Real Brazil #1
Sunday, January 12, 2020, walking the streets of the outskirts of a Brazilian city. I haven’t had physical activity in a long time and what’s more enjoyable than walking? Swim for sure. But here is not the case, Florianópolis, with its more than 40 beaches is crowded with tourists this summer, so the solution is to walk in my neighborhood, in the north of the island (the municipality encompasses an island like most of its area) .
The uneven sidewalks hurt the spine of a presenile adult, in front of me a drunk about twenty years older than me, lame with two ankle bandages and a cane. I can barely get past him, this is the difference of being 30kg more than his competitor, something that literally weighs more than the age difference. But the guy was a warrior, the sidewalk gaps almost knocked him over, but his gravity-shift sensor must be sharp: he was off balance and nearly falling on the asphalt and didn’t kiss the ground because he pushed his support hard and threw himself on the other side. In another life, he may have been an excellent pilot in World War II.
On the floor were crumpled packs of water bottles, beer cans, cigarette packages, and other unrecognizable ones that had already settled in the infertile soil. The harsh sun roasts me over 30 degrees and the wind is a ragged blow from some child god like those 70s kids who liked to torture insects.
I walk the perimeter of a 2-meter gated gated community where life separates from the city in an illusion of freedom in a cage. There was a time when “living in the city” meant “being free”, “citizen” meant having “citizenship”, but today calling someone a “citizen” has a strange use, usually it is in a context of discussion, scolding, calling someone’s attention, “that citizen”, “hey! listen here citizen!” Which makes no sense, but finally, the meaning is what we give to things and the meaning of my walk had already been lost from the original physical activity and passed the observation of the city and criticism of customs. On the other hand, who said that when we do physical activity we should limit ourselves to it? Why? Where is this written?
I reach the end of the street and take a perpendicular where there is a car parked with all four doors open and someone inside rummaging through the phone like a lone robot. I find it funny to talk about “artificial intelligence” as if it were something futuristic, while we have several examples of it out there … In front, a beetle with a rusty side, a fossil of a not so distant time, in which cars were vehicles and no refuges for navigating social media. Okay, now I was in parallel, a poor street with alternate-style houses, ranging from the poorest to the richest, an improved slum that, as such, does not dispense with the use of private vehicles parked in front, as public transport It’s terrible. Buses not air conditioned, but cars with stereo equipment for four blocks hear. Priorities…
Now the street has no asphalt, but stones from a day when it was tried to pave it roughly. The indelible fossil-embedded packaging of an era is there. They will probably be elevated to art status in the distant future. Far away, because we will still live a long time with them decorating our walks and cushioning our shoes. I arrive in another perpendicular way and a woman not so much younger with her 1.70 of height and 90 and so kilograms, with hips of who has given birth to her legacy in this land, stares at me, as if I were a threat (I always paid for my laziness to smile). Probably she was interacting with her hundreds of ‘friends’ on social media as she was looking at her cell phone under a tree sitting on the sidewalk.
Only she wasn’t really alone, two dogs accompanying her, one of them that seemed to be half pit bull half shar pei, a mix of ugliness with horror, lunged at me and barked. As I am a snake raised with dogs, I stood and turned, leaving my shoulder facing the dog and turning my face, but watching him sideways. The owner, nervous, shouted at the dog and put her inside her house. She apologized, pardon, actually, ashamed, and I, tired and drenched in sweat, waved my hand, unwilling to talk.
Before that, on the way I thought about walking with my children, but after the incident, without a chance, the shopping centers are here to stay and there is no point in questioning. Without civility, the streets have no chance of competing. Close to home, a fat couple walks with their dogs, another dwarf pit bull, with a long, loose, insecure safety guide, that is, no chance of holding him if need be, and his wife with a vitamin boxer. They were more sociable, but without safe distance and safe that chance and the law of entropy will never manifest.
At some point in our history we lost track of city living, we had worse societies, but better cities, and now the opposite. What happened? But, what is a city?
Anselmo Heidrich
January 12, 2020
Imagem “Brazil Flag” (source): https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=184299&picture=brazil-flag
