Restoring original 2.2 firmware on Samsung Galaxy Tab GT-P1000L

I've originally asked this question on stackoverflow, and I was suggested to ask it here.

I'm currently in trouble with my samsung Galaxy Tab GT-P1000L GSM+WiFi model from Brazilian's Vivo carrier.

The problem was: Whenever I try to open most apps (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others -- but not all) the Tablet would vibrace once, then twice, then display an error message saying that the "application stopped suddenly" and I'd have to try again.

I've noticed that there were a bunch of apps installed and I deleted them all. After reboot, they came back. If I install any new apps, they would work (even Facebook), but after reset, they were all wiped out and replaced with the previous versions (like it was restoring an old "backup" of the system with those apps installed).

I've managed to use adb to see the filesystem and deleted the contents of "/sdcard" which was mounted like:

/dev/block/vold/179:1 /mnt/sdcard vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0002,dmask=0002,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0

/sdcard was a symlink to /mnt/sdcard. Note that there was no sdcard on the device. When one was put, a directory "external_sd" was created inside /mnt/sdcard and the contents of the disc would be there.

I've tried to manually delete everything inside /mnt/sdcard but it all came back upon reboot. (Note: I don't have root access to the device.)

I've managed to mess things up for good when I tried the command ./fastboot erase recovery. Now the main interface keeps "rebooting" -- it displays the carrier name, then the lock screen, then vibrates once, then twice, then carrier name again...

It is running android 2.2 and I'm trying to prep it to give it away (my wife is trading it for an iPad), so, I'm trying to restore everything back to where it was when I purchased it. I can't seem to find a firmware file to download (other than Cyanogen).

Samsung's Kies app (I'm using a Mac) can't seem to detect the device (with USB debugging mode off, it doesnt even try. When on, it says that it can't recognize the device).

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!