|
 I am 5500 miles from home, and I’ve just met a fellow member of my college’s class of ’99. It’s a small world. After three post-graduation months of making excuses to my parents about why I couldn’t possibly do as my friends and get myself a high-paid yet mind-numbingly dull job in the City, I flew out to Salvador, Brazil under the useful guise of learning the language.
Before I knew it, I had discovered something very special. The task of learning Portuguese waged a constant war during my stay with the opportunity to live like a king.
With food and drink approximately five times cheaper (and indescribably nicer) the temptation to eat, drink and generally have fun on an immense scale was fairly overwhelming. During my last week, learning finally gave up the fight, much to the delight of the local bartenders.
It takes about half a day to arrive in Brazil’s 3rd largest city, flying from London, via Lisbon. Sadly, the trip was made all the longer as the years of slouching through school had left my back severely ill-disposed to cope with the rigours of eight hours in economy sat next to a fat Nordic man who was struggling over a children’s puzzle book.
Needless to say, I arrived in my new home a little tired. My languid state was enhanced by the discovery that my family for the next month spoke not a word of English. Luckily, I also soon discovered that the universal language of football is just that. God bless Ronaldo.
Despite the initial language troubles, my host family were better than I could ever have hoped for. The tantalising array of Brazilian cuisine that met me for breakfast every morning was as delightful as the family were kind and accommodating.
My first few days in Salvador were particularly odd. Speaking almost no Portuguese and being the palest man some of these people had ever seen, I was very much a novelty around the beach-centred community.
Contrary to the swathes of reports you hear about the natives’ penchant for fleecing the tourists, however, I was remarkably well accepted. They may just have wanted to coax me into a side alley to steal a kidney, but I believe the fondness was genuine.
Driven round the cobbled streets of Salvador’s most musical district, Pelourinho, on the back of a motorbike, stopping to receive gifts of food from strange smiling faces, I felt like Michael Palin.
Even on all his travels, however, I doubt he has seen many more contrasting images than the favelas that have built up in the ruined buildings of the Iberian imperialists who first settled there.
If you lose yourself in the music too much, however, you are liable to be taken advantage of by an opportunistic pickpocket. In my opinion, however, Brazil’s notable crime problem is not to be worried about in Salvador.
I was the subject of only one feeble attempt at a mugging, by would-be-thieves as lackadaisical and useless with their fists as you could hope to find. It’s harder to fight off the legions of child-beggars and street-vendors that are lined up along the beach-front.
If you look like a tourist, said beggars and vendors can be exceptionally persistent. Extensive research showed that acting dumb isn’t a deterrent to them, nor is claiming you have no money.
However, pretending to be mad works marvellously well, and is also a lot of fun. The mass brawls that break out at half time during football matches over the procurement of beer are a different matter.
Be it football, capoeira, or just lazing about, the locals are more concerned with leisure than thieving. The people I met around the beaches genuinely believe Salvador to be the best place on the planet, so why would they spend their time doing anything but lapping it up?
There are plenty of public holidays in Brazil, but just for good measure, people tend to take the day before a holiday off as well. Even when it isn’t a holiday, the beaches are all packed, leaving me to believe that very few people in Salvador actually work. Perhaps more tourists are relieved of their kidneys than I was aware.
The certain insouciance which permeates the Brazilian way of life, is, however, noticeable only by its absence when the natives step into a car. Put a Brazilian in a car and they become as nasty as the throngs of hungry bugs that feast on your ankles should you dare to encroach upon their turf.
Driving as a whole in Brazil is a fairly unique experience. Road-markings are merely decorative, indicating is no more than a random occasional hobby and half of the drivers are half-drunk.
My journey to see Vitória versus Vasco was experienced in the passenger seat of the World’s Worst Car ™. We stalled every time we stopped; the speedometer flicked wildly; the engine cut out on the motorway; one hill start lurched my seat off its hinges and the successful scaling of the steep, traffic-laden climb to the stadium was enough to make even the staunchest atheist begin to believe. It was the greatest trip I’ve ever completed.
