not the motorcycle diaries

I wander like a drunkard around the Mercado Publico in the centre of Porto Alegre. I think I’m still jet-lagged (or perhaps I am just still stunned from the sheer amount of stonewash and white shoes on show at Buenos Aires airport). I can’t find anything to eat that is sem carne (after 15 years of vegetarianism I don’t think my stomach can handle yet another chicken dish!), but I am somewhat sated by my first cup of coffee in Brasil that isn’t Nescafé Instant (my addiction to caffeine from machined coffee is embarrasingly revealed in its intensity - I am, perhaps, far too used to the inner-city-Sydney lifestyle!). A tiny woman grabs me aggressively and says she will read my palm. I literally have to shake her off. The town square is very much alive - full of vendors and music and the likes of the palm-reading lady. And if there’s one thing I could surmise from my first few days here it is that Brazilians love muzak, especially if it is Andrew Lloyd Webber or Celine Dion. And anything else you can think of that’s completely trashy.

The bairro (suburb) I am staying in, Passo das Pedras, is (as I know I have said to most of my massive readership) right out of New Internationalist - without the gloss and things in English. This was particularly the case at the hospital where I had to go on the first day - packed full of people who just looked dirt poor, with about four doctors, and everything in a state of dilapidation. An incredibly functional place though considering the scarce resources. When I left the house yesterday the garbage mang was doing his rounds - people tie their rubbish to a tree on the street and he comes and collects it in a horse and cart. There is *lots* of horse-and-cart action actually, and in the city they exist right alongside shiny VWs - a pretty stark indicator of the oft-quoted statistic about Brazil having the 2nd most unequal distribution of wealth in the world (the first maybe being the US?). Anyway, back to Passo das Pedras. There are kids everywhere (which I love), amongst many chickens (which I also love, except at 3am every morning when the rooster next door starts crowing) and dogs. In fact I think the bairro is lorded over more by the dogs than the people. On my first morning here I was chased down the road by a pack of them. I eventually worked out that they would stop harassing me if I ignored them, they were just indignantly making sure that the bemused-looking gringa knew who *really* owns this place.

The culture shock is totally hardcore. If I had known it would be like this I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to get on the plane (I guess that’s how it works). I hang out for e-mails from people who have been through it before and tell me reassuringly to hang in there. I am simultaneously extremely stimulated and excited as well as horribly homesick. And above all is the aching misery of being separated from my beloved and not even being able to talk to him.

On the whole, Brazil so far is basically hysterical, through my eyes. Muzak ain’t the least of it. Something that cracked me up last night on the bus ride home was a new shopping mall erected in the middle of a field, simply called “BIG”, with BIG emblazoned on every spare surface (including on about 50 flags out the front). Not to mention a car dealership under the name of ‘Irigaray’.