Monday February 8th 2010

Saturday evening was the “St Andrew’s Society of Sao Paulo”, celebration of Robert Burns, commonly known around the world as “Burns night”.

Robert, “Rabbie” Burns is Scotland’s foremost poet and favourite son and each year the Scots celebrate his life and works with Burns night. That said, it seems to me that the further away you are from Scotland the more you celebrate. We have celebrated this tradition in the Far East, Middle East, Europe and now South America, but so far never in Scotland. The evening consists of eating haggis, drinking whisky, listening to undecipherable poetry, dancing Scottish reels and listening to bagpipes playing.

In Sao Paulo, the St Andrew’s society is a pretty large and long standing organization. It is made up of Scots and honorary Scots, and, from what I can gather, it has the sole aim of coming together to have a party.

It even has its own tartan. This in itself is no mean feat. The tartan was designed and then had to be registered so that it didn’t infringe any other tartan. Then it had to be specially woven and only then could the plaid be sent to the kilt maker to be cut and made into kilts and ties. I have to say that it is a very attractive plaid and now that I have seen it, I know that anyone wearing it is a member of the St Andrew’s society of Sao Paulo. A plaid is as important a definition of belonging as anything. Imagine being in a war and wondering who the opposition is. Well, they normally have some distinguishing uniform and for the Scots, it is their plaid.

I have to say that the whole evening was fabulous. Steve and I haven’t been to a “Scottish” evening for about 9 years so it was lovely to be surrounded by such tradition and enthusiasm. It helped that England had beaten Wales in the 6 nations' rugby earlier in the day so we were already in good spirits.

The Society has its own (bagpipe) pipe band in which there are several Brazilian players. It is the first time in my life that I have heard Scottish music with a distinctly “Samba” rhythm. Not unattractive and definitely different but then again we are in Brazil so I suppose only to be expected.

We haven’t danced Scottish dances for a similar amount of time and with a hip replacement 4 months ago I was a bit reluctant to dive straight into the Scottish reels. But it is absolutely like riding a bike. After the first dance we were raring to go and were Dashing the White Sergeant, doing Eight-Some reels and Stripping the Willow with the best of them.

Great fun was had by almost all. Bring on Carneval next weekend.