The shopping. The cleanest, safest, and brightest part of Salvadorian culture. Here we feel safest when buying. I consume, therefore, I am. A place where the food comes clean, there are no assaults, although there might be thieves, corporate thieves. Yet, it comes packaged in a bright plastic wrapper, and the original source of the product will never be known. It costs more than outside the mall, but its real, clean, and safe. 

Best of all, one can simply listen, view, and absorb the propaganda to know what to buy next. No thought required. This massive, excessively bright, new, and clean building represents man. It feeds on fear, and dictates how we ought act. We always get a 30% discount. 

It is our meeting place. We can park the car, drink some water, take some money out of the atm, and use a clean bathroom. All within our favorite safe place. We meet our friends, go out to lunch, then return. Our safe little hub. 

São Paulo

Alblen

There was some jazz in a museum. There was a concert in the street, a show in an amphitheater just off the street. There are popular bars in the right parts of town. In the little week I stopped in Salvador I found a culture. I started to recognize some faces, understand where people go, what people do, and cravinho. I found shrimp in half the food, OK with me. Often accompanied by fresh juice. 
I started to recognize some human truths. Man is afraid. Man is afraid of man. In Salvador, man is afraid of being assaulted, or robbed. In the US, man is afraid of terrorists. Man is afraid of tourists. Yet in the end, man assaults, terrorizes, and tours.
 
I question where the cackadores fit in society. The homeless, the addicts, crack, glue, beggars, boozers. Man is addict. Some give away future, home, and purpose to pursue such addictions. Salvador hosts quite a display for the traveller. At a street event: drink a beer, drop the can, the can disappears; snatched away. Look a little further to observe the never satisfied glue sniffer filling his desire, holding your can, right under the kook in all camouflage with binoculars perusing for things to binocule. Walk down the street to be harassed for a penny by cachaça breath or the children cachaça bred. 

I question what bridges 'the other'. After the we show drink some beer with the can collector and his dad, also a can collector. We stand there not discussing much, but proclaiming amizade none the less, for we are sharing beer. What makes friends friends? I have a suspicion that the human rituals of sharing time, food, drink, and dance are all there really needs to be. 

Fear through windows of a favela

São Paulo

Diving into other peoples lives has a tendency to end up in dancing. Although, normally, no form is required. Such diving is how I ended up, with out any expectation, stumble-footing around forró. A very sexual, male dominant tradition. A harmonium, triangle, drum, and voices combine to form fast-paced rhythmic music that fills the room. I ended up quite the gawker, simply observing fast feet, human play, twirling dresses, and man slaying triangle. The next day I was taught the basics in more depth in class, half of which I understood, and half which I didn’t. 
Then comes a test for those advancing their forróing abilities. For girls, the instructor throws, spins, kicks, and leads her around the dance faster, harder, and with some tricks, in which she is being tested on her ability to follow the lead correctly, and with style. For men, the female instructor accompanies lazily, for he is being tested on his ability to dominate the relationship, lead her through the dance, and dictate what happens next. 

Is this the dance of life?

Tourists hide from rain. Pelorinho