A Tale of Two Rios

I just spent a week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Although that seems straightforward, it does bear some exposition. Like "New York", "Rio" is both a city and a state. And like New York, the two things are in no way identical.

Here is one Rio... the one everyone knows about:

Here is the other...

I was there on business, and for the majority of the trip, I stuck with my group. But for two days I broke away and did my own thing.

One of the things that I wanted to do when I was there was to see the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. I took a pair of high-powered binoculars for the purpose. So when my friends went out drinking, I went to Macumba Beach, which was practically deserted compared to the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana:

My friend Mayank took this pic the night
before I went stargazing.

I was the last of my group to leave. On Saturday I was by myself in Rio for the entire day. So I hired an Uber. Now, Uber is something I've never used before this trip, and there are both very good and very bad things about it. Because everything is done on-line... setting your destination, making your payment, rating the driver... there is absolutely no need whatsoever to talk to the driver. That can be a great thing when there are language problems. None of us spoke any Portuguese of any consequence, and it meant we could get around. And when I was with the group, none of us spoke to the driver very much. But it also means that an Uber ride can be a very lonely experience if you're by yourself, and that's very, very bad.

But... Google Translate is quite possibly the greatest invention in the history of Mankind. What I found when I was by myself was that if you put Google Translate in the conversation mode, that Uber driver transformed from a driver to an animated tour guide. In every case -- and I took a lot of rides -- the driver laughed with delight at the first translation, and then became animated and talkative. The translation's not perfect, but you can tell when it "hears" things wrong, and we all laughed at the mistakes. The main thing I had to do was tell the driver not to talk to the phone, but to talk to me, and let the phone do the work. Each driver loved the experience so much he installed Google Translate on the spot.

On Saturday, I had one driver for almost the entire day, and several for the remainder. I was the first U.S. citizen that two of my drivers had ever met, and the first that any of them had talked to at length.

My first intention was to visit the statue of "Christ the Redeemer", but by the time we got there (the drive took nearly an hour) the queue for the tram was a two-hour wait. Although my driver (Fernando) was willing to park and wait for me, I wasn't going to make him wait for at least three hours while I went up there, snapped a few photos, and came back down. Besides, clouds covered the statue itself. So I told him I'd rather drive around with him and talk some more. Through Translate, Fernando told me that that it was an incredible sight, and he would feel bad if I didn't see it. I responded that there are thousands of amazing sights in this world that I would never see. Missing this one wouldn't hurt me... and besides, I would rather just spend the time with him, hearing what he had to tell me about Brazil.

As we drove around, we visited the "hot" spots, but also drove past the favelas. But what was more important to me was to see places that tourists don't see, so we drove through the country as well. And as we drove, we saw some of the economic disparities like those that you can see for yourself in the pictures above. A great many houses are built by the inhabitants themselves using cast-off construction material like re-used cinder blocks and sheet metal for roofs. And if you ask how anyone can live like that, the answer is that any house is better than no house.

The answer confirms something that I suspected before I went on this trip; and now I believe it firmly: there are a great many people in the United States who think they are poor only because they have never personally experienced poverty.

When you stop at almost any traffic light outside the city centers, Brazilian children will jump in front of cars to juggle or dance (poorly for the most part) or try to sell useless items. While it all seems very exotic and entertaining when you're with a group of tourists, it takes on a completely different flavor when you're alone with a Brazilian who's explaining that while such antics don't really work to earn money, they do it because they have no other means, and no hope for improvement.

My drivers were completely consistent in blaming these problems on corruption in their government. Fernando, in particular, responded to my query about the juxtaposition of poverty and wealth in a way that almost made my heart break. He said that yes, Brazil has much beauty and much ugliness. Only he wasn't talking about the favelas; he was talking about the people. So I told him, "Fernando, I have never seen or met an ugly Brazilian. You're all beautiful. I want you to put this in your heart: just because you have less than someone else, never believe you are worth less." He told me that he wanted to come to the United States where something like that could be true. "Os Estados Unidos são ótimos e bonitos."

People like those I met are not looking for aid: they're looking for opportunity. We in the US have so much that we take for granted. I'm not talking about things. I'm talking about the hope that Americans can rise to any station from any beginning. Because it is true that here you can be whatever you want if you're not hampered by your own disbelief. With very few exceptions, it's true that our poor are not destitute. It's true that we have individual dignity that can be relinquished, but never taken. Even as elitists smugly deride the thought, the common people of the world look to us. We are the hope of the world.