The New Manager 132 in Brazil
“Waking up” in Sao Paulo
After a long flight on Friday from Amsterdam to Sao Paulo, we suddenly landed in a foreign culture.At first, things didn’t seem too bad, until we got to the first customs check and our patience was put to the test. We expected the weather to be great – I mean, we were in South America!But we soon discovered that it was no warmer than 18 degrees centigrade, rainy and gray.This was not to the advantage of the city.Here too, the main color was gray, which was in sharp contrast with the warm welcome we received from Jos Schoenmakers.
Our patience was put to the test yet again when we found ourselves in the middle of Friday rush-hour traffic.Everyone was either trying to leave the city for the weekend or to get home fast.The average one-way commute - if you have work, because 20 percent of Sao Paulo’s inhabitants are unemployed - is somewhere between 2 and 3 hours.What do we complain about on our daily commute down the A2?
Eleven million people live in the city of Sao Paulo, and 20 million in the greater Sao Paulo area.This means that the greater Sao Paulo area has more inhabitants than the Netherlands.
Saturday we did a walking tour through Sao Paulo, which enabled us to see the city’s diverse aspects, which ranged from beautifully maintained buildings to dark, cracked, cement towers that were full of graffiti and mainly inhabited by homeless people who earn their living by collecting paper and cardboard. This is their way of trying to make a decent living.On our tour, we entered a cathedral where mass was being held for Sao Paulo’s missing children.These children hadn’t simply gone missing, but had probably been kidnapped, raped, sent into prostitution or had fallen victim to another kind of hardship one certainly wouldn’t wish on a child. The parents were in the church and the names of the children were read out loud.Listening to this as a wealthy Dutch person and seeing the parents with bowed heads sent shivers down our spine.
If the afternoon, we visited a city park where there were a number of museums, including the Museum of Modern Art.The park, too, displayed a variety of different aspects.Young people were having fun skateboarding, roller blading, pulling off stunts on their BMX bikes, making music and dancing. Here, the atmosphere was more relaxed than the charged atmosphere we experienced in the city center, where street vendors hawked their wares in the loudest of ways.A dire necessity.
We also got a taste of the atmosphere of the elections, which took place on Sunday, October 1.Campaigns were being held everywhere, and people were carrying flags and pamphlets supporting their candidates.The outcome of the elections will probably not make a difference for the poorest of the poor.They live on the street where little is likely to change, regardless of who is elected president. Because of the elections, alcohol was forbidden on Saturday after midnight in restaurants and pubs to avoid problems.We didn’t notice anything during our visit to a local dance hall, where we learned to dance the salsa of the working class.
And that was just the first day …
Wendy and Marlies