Espen and I are in São Paulo. I am here for a meeting with a delegation of school principals. He is here to visit São Paulo. Some of his friends told him that Brasília was not the “real Brazil”. My belief is that no place is the real Brazil any more than any particular place is the real America. There are lots of different realities. However, more Brazilians live in São Paulo than in any other place and lots of other big Brazilian cities have similar characteristics, so this is as real as it gets. There are almost twenty million people in the metro area and São Paulo state produces about a third of the Brazilian GDP.
Our hotel is in Jardim Paulista, one of the nicest areas of the city. I always stay in Marriott when possible. They are usually in nice places and have consistent quality. We are near Avenida Paulista, the main commercial street. We walked around the downtown a bit and you can see some pictures. We even absorbed a little culture at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP). Espen and I discussed why it is sometimes better to go in person than to look at the art in books or on increasingly high definition computer screens. Besides seeing the real thing, there is the important social aspect of actually showing up at an art exhibit with other people.
I like to visit São Paulo, but I would be unenthusiastic about living here. When I visit, I can live in Jardim and walk around in relative comfort and safety. I would not be able to live in Jardim if I was living here and I would get stuck in that traffic every day. In Brasília I can ride my bike to work and driving takes only about seven minutes from home to work. So I have the perfect balance. I can live in Brasília and frequently visit other parts of the country.
Above – that car must have hit the truck just right to flip it over like that. I really cannot imagine how it happened and with relatively little damage to the car.
It is not so bad to be stuck with little to do. I find it is among the best times to think. I planned a longer day in São Paulo than I had, i.e. I didn’t leave until 8pm, but my program for the day ended at 4:30. My last appointment of the day was at a meeting at the Coligação of binational centers, where we formally launched English3. It was at the Ibis hotel, right across from the Congonhas airport. My picture up top is taken from the roof of the parking garage at the airport, where I enjoyed the cool shades of evening spreading across the plaza. There is a foot bridge connecting the Ibis neighborhood to the airport, which is otherwise separated by a busy highway, below. I didn’t know it was so close and was going to take a taxi, until the guy at the hotel said it would take more time to ride than it would to walk; it was only a five minute walk. A taxi would have to have driven a mile out in a big circle to get across the road.
There was no line at check in, so time I had and I saw a few things I never would have. For example, there is a good churrascaria just across the street. I got a good meal there for $R12, which is less than 1/3 of what I would pay in near my house in Brasília. I also noticed the heroes of Brazilian aviation, pictured below.
Generally, however, it was just nice to have a couple hours of enforced lethargy. IMO, lack of such moments is harmful to people. We are always connected and so rarely reflect. Not that I came up with any great thoughts in the past couple of hours, but I did get that peaceful, easy feeling that comes from being well balanced. This is a feeling I get too infrequently in our connections rich environment. Much of my best work and almost all my best ideas come after some time like this, although usually not immediately. There is a lag time, maybe a gestation period.
Coincidentally, I was listening to an interview with an author of a book on how creative ideas are made. He talked about research that indicated what most of us know intuitively but often do not act on. Many good ideas come from the relaxed spirit. Running too fast and too long can result in you getting nowhere. Glad I got “stuck” and glad I didn’t bother to turn on the Blackberry.
Much of São Paulo is unattractive, but I like “my” parts. And I like to walk around town. Now I have a new restaurant (pictured above. I recommend it) to visit at the airport on the way home.
I wrote about music in public diplomacy a few posts back. This one is about sports diplomacy. I am belatedly getting around to writing this; it actually happened in Rio before the music program in São Paulo.
This one was also depended on the generosity of individual Americans, this time NBA basketball players. This program was also a great deal for us; it cost us absolutely nothing except our time to support the activities and publicize them.
Our part consisted mostly of attending a basketball clinic at a community center in the Complexo do Alemão. This was one of the most violent and dangerous places in the world until a few months ago. It was controlled by drug gangs. Honest people were in constant danger and the police could not enter many of the areas; they were outgunned by the traffickers. As the City of Rio tried to establish order, the traffickers lashed out. They attack and burned buses and cars to show that they were serious about their violence and get the authorities to back down. Instead, the Brazilian authorities went all in, using the military and special police units to pacify the favela.
What we see now is a variation of the “seize, hold, build” counterinsurgency strategy. In fact, walking on the streets reminded me of my time in Iraq. These former violent places were bouncing back. There was still a heavy police presence to maintain order, but the emphasis now was on building and providing services.
