Boa Viagem

Jim Cavanaugh, a bachelor physics professor in his thirties, is invited to teach and do research during his summer break at a university in the city of Recife in the Northeast State of Pernambuco in Brazil. The time is the 1970s and a military dictatorship has assumed national governance due to their fear of the danger of a communist takeover by groups of exploited workers. The danger of communism appears to the authorities to be particularly severe in the northeast corner of Brazil, due to the extreme poverty of the sugar cane workers and the exploitation of them by the Senhors who own the sugar cane plantations. Through no desire of his, Jim quickly becomes involves in the politics of the region, the university and its students, and even indirectly the exploited workers.At the same time a romance develops between the librarian of the department (Carolina Portela) and Jim. Jims supervisor in the department, Jose Martelo da Silva, is afraid that the presence of communists in the department will spoil the chance of federal support, so Jose cracks down hard on a student in Jims class, Rabelo de Barros, with known leftist leanings. He also asks Jim to cooperate in identifying communist students.Rabelo, plays a dangerous game of working to help the cane workers through an aid organization called CLUSA (Cooperative League of the USA), while at the same time being pressured by the military to inform on students. Jim is helped in his understanding of the local situation by Carolina, who comes from old line families in Recife, by The Raj (Suresh Rajan) an Indian visitor and physics professor who is wise to the ways of developing countries such as Brazil, and by Roger Clark, who may be CIA, but works for CLUSA, and has extraordinary connections that can bring pressure on Jose and others. Apparently CLUSAs aim is to help the poor rural workers enough so that they will not foment a revolution leading to communism, while at the same time trying to damp down the inclination of the military to forcefully subdue the workers. The idea is that slow and steady progress might some day relieve the poverty and bring back democracy. With help from friends Jim manages to help the endangered student (Rabelo) while winning for himself a beautiful Brazilian wife. Jim returns to the United States with Carolina, after several difficulties, caused by the fact that although Carolina is separated from her first husband (desquitada), Brazil has no legal divorce as such. The solution leads them to return via the Dominican Republic, where Carolina gets a unilateral divorce, and Haiti, where Jim and Carolina are married in a civil ceremony, allowing Carolina to get her permanent resident visa for the United States.