Colegio Sinoda, Sao Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sull

        This house was founded by the Portuguese in 1788. In this house lived slaves from Africa and Portuguese from Europe. It used to be the African slaves house near the bosses' house many years ago. It was a farm where it was made material that was used to produce ropes and canvas for the Portuguese ships.

        In the XIX century, precisely on the 25th of July, in 1824, German immigrants arrived in São Leopoldo which was then the "Feitoria do Linho Cânhamo" which is now Feitoria, one of São Leopoldo neighborhoods. Many immigrants were Lutherans. They lived in this house. The Portuguese King in Brazil, D. Pedro I, asked the Germans to come to Brazil. Here they founded a colony to grow vegetable and produce food. There was a shock between the Portuguese and the Germans because many things were different: food, language, culture, customs. The Germans worked very hard. They planted sweet potato, manioc, guava trees and other things.

        The house is old but it is preserved. It was made of brick and it is now painted white and brown. It has a style called "enxaimel." In the backyard there are many old machines and kind of a cemetery with a cross made of iron and some gravestones . It is very peaceful there with a very green grass, flowers and trees - how old are those trees? There is also a device to extract sugar from the sugar cane(engenho de açúcar) and a waggon.

        We saw a lot of interesting things about the Germans inside the house: their clothes, diverse personal objects. All walls are painted white and the furniture is made of wood: white contrasts with brown and the grey color in the photographs all around. The house has three bedrooms, with beds and wardrobes, a craddle (How many babies slept in this craddle many years ago?). The matresses are made of straw. Near the bedrooms there are clothes hanging on the walls, men's and women's clothes. The dining room is big and the kitchen is big, too. There is a stove made of stone, many cupboards, a table and iron casseroles. There is also a sewing machine (can you imagine a woman sewing her family's clothes in the evening by the light of a candle?). In a small room there was a photograph machine and many ancient pictures.

        The biggest room portrays an old store where the immigrants used to buy the necessary things for their daily life.

        Sinodal, our school, started there many years ago.

        We think the German Immigrants' House is a beautiful Museum and we know that the Germans changed the history of Rio Grande do Sul a lot.

(A text written with the help of all students in groups 71, 72 and 73, and the coordination of teacher Regina Machado Garcez, from Colégio Sinodal São Leopoldo - Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil).