Crossing the border into Brazil involved 24 of the sketchiest, scariest, longest hours I have thus far spent in the South. In short, between the 8 hours to kill in central Uruguay (at least there was one major soccer game to be watched in the neighborhood bar), the pitch black 5 am solitary arrival (only passenger left on the bus), the borderless border (no blockade, no crossings, just step across the street and you're in Brazil! great for illegal immigrants, less great for Americans in need of visa stamps only to be found down deserted streets and by passing passports beneath locked doors into the hands of- hopefully- police) and the dubious conditions of the local bus stop and apparently notorious highway to Porto Alegre, I'm counting my blessings just to be here.I celebrated a little bit with
Minha Menina, a resolutely cheery tune (hear some of David Byrne´s thoughts on Brazilian music
here, thanks to Laura for the link).
Brazil has been a long standing fantasy of mine, as it seems to be for many an American over exposed to pictures of gorgeous palm laden beaches. I arrived in the pouring rain to a very chilly very non-beachlike urban center. Porto Alegre is ugly but super chill, known for its gaucho culture (which just goes to show that borders have a lot less to do with culture than geography) and its pretty indie kids. I was stoked about it after many years of reading about the
World Social Forum events and the
Participatory Budget, though I was a little shocked to arrive in such a big, crazy space. Ultimately I suppose it's impossible not to over simplify in scholarly work, but still, the neighborhood-citizen focus of what I read seems illegible in real life. Ah well! I stayed with four wonderful ladies, all friends of a lady I met in Bolivia. They basically adopted me into their lives for a week, taking me around town, to a fantastic modern art museum, a terrible play, some crazy bars, a park good for mate drinking, and a great cliff for city views, among other treats, of which I have not a single photo, so you'll have to take my word for it. The best part was that the FOOD here involves veggies and beans and other things I haven't seen in months. Meu deus. My Portuguese is pessimo, and it's harder to communicate than I imagined. I get by on Spanish, but every time I think I'm improving I realize I'm just dragging everyone else down with me into Portuñol, a Spanish-Portuguese hybrid in which both parties invent words that seem probable. It works out.
I stuck around all week in order to go out to an MST encampment. The MST is the
Landless Workers Movement, Brazil's most famous. I've long fantasized about visiting one of their occupied territories, and was just so so happy to get to go. This particular area is about half an hour outside Porto Alegre, in the countryside. They've been fighting for their land for more than eight years, and now run a cooperative school and cooperative farms on the land. Under Lula the movement has continued to face precarious conditions, but these folks seemed optimistic. The MST also run a national university with degrees in cooperative management and other activist related fields, much like the popular university of the madres de la plaza de mayo in Buenos Aires (so awesome). The lady who showed us around was super powerful and eloquent and friendly, and, as it happens, had stayed with friends of mine at the MTD I worked at outside of Buenos Aires. Reminding me that, as Laura says, the world has a total of 35 people living in it. It was nice to see that the reality of the MST areas was just what I had hoped. Though what one can take concretely away and into ones life from such a place... much harder. I did buy a radical planner? Well.
From Porto Alegre I headed south to Florianopolis. Renan, a crazy, marvelous, revolutionary journalist who took care of me in POA sent me to stay with his son, a musician and recording artist on the island. After which he wrote me: "I tell you about the beaches of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and off you run. Revolution: postponed". And I suppose he's right on some level. That's Brazil for you, a massive place full of contrasts and complexities, histories and realities to study, and ummmmmm beaches to sit and drink cheap beer on... Apparently the south of Brazil, up to Rio, is the wealthiest part, and poverty really kicks in up north. All the Brazilians down here like to add that, down where they live, everyone is attractive because they are descendants of Europeans, but up north they get all ugly and indigenous. No racism in this country at all, eh?? You should hear what they say about Bolivia...
Floripa is a super ugly city built on a super incredible gorgeous piece of land. Fortunately you can easily escape the city center and troll on the more chill interior of the island. There are something like 40 beaches on this tiny stretch of land, plus two lagoons. Renan's son put me up for free in his bandmate's hostel, right on the Lagoa de Conseção. One could step from one's bed directly into a hammock, into a kayak on the lagoon, into the ocean on the other side. It's hard not to love something so easy, but my capacity for sitting around is, somewhat surprisingly, not all that high. Met some lovely Brazilians and kids from southern Cali to take me around. Plus we got to see
Jeco's band play!
From Floripa I headed up to the super eco super organized city of Curitiba (and stayed with the super lovely family of my friend´s uncle), from which one can drop a little (via train, bus, and then boat) and access the Ilha Do Mel, a somewhat more isolated island experience. The train, bus, and boat rides were so astoundingly gorgeous that I figured the island would be sort of beside the point, but no, it was still pretty much a Brazilian fantasy paradise.
This is the only place I´ve really been
alone alone in my travels, which was a little rough. Though very empowering and exhilarating, the solitary travel can be a bit much at times. How can one really complain about paradise? Lots of folks are ready to adopt me everywhere I stop, but it´s not always for the best. I have zero complaints about my strolls around this nearly deserted marvelous place though. I´m enjoying being everywhere off season, while it´s still warm enough to do everything. I can´t imagine these places swarming with surfers and hippies and such, though perhaps they would have provided company beyond my hostel kitten and my hammock.
From Curitiba up through São Paulo, which I hadn't planned to visit, but, connected with more friends of friends, I decided to swing through. 24 hours in a city of 12 million, how much can I really say? I stayed at a tiny, homey hostel my friend Paula recommended, and it felt a little like staying in the SoHo of São Paulo. Lots of cute art galleries, super expensive clothing and home decorating stores, and lots of tiny restaurants. It was pleasant, especially given what I'd heard about São Paulo, the only city to boast a river running through it so polluted that it has reached an oxygen level of zero. I also swung by the modern art museum to check out a really cool Max Ernst exhibit. It was so wonderful- wild evil lurking in the corners of real life, women floating happily about as the world drowns and dies, and the most delicately cut and pasted critiques of state power and bourgeoisie life I've ever seen. I went out for some beers with a friend of Paula's who works for the newspaper
Brasil de Fato, a paper created in a World Social Forum meeting designed to provide coverage of Brasil's social movements written by and for activists. Pretty neat.
2010 is a big year for Brazil. Presidential elections (Lula's time is up), world cup (viewing basically shuts the whole country down), plus the usual soccer craziness (currently two major cups) and prep for the Olympics and the home turf World Cup in the future... interesting years ahead. I feel that if I start to get into the idea of this country, the socio-politics of the geography, the history, the craziness that it is... well. It's just impossible. But I keep talking about it, so you can see I want to. Well.
Sitting in Rio, yet another longtime fantasy, I think I'll bring this to a close for now. I'll leave you with a couple of lovely lines by Mario Benedetti (my new favorite bit of Uruguayan poetics)-
We are the emigrants
The pale anonymous
With the impious and carnal century on our backs
Where we pile the legacy of questions and perplexities.
Who will amputate the discrepancies
On what dock in what chance in what twilight
Will the veins uncover their century
To present the complete and the free.
----El Acabose
Beijo----
