Brazil

Harry’s only Brazil footage so far is Rio de Janeiro during Carnival — his first time in the country, and by his own admission a single city seen in its least typical fortnight.

Observations

From Things Got Out of Hand at Rio Carnival 🇧🇷

• Nobody speaks English. Not a word, in Harry’s experience, and he is explicit that this is fine and it is their country. A friend who speaks Portuguese tells him that Rio is the easy case — in the north and centre of the country, travelling without the language would be close to impossible.
• Everything takes card, including a man cooking on a beach. A vendor working the sand with a portable oven has a card machine on him. Harry’s reaction is to ask why the rest of the world hasn’t caught up, and to name Mauritania as the opposite extreme.
• It is a developing and very unequal country, and Harry draws the line from that directly to the crime everyone warns him about. He also points at the people cleaning up after the parties in 35 °C heat and says what they are probably earning.
• The warnings are real but not the whole picture. He was told to bring a burner phone and hide his bag; he takes precautions, doesn’t spend the day worried, and notes the armed police with AK-47s as the reminder of where he is.
• A drugging method he is warned about specifically: a powder blown into your face in a crowd. If you feel a sudden wave, that may be why.
• The physical diversity of Brazilians is the thing he can’t get over on day one — every complexion and build, all in the same crowd.
• Kissing is a greeting. Hold eye contact for more than a couple of seconds and it is entirely normal to walk over and kiss someone, with tongue if you both want. Harry’s comment is that most cultures judge this and here nobody does, and he thinks that’s better.
• Favelas have become a tourist destination, according to a man who lives in one: people there worked out there is more money in showing tourists around than in stealing from them.
• The two-week let-loose. His summary is that Brazilians live in the moment most of the time, and that during Carnival they do it at a scale he has not seen anywhere else.

Places

• Rio de Janeiro