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Brazil ready for Carnival
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BRAZIL'S annual pre-Lenten festival Carnival is to kick off today with five days of parties and parades. However, preparations began as early as last November.
It is said that a decade ago, Rio's scantily clad Carnival queens flooded beauty salons. Now they're knocking down plastic surgeons' doors for a bit of sculpting before baring it all in elaborate parades aired around the globe.
“People do plastic surgery all year long, but in this season demand for liposuction and breast implants really picks up,” said Luiz Carlos Garcia, president of the Brazilian Association of Plastic Surgeons.
The boom demand, especially in Rio and Brazil's Carnival-loving northeastern beach cities, is for everything from breast implants to tummy tucks and reconstructive surgery. It has made Brazil the world capital of plastic surgery in per capita terms — surpassing former champion, the United States, in 2000.
“Demand from women who want last-minute improvements before Carnival is really strong,” said Ox Bismarchi, 53, a Rio de Janeiro plastic surgeon.
“They create Carnival personalities, not just with costumes, but with an exotic face, or some new change,” Bismarchi said last week as he pointed out the nips and tucks he performed on his model wife in preparation for the festival.
Bigger lips, a dimpled chin, more curvaceous calves and, of course, a more voluptuous bosom, are just some of the enhancements Angela Bismarchi, 29, will take to Rio's “sambadrome” during Carnival later this month.
She will be taking little else since the statuesque model's costume will consist only of body paint.
“Any woman who thinks she can sit at home and then walk out in the parade without improving herself first has no chance of competing,” her husband said.
Meanwhile, to fight against AIDS, Brazil's Health Ministry said it will double to 20 million the number of condoms handed out at this year's Carnival festivities.
From the spectacular made-for-TV shows in Rio de Janeiro's “sambadrome” to the street parades in Brazil's northeast, officials plan to distribute the condoms during the festival.
“We're doubling the number of condoms because we want to make them even more accessible to every part of the population,” a spokesman for the ministry's AIDS programme said.
As part of this year's anti-AIDS Carnival campaign, the ministry will also hand out 10 million masks shaped like condoms to make sure “condoms are on people's minds”. The masks double as cardboard fans to help stave off the steamy summer heat.
The millions of “little shirts”, as the condoms are called, and masks will be distributed across Brazil, home to almost 170 million people. Tourists also descend on Brazil for Carnival, which is viewed as a time when inhibitions fall away and anything goes before the Catholic celebration of Lenten sacrifice begins.
“It's a time of year when happiness and alcohol mix and people sometimes forget about protection,” the spokesman added.
Bare-breasted dancers adorn Rio's exotic floats and teenagers in the northeastern city of Salvador freely kiss at the street parades - a tradition that won the festivities the title of “the Carnival of Kisses” last year.
The ministry will hand out most of the condoms, 4.02 million, in Sao Paulo state, by far Brazil's biggest. Rio de Janeiro will get 3.13 million.
In absolute numbers, Brazil suffers one of the world's highest incidence of AIDS with some 191,000 cases of HIV infection registered. But in per population terms, the country has become a model in the AIDS fight, scaling HIV infection down to 0.6 per cent of adults, compared with 25 per cent in South Africa.
SD-Agencies
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