The basketball (Called basketball without borders) was helping with the reconstruction of civil society. NBA players came at their own expense and the NBA paid to set up a basketball court, which they inaugurated with the clinic that you see in some of the pictures.
Our post in Rio did a good job of publicizing the event. I use a variation of the old saying that it is like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise. This event could have happened w/o us. IMO, it would not have been as successful, but who knows? But we (the post) helped call attention what was happening and explain its significance. So it is not like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise. It is rather like the rooster calling attention to the rising sun; he spreads the good news so that others can understand the significance and benefit from the light and the warmth. It is a very important task.
Sports, like music, engage people that we often cannot engage with our programs. Also like the music, we could not possible afford to pay the participants what their talent is worth, so we are grateful that they give it freely. Above and below you can see the public diplomacy tasks. The bottom show our Rio colleague explaining to one of the kids how things work. Other pictures show the NBA athletes teaching kids; the local community showing its talents with dance and capoeira.
If New York is the city that never sleeps, São Paulo might be the city that never ends. I got to the top of the Banespa Building and looked over city almost as far as the eye can see. Because it was a windy day and the air was clearer than usual, you can see the hills in the far background. Most days, the horizon just shades off into the mist. The Banespa Building started in 1939 and completed almost eight years later. It was the tallest building in São Paulo for twenty years and at the time of its inauguration the tallest building outside the United States. It is modeled after the Empire State Building. The pictures were taken from the top. Above & below is the São Paulo skyline.
Below is the Sao Paulo cathedral from the roof.
Below is a rooftop garden and heliport. It is interesting the parallel worlds that exist in a three dimensional big city. From the street, you would never know that there was a forest park overhead.
Below is one more view of Sao Paulo. If you look right in the middle you will see a rooftop mansion.
We helped bring some music to the favela, as I mentioned in the earlier post. The leader of the group was Delfeayo Marsalis. His whole family is talented and most people have heard of his brothers, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and saxophonist Branford Marsalis. Branford was the leader of the band on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno before Kevin Eubanks.
They played New Orleans style music, but they were not there just to perform. They were there to work with the kids from the favela and they did a wonderful job, inviting kids to perform with them and encouraging everyone to develop their own style based on their own heritage. Above you can see the student orchestra that played for our jazz musicians, showing them Brazilian style.
I am not in the entertainment business. What we want to do is to increase understanding between Americans and Brazilians. This program worked. I could see it on the faces of the kids in the audience and hear it in the words of their parents and teachers. The community will remember this for a long time. The good feelings will linger as everybody remembers the talented Americans who shared their talents and appreciated the talents of Brazilians. The good coverage we got in the media will help spread the word. It was good all around.
The American nation is greater than the American government. This was a good example. We (USG) helped bring the jazz players, but we helped defray only a part of their expenses. The musicians contributed their time and talent. They were paid in the joy they shared with young Brazilians, but theirs was an act of charity and good will.
This is true of most of the participants in our programs. We could not afford to pay these talented people what their time is worth, but they give it freely. It always makes me proud to be in the company of such people. I tell them, but I am not sure they believe me. It sounds a bit schmaltzy, as it does when I write it, but it is the truth. The only true wealth of a nation is contained in its people. We are blessed with great people and it is good just to stop sometimes and be thankful.
Look at the joy on the base player’s face. That joy comes from losing yourself in the flow of an activity. Music is one of the most common, but it also happens in sports or any task that is a challenge that can be mastered but remains a challenge. It is important to remember that nobody can give this joy to anybody else, since it comes from the accomplishment based on hard work, but they can inspire it in others.
My pictures are self explanatory. I took them all during the workshop. Sorry about some of the focus problems. The light was hard for me to work with. I don’t really know how to work the camera and rely on the automatic settings.
Like all big cities, São Paulo is a city of neighborhoods with characters of their own. The city has some beautiful areas of big homes and beautiful gardens. It also has some less beautiful sides. The pictures are from a favela are called Heliopolis. You can see what it looks like from the pictures, but the pictures don’t tell the whole story.
The favela is very lively. You can see the shops. They do some nice graffiti as advertising signs. The picture up top say “potato point.”
We helped sponsor a jazz workshop in a local music school. I am not a big fan of jazz, but this was a great program. The jazz musicians worked with local music students. All of them came from the favela and all of them were committed to learning music and by extension other things. For them, music was a live changing experience. I learned from talking to some of them that they did not depend on the “big score”, which is often a curse of the aspirational poor. They weren’t counting on being big rock stars. Instead, they were working hard to perfect their craft. Most understood that they would not be able to make a career in music, but they knew also that music would enrich their lives and improve it in other ways. The discipline of music was what they wanted and what they were getting. I will add more details in the next post.
