Watching the Tourists in Brazil

Rio de Janeiro - I am going down Rua do Catete in a taxi, and in the distance I see a crowd gathered. I think that it must have been an accident or a mugging, but when I get closer I see the enormous tourist bus parked in front of the Museu da República. It's gringos once again: hobbling and happy. Everything that is banal for us cariocas is for them a source of wonder or fright: a boy selling paper cones full of roasted peanuts, ten-year-old girls dancing the “boquinha-da-garrafa” on the sidewalk in front of a botequim, pennants for the “festas juninas” hanging from the electric wires, a beggar exhibiting his leg full of metal pins. With their eyes goggling, and always whispering to each other, they try to take it all in, to record it all (the barely audible clicking of digital cameras), to assimilate everything that ceaselessly appears before them.

How helpless they seem: white as shrimp without shells, wearing clothes that are always inappropriate, trying to blend in using tricks like enormous Flamengo caps, or t-shirts from the Brazilian soccer team. Almost all of them are over 60, and they seem to be, after a lifetime of hard work, enjoying some time off, in which for the first time they are realizing that there is a world beyond their commute between house and office. Although they are unsteady on their feet, their joints stiff, on their faces one can see the childish glee of someone who in old age has managed to achieve a momentary truce in the struggle for life, a precious moment of leisure which conflicts neither with the Protestant ethic nor with the spirit of capitalism.

Sometimes they walk very closely together, hanging on to one another, like the blind fearing to be lost in the multitude. Their faces, now and then, have that blank expression of someone who not only does not understand what he is seeing, but also is unaware of the necessity of understanding something; they are like Kaspar Hausers led by their guide, who takes responsibility for their safety between the bus and the door of the museum. They seem so inoffensive that I feel that I want to look after them, make sure that they return safe and sound to the hotel and the airport, help them to haggle with the street vendors, make sure that their bill is right at the restaurant. When I see them I realize how cunning we Brazilians are - we are crafty, sly as foxes.

They come, stare in wonder, spend huge sums, and go away. Farewell, gringos!

Do come back. We won't blame you for the malfeasance of your governments or your megacorporations, even though we know that it is because of them that you can open your wallets so freely. We want to keep the dollars flowing which are such a help in toasting our peanuts. We too want the chance to think that we are like each other, and that, in the future, when the framework holding up the system cracks and the whole circus tent comes crashing down, we too will be able to be generous, and share the floor of our shack with you, with the sardines warming on the fire, telling each other stories of ghosts and spaceships, huddled together, until night without end falls over us all.

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