In the run up to my trip to Brazil I was very excited, but also a little apprehensive. After all, Brazil has a slightly fearsome reputation for crime. That may be partially deserved in some restricted areas, but my own experience of the country and people was universally positive. Any country has cities with slightly dodgy areas, which you are wise to avoid, or travel through with caution. I can honestly say that I’ve felt less safe and more threatened in parts of Birmingham and London than anywhere I went in Brazil1.
Brazilian people are lovely. Not just in a ‘Girl from Ipanema’ kind of way2, but also in their warmth, friendliness, openness and generosity. I could give a slew of examples of the thoughtful and welcoming way in which we were treated—despite our mostly lamentable lack of Portuguese—but one instance in particular will probably illustrate it well.
After a day’s work, our rather large party (more than 20 people) set out for the nearest bar, to which we’d been the previous night. Unfortunately it was closed (possibly because we had provided a week’s takings in a single night), so we moved on to the next one on the block. This place was tiny, and only had a handful of chairs—certainly not enough to seat all of us. We didn’t mind very much and were happy to stand, but noticed as we were ordering beers and sorting ourselves out that the few locals already in the bar were disappearing. I worried that we’d driven them out, but a few moments later they re-emerged from all directions, carrying chairs from their own houses for us to sit on.
Can you imagine that kind of thing happening in the UK?
1 To give you some context to my comments (and for the rest of my posts about Brazil), I spent the first few days at our base in a small town about 3 hours from Sao Paulo with a large group of people from the University, then travelled with them to the Pantanal for a further few days. They then returned to their base and I stayed on in the Pantanal on my own for 10 days. Finally, I travelled back to meet up with the group for the last couple of days. ↑
2 There are—it has to be said (even though I feel shallow saying it)—a huge number of physically stunning Brazilian people, both male and female. ↑