We've been in Brazil for a year now, and I still feel like I'm in a foreign country.
It's hot and dry in the afternoons, cool at night, brush fires light the night and a haze of smoke rests on the horizon making for beautiful sunsets. There is a perpetual covering of ash and red dust on our floors and windows, and imprints from reddened feet on the white cupboards in the kitchen. I pay bills through a bank, eat fresh tropical fruits every day, and shop at Sam's Club and Walmart to buy cuts of meat with strange names, shapes and smells.
Paper money is brightly colored, coins of the same value have different shapes and sizes, and cashiers never seem to have exact change. The garbage gets collected every night, and walls and gates surround every home like fortresses. There are no squirrels, but rodents the size of Labrador retrievers swim in the lake and monkeys pass through the trees in the back yard.
The local food is savory and salty, and is available by the kilo or all-you-can eat, and there are even places where the waiters will keep bringing food until you get up and leave, all for one price and even split 20 ways. But a large pepperoni pizza at Pizza Hut costs about US$30 and Big Mac value meal goes for US$12, which puts makes them affordable only as special treats.
Some day, it will rain again, and the grasses will green and the trees will grow new leaves. In the meantime, we will enjoy the yellow, pink and purple flowers of the trees that are now blooming and wait for the fresh mangoes, jubiticabas, acerolas, pitangas and papayas.
It has been a good year, and I am looking forward to another one here in this city of the future, prophesied by a priest and realized by a president, here in the middle of Brazil.
No comments:
Post a Comment