Brazil Part II

Bon Dia,

(I'm probably not spelling that right...)

As I was being driven to work this morning, it occurred to me in the slightly more harsh light of day, that my perception of Brazil may not just be different (see previous blog) because the plant is in a nicer location or the hotel is (in fact) in a nicer location of the city. As I looked again, a little more sharply this morning, I realized that when I was first here four years ago, that was probably my first real introduction to a developing nation. I'd been to Mexico prior to Brazil, but hadn't seen in Mexico what I saw here, so was stunned by the poverty and dilapidation and lack of infrastructure. I had never seen such graffiti, nor had I seen corrugated metal used for roofs before. I had not even noticed whether or not in Mexico they had metal bars, or those sliding metal doors pulled across the fronts of stores at night because I had not gone out. They do this in Europe too, I now know, I simply wasn't aware of that when I was first in Brazil. I had never before spent time walking down sidewalks that were in such a state of disrepair that you really couldn't walk on them in some parts; you have to go onto the road to pass. I had never before seen buildings that were actually crumbling into piles of gravel and refuse with little puddles of dirty water pooling around the edges of them.

So when I was writing last night that I hadn't noticed as much poverty this time in Brazil, it didn't occur to me that it's not because it's not still here (although I have not seen any of the infamous favellas), it's because I'm becoming de-sensitized to it. How shocking is that to realize first thing in the morning? I have seen and heard and smelt so much of what it's like to be in a developing nation now (most of Asia except Japan is still developing) that the sight of all of these things no longer causes me to gape, open-mouthed as I'm driven by in an air-conditioned Mercedes. It's as though I've come to accept that this is what living conditions are like in these countries and that's that.

The first time I was in Brazil, I actually shed tears at the discrepancy between the abject poverty of some of the people: a young woman in particular with a dirty, naked toddler on her hip who was standing by a shack made of corrugated metal with no windows on the side of the road, and the 'normal' (to me) middle class lives of others. Four years later, I didn't notice until it occurred to me that I hadn't noticed.

How's that for validation that I've sold out?

Until next time boys & girls... I remain,
The Artful Traveller

(Do you like that? I like that. It was Owen the Terrible's idea.)