("A man always marries a girl who is whiter than him, but always makes love to a girl who is darker than him. Be careful!")
- an old French lady in Ouro Preto
Despite racially problematic comments like these, I was so excited to be in Brazil, a country with ethnic diversity! Sure, Peruvians come from a mix of backgrounds (variations on the Spanish vs. Incan vs. gringo theme) and have their fair share of racism, but I hadn't seen a black or Asian person in two months.
My two weeks in Brazil were crazy, just a taster of the vast country's rich culture and history. I need to try to get some of this stuff down.
[Photo: from the bus from São Paulo to Ouro Preto.]
I ended up making friends with a big group of guys who hang out in the Praça Tiradentes in Ouro Preto. My main buddy, Sergio, came from a mining family of 7 brothers and 5 sisters who moved down to Minas Gerais from Bahia. With a glass eye and a water bottle full of cachaça always at his side, he fed me caipirinhas and introduced me to his brothers, who, between the blood ones and the friends, made up half the town. One of his brothers owned five precious gems stores, and Sergio worked at most of them, although that usually meant showing up at about 1 p.m. with a hangover and a 5 a.m. story.
Every night was a variation on the same theme; I'd have a caipirinha with Sergio while he'd promise to take me to the nearby waterfalls the next morning. Then, his friend Renauldo would take me to an all-you-can-eat meat buffet, or another would show me the live music scene, or Sergio's youngest brother would screen a ripped copy of the hot film of the moment, Tropa de Elite. Then, the next morning, I'd come to the store, wait 15 minutes for Sergio, to be polite, and then happily go do my own thing.
Doing my own thing became all about the opposing forces of above and below ground. Minas Gerais is full of gilded Baroque churches, the kind that, instead of inspiring spiritual musings, make me think immediately of the Church, the institution, the money. Nothing new for me--Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome has the same effect--but, in Minas Gerais, you can go into the mines afterwards.
This is the Mariana gold mine, where we descended 300 meters in a rickety wooden cart that ran on metal tracks. My guide, Anton, was the son of a miner who used to work in that very mine, which closed in 1985. When I asked Anton about the dangers of working down there, I got the same response I’d gotten from Sergio, Renauldo and countless others: “Yes, it is dangerous.” They don’t deny, but they don’t explain, either.
Anton told me all about the mine, about its quartz, graphite and false gold, about how it closed because extracting only 4 grams of real gold required a lot of work and could only be sold for 200 reais (about $114). Now, the mine is used by tourists and adventurers; you can go scuba diving through the narrow, enclosed lagoons at 400 meters.
A brief, underground glimpse into Brazil’s religious mix. Representing the practices of the slaves who lived in the mines, and of the paid miners who eventually replaced them, these are two shrines, one Catholic and one Candomblé. This distinction, however, is not particularly useful, as Candomblé itself is African religion in Catholic clothing, started by slaves who needed to conceal their spiritual practices, and the Catholic saint in the photo is an example of that. She is Santa Barbara, Mariana’s saint and the patron of underground labor and general catastrophe. Apparently, when Barbara converted to Christianity, her father was the one to condemn her to death, and, at the moment of her execution, he was struck dead by a bolt of lightning. And so, Anton told me, when shocked by a loud noise, many exclaim, “Santa Barbara!”
On the left, Praça Tiradentes of Ouro Preto. Tiradentes, pronounced "Chiradenchis," was a revolutionary during the Inconfidência, which, like many revolutions, took place in the late 1700s. Of his group of bourgeois intellectuals fighting for independence, he was the only one to be made an example of… and what an example! He was decapitated and quartered and that’s why every city in Brazil has a Praça Tiradentes. If you squint, you can see his statue here, in the middle of the square. The building behind it is the Museu da Inconfidência.Below, some views of Ouro Preto. The second photo was taken on a mound where lots of decapitated thieves are buried!
RIO DE JANEIRO
I met up with Jackson and two of his friends who are also living in São Paulo, and we stayed in a Swedish hostel in Ipanema. A couple of shots of Ipanema beach at night; on the left, everyone is napping.
This is Jesus. Or, the Corcovado. Probably the most touristy thing you can do in Rio, but the views were worth it. And the clouds were sweet. Jesus is huge and, creepily enough, you can see him from most parts of the city. And he can see you.Despite being in the shadow of the creepy Jesus, the Jews are still happy.
The center of Rio can be best described by the word decadente, which essentially means beautiful old buildings falling apart. We walked through the area on a Sunday and thus couldn't tell which shops were closed for the day and which were closed for life. We didn't see a soul, apart from a drunk peeing on his shoe in Praça Tiradentes.
Later, we wandered down to the bay, bought a contraband version of Tropa de Elite off the street for 4 reais, then hiked up to a neighborhood called Santa Teresa, which is essentially the Venice, CA of Rio. We followed the small, winding streets to pricey boutiques with cafés attached.
