We woke on Wednesday morning in Ju’s house, in an apartment on a street in a suburb of this enormous new city, not knowing where we were or how to leave or get back. Feeling like tiny specks on this swarming ant-hill and totally pole-axed by the process of getting a fucking bus.
Luckily, Ju’s flatmate Fernando adopted us over breakfast, and took us off to work with him -thereby setting a precident which has continued all week, as we've been looked after by a series of lovely people and taken off on little forays into their world. A and I have been joking that we feel slightly like children being passed between working parents. But it's been a great way to get into the city.
So, day 1: Fernando.
The 26 yr old younger brother of Ju's partner, he’s a musician who teaches at the local conservatoire, but who also works with a performance/research group of other musicians/artists/dancers who’ve recently undertaken a couple of government-grant funded trips to research Carimbo, a little-known type of Brazilian folk music that’s played in the north of Brazil. So we ended up sitting in on the workshop Fernando was leading on this, and watching videos of Carimbo groups in Belem. Carimbo varies from place to place, but is played with loads of percussion instruments, and usually a banjo and a saxophone – an odd combination which got me thinking about the migration and interbreeding of musical instruments. The last Carimbo group Fernando showed us was led by a very feisty 60-odd year old woman who made intense love to the video camera and sang melancholy sexy compositions about sucking the poison from the mouth of her “Moreno” while her teenage nephews played the percussion. The whole thing ended in a dance-off in the street between this fearsome matriarch and another very very old but extremely dapper lady with a big skirt and a flower in her hair who had sidled in a grabbed the limelight, as a group of drunks across the street applauded. Brilliant.
Afterwards, sat in a local bar with Fernando, talked about politics in Brazil and the UK, drank beer, made each other laugh, while the waiter viewed my attempts at Portuguese with an undisguised combination of irritation and pity.
“If you see a bit on a map where it’s just kind of green and there aren’t any streets, that’s a favela – not a park. They don’t pay their taxes and so they don’t deserve to go on a map. It’s like a social hole.” (Fernando, 5 Dec 07)
Later that night, we turned up at the birthday party of one of the one-time-London-Brazilian gang – an old friend who lived with us for a bit but who had no idea I was coming over. “Luciano” said Ju, “here’s your birthday surprise!” We all watched the birthday-drunk Luciano try to comprehend my face in totally the wrong place, which was priceless – the pieces finally fell into place, and he was slightly overwhelmingly pleased to see me.
Fall about laughing in the street afterwards at "Cunty" cake which we spy in a shop window.
Day 2: Juliana
On Thursday, Juliana took us to work with her. She's a set designer, but is currently freelancing with an up-market design agency, which lands us in Sao Paulo's equivelent of Chelsea for the day. Had a wander round the streets and through the nearby park (Parque do Ibirapuera) which had a big long pond and reminded us of the Serpentine. Discovered to our amusement that the Sloane Ranger uniform is the same worldwide. Boat shoes, chinos, linen shirt, jumper over shoulders, neatly buckled belt, silver rimmed glasses, keys to a 4WD. Boutiques and cafes…and private security guards in little blue or green boxes on every corner.,.maids and domestics flit around corners. Signs of hostility, reminders of disparity. Locked gates, Razor wire, electric fences, spikes, high walls, all say: Keep away from my fucking money. Or this man I’ve employed will shoot you.
Get lost in the park as the skies opened again so we make up a song to practice our Portuguese...Onde ficar a endrada do Parque, onde ficar a entrada do parque? we sing, over and over, as we march through warm rain feeling like right old tourists with with a wet map and our flappy anoraks.
We steal a newspaper from someone's recycling and sit in a cafe to read it, equipped with a newly acquired dictionary. Today's stories, refracted through the prism of my bad portuguese: armed robbers fleeing a hold-up run into Sao Paulo's busiest metro station, 14 people suffer abrasions. 9700 officals and soldiers undertake operations on Brazil's borders to combat drug trafficking and ambient crime (? - is that like ambient music?). President Lula goes on a pacifying visit to a Rio slum, accompanied by 80 Military Police and 50 armed guards, and makes some promises about investing in social structures. “To live on the hill in Rio, to wake up in the morning and see this marvellous sea, is not for every brazilian. When the rich live on the hill, it’s chic. When the poor do, it’s a favela, it's disgraceful” President Lula.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7122250.stm)
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