Arriving in Brazil

In the immigration queue at the airport, a woman behind us blurted out.
“It’s so great to be back home.”
She informed us she had been in Spain and Portugal and referred to the people there as “povinho chato” which literally means “unpleasant little people.” Her attitude toward Brazil’s former colonizers was one bordering on disdain. In the national culture this manifests itself in jokes being made about the dimwittedness of the Portuguese in the way the Irish are for the English, the Polish for the Americans. She had no idea how we felt about it, whether we had Portuguese ancestry or indeed friends, she just assumed we would think the same.
Armed with these prejudices when I first travelled to Portugal two years ago, I had been surprised by people’s friendliness and general good nature. I had expected dour, short ugly, lugubrious and generally sad (have you ever listened to Fado) people who spoke a language that resembled Slavic or Arabic, not the suave, languid and beautiful Portuguese of Bossa Nova. That they regarded Brazilians as mostly consisting of transvestite prostitutes I was assured many times.
“If we’d been colonized by the English or the Germans, things would have been different. Instead we got the backward, lazy and incompetent Iberians who frittered away all the gold and left us miserable.”
I have heard this refrain, or variations of it, innumerous times as if it was part of a national poem or song. All Brazil’s problems can be traced to Portugal, it is argued.
But I only spent two days in Lisbon and credited the brevity of the stay and good luck to our wholly positive interactions with the city’s population. Maybe I wasn’t understanding their much more guttural form of Portuguese and therefore not catching all the famed negativity contained in the content.
This year we went again, my whole clan renting a magnificent old house near Felguerias, a town 30 miles from Oporto, Portugal’s second city. There we stayed for two weeks, and without question, everyone was not only nice, but absolutely friendly, exuding good will.
Not only were the people exceptional, it’s a beautiful place. Oporto is a wonderful city, its winding, hilly streets lined with often spectacular old and newer buildings, good taste abounds as modernity and innovation are working in near harmony.
It resembles Pelourinho, Salvador’s historic old town, only one worries less about getting mugged. Whenever you leave Brazil, especially going to Europe, the relief of not having to worry about crime is almost immediate. A house of the type we rented, old and filled with antiques and other things of real value, if it were in Brazil, would have to be walled in, and patrolled by Rottweiler’s dogs and armed guards. So maybe we can’t blame the appalling violence we have in Brazil on the Portuguese.
We went to the beach, a very different experience than that of Salvador’s spectacular Sunday beach scene where flesh is proudly on show. Not that the Portuguese are prudes but a steady wind ensures you never really get hot, and regular beach goers have long ago purchased a concoction they stick in the sand to protect against the elements. The water is brutally cold, un-swimmable really except for plashing about in. I’d say we in Bahia win on that score.
A family group at the beach was fascinated by us, in particular Pedro, whose dark skin and hair seemed to put a spell on them. Luiz, the oldest one about 12, constantly stroked Pedro’s hair and skin between kicking a football about and them showing us the sea creatures that they’d collected. Pedro is not fazed by much and did not seem bothered by the attention though he thought it strange. I guess they’d never really seen a black person before, remarkable to think in this day and age.
Despite Portugal’s European façade, one immediately sees where Brazilians get some of their anarchic side. At the local supermarket in Felgueiras, drivers seemed incapable of parking their cars within the designated lines. Here in Salvador I once saw a car (driven by a perfectly intact person) parked horizontally occupying two handicap spaces. I never thought I’d see that again, but sure enough, it was repeated in Felgueiras.
I am now on a mission to correct this misperception of Brazil’s ancestors. I have received skeptical expressions as if maybe I’ve also become dimwitted. But Brazil should embrace this country, from where the great navigators, Vasco da Gama, Magellen, and Cabral set out on little more than bathtubs to open up the world for trade. It’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.