A Classic Brazilian Encounter
It was a beautiful sunny day in Santos, Brazil. With over a million people, Santos is not a small place by Canadian standards but I was renting a place less than a block from the beach. And after an extended stay in the absolute chaos that is Sao Paulo, this particular part of Santos felt like an oasis of tranquility.
I was walking to the grocery store for two reasons. First, it was in an air-conditioned mall where I could escape the 36 degree heat and second, I needed more beer. Beer is available everywhere in Brazil but I was partial to a brand called Bavaria. It was awful tasting but dirt cheap and owned by Molson – a Canadian company. This store sold it in cans for about $0.40 each. Giddyup!
One thing that always makes me chuckle is seeing things from a different perspective. In this case, I’m not talking culturally or morally or anything like that. I mean, I was at an intersection where I could see an accident that was about to happen in ten seconds.
A little background on Brazil. Pedestrians have no rights. None. Nada. Never. This was a busy intersection and thankfully, someone actually had the compassion to engineer the traffic lights to turn red in all directions for about 6 seconds so pedestrians could scamper across to safety.
Got the picture? Red lights for traffic, walk lights for pedestrians and the intersection of two one-way streets. Good.
The walk lights were about to change and there were two guys on bicycles just giving her. No helmets, no shoes and no intent on stopping for anything. The catch was that they were heading towards each other at right angles and at Mach 2.
They did manage to see each other at the last minute but by then it was too late. One guy hit the other guy’s back tire and they both went for a wicked tumble. The one guy’s back tire was destroyed and both of them caught some serious road rash. Neither seemed too badly hurt though. Bruised egos more than anything else.
This is where the story gets interesting. If you’re familiar with Brazilian males, they don’t like to look bad and they will very rarely admit to being at fault for anything.
They both got up and went at each other. It looked like they were going to blows but I’d been in Brazil long enough to know better. There was a lot of talking and kicking up dirt but not a lot of anything happened. Big arm movements, lots of screaming and threats but no actual physical contact of any sort. Essentially, each blamed the other and wanted money for damage to the bikes.
I watched for a while and chuckled at the irony. Each of them were going the wrong way down their respective streets yet neither would admit to being in the wrong in any way.
God bless Brazil.
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