People take the opportunity, even in the poorest and ostensibly most hopeless places. It is a tribute to the human spirit and to the power of arts and music to let it soar. This is not THE solution to the problems of the favelas, but it is a step in right direction.
Below shows one of the many signs of advancing evangelicalism in Brazil, especially among the poor.
The dominant activity during my four-day visit to São Paulo was sitting in traffic between the many wonderful visits that my colleagues at the Consulate in São Paulo arranged for me. After a while, I started to notice the landmarks and the geography. We really were not going very far, but it was taking a long time because of the traffic, a very long time.
People in São Paulo have adapted to this traffic and the uncertainty it creates about arrivals. Nobody is upset when you arrive late … or early. We don’t often associate traffic challenges with early arrival, but that happens too. You build in time with the “expected traffic”. It can be worse, but it can also be better. Traffic was lighter than expected on a couple of occasions. My colleagues called ahead, apologized for coming early and asked if we could move our appointment forward. Of course, we also called ahead to explain that we would be late when conditions were different.
The key to success seems to be the mobile phone. It doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, but allows all participants a range of estimates. My colleagues call ahead and tell the person on the other end of the line what landmarks we are currently passing. Evidently everybody is so familiar with the landmarks and the expected traffic patterns that they can make an estimate themselves.
We were lucky to have a Consulate driver, who knew the roads and more importantly the characteristics of the places we were going. A lot of time can be spent getting in and out of building complexes. There are lots of gates and lots of guards. Going down the wrong way can cost time and tension. Our driver was highly skilled at fitting into and through spaces I thought were way too small. Many of the government buildings have parking and garages inside, but they are not obvious parking garages like you might find in the U.S. Instead, you have what looks like a pedestrian entrance with a gate. I would never have thought to turn into a place like this.
I don’t know how I could have done business w/o my colleagues and the driver. Actually, I do know. It would not have been nearly as easy. I would have spent even more time in traffic, in taxis and been lost most of the time. I think I might have walked more. Some of the places were not far apart if you went on foot. I prefer to walk, whenever possible, but walking is not always a safe activity. Although the crime rate in São Paulo has dropped, it is still high. More urgently is the difficulty of crossing some of the streets, because of all that traffic we talked about earlier.
When the traffic slows or stops, people literally run between the cars to cross street. One of my colleagues advised me NOT to cross at the walk signal, which he said was more dangerous than waiting for the cars to stop and dashing between them. It reminds me of that old video game “frogger”. The cars are a hazard, but at least you can get a fair idea about their movements. The more immediate menace, IMO, comes from motorcycles. These things race between and among the cars as they wait in traffic. When I say “race” that is what I mean. They are not edging down the road. They are going at high speed, creating a danger to themselves, cars and pedestrians. Some of the motorcycles have altered handlebars to make them narrower. This allows them to fit through even narrower spaces, but also reduces leverage & makes them harder to steer. Neither thing is good. Brazilians authorities have moved to make such alterations illegal, w/o significant results, in my observation.
I don’t see a way out for São Paulo. It is just too big. At some point any system becomes too big to properly manage. People have adapted in many ways, as I mentioned above with things like flexible schedules. São Paulo offers many benefits that – so far – outweigh the costs for most residents. I talked to many people who cannot imagine living anywhere except São Paulo. They are a lot like inveterate New Yorkers in that respect. The things you can do in São Paulo are almost limitless – IF you can get to them. You might be better off locating elsewhere and dipping into São Paulo when you need something. A commute via air from Brasilia is shorter than a drive from one end of São Paulo to the other. I am not the only one to figure this out. I hear that businesses are locating outside the city if they can. The problem is that they have to go a long way before they are out of the city. I have decided that São Paulo is a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here. Having a hotel near restaurants and meeting is great. I could walk to some places. Most people don’t have that luxury and I would not have it if I lived in São Paulo permanently. I can stand being entombed in traffic sometimes, but every day would be more than I could tolerate.
My pictures are from the TV Globo affiliate in Sao Paulo. The bridge is one of the landmarks of the local area. It is a nice bridge that doesn’t carry much traffic. If you live on the road serviced by it, you are lucky. The river you see has a very distinct smell. You are lucky to have only the photo.