Uncomfortably enough for its ritzy inhabitants, Santa Teresa is right next door to a group of favelas, which are Rio's hillside slums; City of God, for example, took place in a favela. Favelas, however, exist all over Latin America and what distinguishes them is their tax-exempt status and their government by drug gangs. Rio favelas are not necessarily the poorest or the most dangerous neighborhoods; doctors live there, and violence usually only erupts when the police move in for a raid. Nevertheless, most favela residents live at minimum wage, which, in Brazil, is really not sustainable. Many have moved in from the nordeste, building houses on top of flat-roofed houses, making room for cousins and siblings.
You cannot just walk into a favela, however, as the drug cartels keep guards at the entrances and, even in a favela as large as Rocinha (two photos above), everyone seems to know who everyone else is. With some 200,000 inhabitants, Rocinha is the largest favela in Latin America, although some say it comes in second to a favela in Caracas.
You can go in with a tour, however, so we went to Rocinha with a group called Be-a-local. Having spent two months being on the other side of tourism of the poor, I was very skeptical. And, when we got into a van with three Norwegian blonds in booty shorts, my confidence didn't skyrocket. At the end of the day, though, we were pretty impressed. Our tour guide, who was a carioca (from Rio), didn't try to shelter us--he told us that, just last week, there had been a raid, and that people often die in the crossfire--nor did he exoticize the favela life, reminding us that most Rocinha inhabitants live quietly into their 70s.
The day we were there, there were torrential rains, turning the steep, dirty streets into gushing sewers. We happily walked right through the muck, giggling at the Norwegians in flip-flops who were trying to avoid the river of garbage by tip-toeing along the practically non-existent sidewalks. We had arrived at the top of the hill on motorbikes, and I clung to the soaked jacket of my taxista as we forged rivers and squeezed in between trucks, revving our way up and up.
On the walk down, we stopped in an artists' studio, a bakery and a daycare center, which Be-a-local supports. They also get funding from an Italian organization that gives us money, too, and I was so excited to hear that, I fell down the stairs in the daycare. I still have the remnants of the gigantic bruise, which I prefer to call my favela knife wound.
Some of the kids we met on the street, like this one on the left, spoke English, which just goes to show how popular this tourism of the poor has become. I couldn't help but laugh as we trudged by open doorways, which gave us glimpses of crowded kitchens, men sitting around drinking beers, in hammocks, smoking joints, watching us. They laughed back, and our ridiculousness didn't particularly embarrass me. The tour may have been inherently problematic, but it was the only way to see Rocinha, given that we didn't have time to make friends with one of its residents, and I am so glad to have been there.
(This whole experience has made me more sympathetic to the tourists who come to Mosoq Runa for lunch. I usually laugh at their superficial introduction to the Poor Children of Peru, but now I think I get it-- better something than nothing. Within certain limits.)
A last note on the favelas: Tropa de Elite (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861739/) is a fantastic film about this topic; it's about the BOPE, an "elite" police force that is theoretically more immune to corruption by the drug gangs than the municipal police. They are the ones who conduct the raids, and they're scary as shit. I highly recommend getting your hands on the film, if you can.
Then we went to Ilha Grande, a tropical paradise.
SÃO PAULO: Cuidado Veículos
When I saw that written on small placards by parking garages, I had to laugh; I couldn't think of a bigger understatement.
São Paulo is big. It is so big, it has shocked even this New Yorker. With 12 million people, it has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan, the largest Italian population outside of Italy, a ton of Jews. This is according to Jackson's Paulistano flatmate. Whether he's exaggerating or not, there's no denying São Paulo's diversity.Traffic is so heavy that watches get snatched off the wrists of waiting drivers. Intersections are terrifying, making huge bridges, like the one above, absolutely necessary.
It's Venice; blown up, modernized and coated with grime. A new skyscraper next to a nineteenth-century Portuguese-style building-- and either could be the dirtier one.
Above, the Mercado municipal, jammed into an old, cream-colored building that looks like a train station. The outdoor market is far more overwhelming, however. I passed shops with hundreds of shoes crammed into the window, a fitting backdrop to the stands out front, selling wooden cutting boards.Street vendors throw small balls back and forth onto Velcro pads to tune of Jingle Bells, Grease and El Condor Pasa (a nightmarish surprise).
There are crowds, then there's space. There are beautiful museums and well-kept parks, cute cafés and smelly fast food joints. We went to a posh bar with all-you-can-eat fejoiada (a heavy mix of black beans, meat and rice). A contradiction? Perhaps. It's a city you have to live in.[Above: View from Jackson's swanky law office; his flatmate on their roof; watering the plants]
Out of South America until January 10th.
Love to all.