From the world’s worst car to the world’s most ridiculous burger… There is a burger shack that serves one mountainous sandwich about three times the size of everything else on offer.
Even Greg Rusedski would struggle to eat it with any sort of decorum. Gargantuan burgers aside, the local cuisine is sublime. The seafood is deliciously fresh and varied and it is always a pleasure to chow down on lobster for less than a fiver.
Walk by any beach and you will find a large black lady in traditional white attire selling Salvador’s version of fast food, acarajé. I never truly understood what it was, but it’s very nice and very cheap, so you can’t really go wrong.
Another must-try dish is churrasco, which is basically as much barbecued meat as you can eat, carved off a sword in front of you, accompanied by extremely healthy portions of rice, beans, chips and salad. With appetising restaurants dotted all along the coast, it is especially easy to placate your palate in Salvador.
I would no doubt have sampled several more delights were it not for the early discovery of a small Argentine restaurant which cooks the best steak I’ve ever tasted, served by Pablo--one of the coolest people I met on my travels. The wonderfully monikered ‘Johnny Jazz’ immediately became a regular dinner destination and Pablo a good friend.
Eating exquisite steaks every night is a far cry from the lives of the general Brazilian populace, but not from another set of Brazilians. Brazil is one of the most unequal countries in the world, and the contrast can at times be startling.
During my time there, I was lucky enough to witness aspects of both, very different, cultures. The rich in Brazil are very rich. Be it private drivers, private yachts or even private islands, these people fit the mould of ‘having it made’.
However, while the poor, work-shy inhabitants of the beaches swan through every day with a huge smile and without a care in the world, the upper-class Brazilians reminded me more of the slightly uptight, image-conscious upper echelons of London society.
What use is a penthouse apartment if you’re too scared to go out and enjoy the basic delights of a place as lively as Pelourinho?
Salvador does have its faults. Be it the poverty, the corruption, the plumbing – parts of the city smell worse than the French metro system – or the widespread state of disrepair.
To the majority of locals and indeed, myself, it really didn’t matter. The smiles which adorned such a multitude of faces were governed by climate and companionship, not by politics.
The grass may not be greener, but the sands are more golden, the seas are more turquoise and the sun is, well, out. All that is left to do is earn enough money to go back.
Paul Davies: unemployed graduate and prospective journo with longing to return to Brazil. Contact paulinho@cantab.net
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Are we niave? The foreigners that go to Brasil and realize its not about the depravity or the wealth, but this feeling you leave with... Like something so wrong that feels so right. As if there was a secret and we just hadn't learned it yet or...
I cannot explain the reason for my intense "saudade" but it is real. I don't know how (not logistices, but emotional?) to make my way back there... but I leave my heart open to that very answer.
However.. again after departing from my "saudade" I hear thoughts repeated in your story (in what feels like, a hmmm... flip/inconsequential statement) regarding the taking of kidneys. And I know it is not a joke. And I know how niave and ignorant I am. And I wonder if what I felt (warmth, passion, intensity) is real or to what percentage it actually exists.
Is the life in Brasil SO much more horrific than say, New York? or are we fed negativity from the media? Or is it that the life is (as I suspect) so dangerous, each day watching and thinking about ways to safe/alive... as a second nature.
When you actually live there, I mean not a month or two, not with the knowledge in the back of your mind that you can just jump on a flight "home", I mean live there. Are my residual feelings fantasy? Or is it possible to live the way I saw/imagined/experienced, knowing that the atrocities are real, and without ignoring what is around you. Is life so much different than anywhere else in the world? I wish I had this answer because my gut says it is... My instincts tell me that a very huge price is paid each day just to survive.
Do those beautiful people with their beautiful smiles, energy and passions know a way to survive, or are these tools not required?
Most, if not all Brasilians I know that live away from Brasil all want to "go home", but cannot because of crime, fear, no work or opportunity, fears for their everyday existence.
What is the truth (both, I guess) BUT to what extent?