Nosebleed City

I never had a nose bleed in my life – until I arrived in Brasília. I remember feeling so shocked feeling the blood dripping from my nose and seeing it on a tissue. I’d seen a fair number of people coping with this – mostly in school. But it seemed the strange and unfortunate lot of other people. I stood looking out of the window of my lodgings, looking at the orange earth against the green grass, and the eucalyptus trees against a bright blue sky. What caused this? Luckily it stopped fairly quickly with some pressure, and I was there for work with a radical Catholic aid agency, which kept me busy. But it happened a number of times, in different trips to the city. Brasília is famously built on a “plan” that from above looks like an airplane, or a bird depending on your inclination. It was designed by communist architect Oscar Niemeyer and urban planner Lúcio Costa, its construction kicked off by Juscelino Kubitschek, known as JK. The project to move Brazil’s capital from Rio was no…