Homs, the Arab food shop and factory Maxifour, and mosque Mesquita Brasil.
The protagonist of this history is Andréa Curi Bauab, a Lebanese descendent who established Carona Cultural last year. The company offers one route in the capital and another in the interior each month, plus regular trips to theatre plays, concerts, exhibitions and the likes. The Arab schedule is a first, explains Bauab, who believes many Arab descendants will tag along.
Carona Cultural usually fetches tourists at their homes – or the hotels they are staying in – and the routes include guides who tell the stories of each of the sites. For the Arab route, a specialist on the subject will lead the group around the Orthodox Cathedral, and at the other spots, such as Maxifour and Club Homs, explanations will be given by professionals who work in each of them.
The Orthodox Cathedral is located in the Paraíso area and was founded by Syrians and Lebanese, with help from the respective colonies, to serve families which immigrated to Brazil and found themselves unable to follow their religion. Club Homs’ Arab Hall houses Arab furniture, musical instruments, and objects; Maxifour is a company which manufactures and sells Arab foods in Brazil; and Mesquita Brasil is a temple frequented by Muslims, which are mostly of Arab origin in Brazil. The group will have lunch at Casa Líbano, which serves Halal Arab food, i.e. food cooked in accordance with Islamic rules.
The owner of Carona Cultural claims she does not like repeating tours, and thus adds new things to the program every month. However, she might make another Arab route, because many people will be unable to participate on a week day. The other Carona Cultural visit in November will be to Porto Feliz, a municipality with roughly 50,000 inhabitants on the left margin of the Tietê River. The company has promoted visits to various destinations, such as Buddhist temples, the house of painter Fúlvio Pennacchi , and architect Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro (Glass House).
Bauab founded Carona Cultural after taking a sabbatical year in 2010. The holder of a degree in Language as Interpreter into English, she has worked as an executive secretary, then in exports, and later in the financial market, in which she remained for 14 years. The businesswoman, however, was always interested in culture, and would help her father, formerly the secretary for Culture in the city of Jaú, to select theatre plays to be staged in the city. It was thus, always giving out cultural tips to acquaintances, that she came up with the idea for her enterprise.
Service
Arab tour
November 13
Time: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
In São Paulo
Carona Cultural
Website: www.facebook.com/caronacultural
Telephones: +55 (11) 9 9867-4409 and +55 (11) 3088-0269
Email: andrea@caronacultural.com.br
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
