It’s said that Sao Paulo is the brain of Brazil while Rio is its soul. They’ve even invented a word for it…..Carioca. Which is how people in Rio describe themselves. It loosely translates as the spirit or life style consistent with life in a sun drenched city ringed by miles of beaches and punctuated by the mother of all parties…Carnival. Perhaps, otherwise said, a combination of joie de vivre, fun in the sun, and a forgiving attitude coupled with a healthy dose of a manana philosophy.
Much has been said about crime in the city, but I’d say there’s more than a little hyperbole in the nay sayers. Much like Sex in the City. Not that pickpockets and other petty criminals aren’t drawn to prosperous tourists as they are elsewhere in the world. I still remember the ragged band of gypsy children that picked my daughter clean in front of the Amex office in Nice.
One of the first things you notice, other than thousands de los autobusses, is the diversity of the people. Not only do they come in all shapes and sizes, they pretty much come in every color under the sun, and there’s a very good reason for that. I know you didn’t ask for it, but a little history is called for. The Portuguese settled Rio, and indeed all of what is now Brazil and would have grabbed some more land if it weren’t for the pesky Spanish. The Portos were mainly looking for gold and silver and didn’t find any in these parts, so they were slow to develop the area until they saw one of the locals in a string bikini on Copacabana Beach, and then they knew they had something.
The Portos pretty much had their way for about 300 years, but then the Spanish started to arrive in one of the first waves of real illegal immigration. Thats how they did it back then. Send in enough of your own, plant flags all around and sooner or later you’ld be making lots of sneakers for Nike and piles of cash. It didn’t work this time though. After the Spanish, Brazil was rewarded with successive waves of immigrants from Japan? (go figure), Italy(lots and lots of Italians), and in the periods between the two world wars, lots of Jews from all over Europe. They got dabs of immigrants from China, Northern Europe, and the ubiquitous Brits of course. Oh, I forgot. The Portos did bring in slaves from their concessions in Africa to do what ever needed doing, and in Brazil at least, they hung around after emancipation and pretty much blended in with the potpourri of other races to form a polyglot racial mix that extends to today. Oddly, one of the ethnic groups one doesn’t see are the indigenos that populate the Andean countries. Why you say? Well, the Portos, knowing potential trouble makers when they saw them, herded them in to Terras Indigos (must have taken lessons from us). As one might expect, they didn’t fare too well and their population attrited from around four million in 1860 to about 300,000 today. At that, they did a lot better than their Uraguayan neighbors, occupied by the even less scrupulous Spanish, who rounded them all up and shot them.
Today the bloodstock runs to about 55% Euros, 38% mixed (here it gets a little confusing), 6% black (I guess thats real black), and 1% other. Not a pure blood in the group though. But I don’t really care. I asked how they referred to blacks, and the question puzzled them. I asked about racial prejudice and they said it depends which soccer team they’re on.
Our stay in Rio was admittedly brief, but one could not help but feel the carioca spirit. They’re passionate about football, they eat and drink all night, the sounds and rhythms of Samba are all around, things are a little rough at the edges, but then there are the beaches. You know some of the names but not others: Joatinga, Barra da Tijuca, Grumari, and Leblon (which borders on Ipanema separated only by the canal from the sea). And of course, Copacabana and Ipenema. About twenty km in all…..that’s a lot of sand and skin to deal with. Of course, each beach has something of it’s own character, deriving in part from the fact that the beach is named after the area of the city that they front. Copacabana, for example, is known for its volleyball and foot volleyball……foot volleyball????, while Ipanema is known as a high end family beach where the girls wear the best tanga swimsuits. What is a tanga swimsuit you ask? I was told, but did not verify, that a tanga is a micro-bikini. Hmmm…..micro-bikini, I get the idea, but how does that fit in a family beach? I told you they’re different down hear. Ipanema is actually my favorite area of Rio. Nice apartments, cafes, bars, shops, tree lined streets, guardias federales. I could spend some time there, but then there’s those tangas just a couple of blocks away.
Back to the carioca-ness of this place. Of course Rio, and I suspect, all of Brazil has its problems. Too much poverty, a rural-urban divide, low industrial productivity to name but a few. But what they don’t have is a nation divided by race, religion or ethnicity. In fact I guess you could say that since they’re all minorities in one way or another, there are no real minorities to fracture the unique cultural unity that they all seem to enjoy. So should we all.
