My Sabbatical

Source: Milton Jung at flickr

I just got home from two amazing weeks in Brazil, and I still need to get my head around many of the things that I saw and experienced there. But it’s always interesting to me to contrast and compare differences between life in Brazil and the life I am used to here in Canada.

1. Food By The Kilo

If you go to a food court in a mall, one of the most common types of fast food places is called “Kilo“. Literally, it is a buffet restaurant that sells food by the kilogram (or pound if you will). In a typical mall food court, you might have 3 or 4 of these types of restaurants.

Essentially, similar to the all-you-can-eat style American buffet, at these places they weigh your plate before you eat it, and charge you based on weight. The food is above average, and based on your preferences you can get steak, pasta, rice, noodles, and everything in between. Why don’t we have this here, outside of grocery stores?

2. Traffic? I Don’t KNOW Traffic

I live in a big city. As such, I already know it’s crazy to try to leave the downtown area at 6pm, and you’re looking at 90 minutes of slow moving traffic to get to the outer suburbs. Having spent 3 hours trying to get to the airport to pick some friends up in Sao Paulo at 5pm (and arriving closer to 7pm), I have seen real traffic. Canada doesn’t have Brazilian traffic. I am glad I don’t have to experience that on a daily basis. How do people do that?

In Sao Paulo, traffic is measured in Kilometers. The other day in Sao Paulo, the radio announced there was 200 kilometers (120 miles) of traffic congestion.  That’s not 200 kilometers on a single road (sum of the major roads), but compare that Toronto has a maximum East-West distance of 46 kilometers. It might take you an hour (more or less) to cross the city during rush hour. Do we even HAVE 200 kilometers of major roads here?

3. Speed Bumps

On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many speed bumps in my life. You can be travelling down a highway at 80 kph (50 mph), and then suddenly there is a huge speed bump and you have to reduce speed drastically. You speed up again, and another speed bump a few hundred meters later. Perhaps that’s better than having traffic lights in minor intersections, but you cannot take your eyes off the road for even a moment. Perhaps three or four times during my trip, I did not notice a speed bump on a road (say, at night), and went over it hard.

4.  Favelas

It is certainly an interesting  feature of Brazil that there are conclaves of extreme poverty in the big cities, called Favelas. In some places you might call them slums. But they’re an undeniable fact of life there.

I did a lot of driving in Brazil which was fun. But I did get lost a few times. One time, after borrowing a friend’s GPS, I turned off of the wrong exit from the highway. Well, I bet “I got off of the wrong exit” is the start of many scary stories all around the world. I found myself driving through a neighborhood that was undeniably a favela. At one point, I came across what looked like a giant trash dump. Except this trash dump was on fire – a big big fire. I wish I could have stopped and took a picture. But I am not that dumb.

Even without bonfires, there are cars without tires, windows or engines parked on the side of the road. People who own cars don’t leave them parked outside a locked garage.

5. Living With Violence

I watched a movie before going that highlighted kidnappings in Sao Paulo. (Yikes.) On the plane on the way down there, the guy sitting next to me said, “The first time I was robbed, it was 12 noon.” And in talking with some friends once I arrived, it seems common to be kidnapped, mugged, or car-jacked. The murder rate is about 5 times that of Toronto. But even with that huge difference, I don’t think the real risk is murder. I think that robbery is the real fear people live with.

That being said, I didn’t get robbed, and never felt in danger at any time. Even as I was driving through the favela with fires and tireless cars, I felt safe as the streets were filled with children, students, and normal working people coming home for lunch. But I wouldn’t want to be lost there at night.

6. It Rains In The Rainforest

Most of Brazil is covered by rainforest. Do you know what it does quite regularly in the rainforest? It rains. Now Sao Paulo has a rainy season (October to March more or less), but that covers most of the spring and summer! It’s now fall in Brazil, and although the rainy season is over, it’s getting cold. Wait, did I say cold?

7. It Gets Cold In Brazil

My head is still not able to process this fact. I saw the thermometer say 15 degrees Celsius during the day when I was there. And it didn’t FEEL like 15, it felt like 10 or less. It was cold. I wore pants. And a long sleeve shirt! In Brazil! Ai ai. That’s not a difference between Brazil and Canada I guess, but it is a surprising fact I discovered on my trip.

8. It’s Not Cheaper

Perhaps you think Canada, the United States, and Western Europe are the most expensive places to live and the rest of the world is cheap by comparison. Well, Brazil seems more expensive to live if you can believe it. Gas is R$3 a litre. That’s C$1.80 a litre, or US$6.81 per gallon!

Televisions? Double the price. Video games? Three times the price. I don’t know why the price of imported things are so much more expensive than Canada, but they are. If you can live your life avoiding imported food and products, and without driving, you can live cheaper than in Toronto. But when you see things so much more than you are used to, you certainly feel like you’re being ripped off.

Anyways, I’ll write some more posts on Brazil in the coming days. Many thanks to all my friends there for their wonderful hospitality and taking good care of me. I did love my trip there, and I will be looking at the calendar shortly to pick a date to come back.

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