About two hours north of where I live are two mid-sized cities separated by the mighty São Francisco River. One, Juazeiro, is in my state of Bahia, and the other, Petrolina, is in Pernambuco. My first introduction to them was unpleasant; Juazeiro is the home of the Federal Police station where I am periodically obliged to turn over various documents and fees. My original foray into Petrolina was made to get a stamp on the copy of my passport that the courthouse in Juazeiro refused to provide. The cities are dry, flat, fairly ugly and significantly hotter than where I live.
In the year 1867, fellow traveler Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, on post as a diplomat from Britain, also visited Juazeiro during a voyage along the length of the São Francisco. His evaluation of the budding attempts at developing the region’s agricultural potential: “Grape growing will hardly be possible in this climate where the hot season is also that of the rains. The same bunch will contain ripe, half ripe, and unripe berries which make a good vinegar.”Today, despite Burton’s prediction, the Juazeiro/Petrolina region is the country’s largest exporter of fruit, including 95% of grapes and mangoes. The region has established a (terrible Brazilian) wine industry. And despite the many strikes against these cities in terms of climate and location, Petrolina in particular has become very attractive to young people. Young students that I taught English to love to visit – it has a real mall (the only one within hundreds of kilometers) with a movie theater, as well as a McDonald’s. And the economic opportunities for adults are plentiful as well, making Petrolina one of few cities in the Brazilian interior that sees more people immigrating than leaving. And it is all, apparently, due to intelligent use of irrigation.
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