By Bernard Morris
May 7, 2007
Walking is not the sport of kings, but it should be, and the walking kings should visit Brazil often. I have been going there once or twice a year for several years now and have found walking to be a very satisfying way to explore the country (that is, São Paulo and Jarinu, mainly). I do not hike; nature-loving I am, but Brazil offers a rich exploring experience even in its cities to anyone who wants to develop a personal relationship with areas of interest. Brazil is replete with such areas.
In April of this year, my wife and I returned to both Jarinu and São Paulo, and in both places, I walked to my heart's delight. I recommend such an activity, which not only enriches the spirit but burns the calories, to any active person of good sense. I say "good sense" because on this trip more than before, our friends and family kept warning me to be careful, especially since I walk with an iPod plugged into my ears. Those concerned for my safety thought I was strange to want to walk in the sunshine and foolish to do so with an iPod. One friend was emphatic: "You will not return with your iPod!" (she speaks fluent English). I have the normal American male's supply of machismo, or maybe it is just pride, so I pooh-poohed their concern and struck out, but their warnings were repeated with such force and regularity that I began to be more than a little careful. The more I walked, the greater my concern grew.
 I love the unbeaten path, and one day in Jarinu, I saw a dirt road snaking into a shadowy opening surrounded by lush vegetation, and I turned into it (pictured above). Immediately I encountered a warning sign and beyond the sign dogs began barking loudly and persistently enough to scare me back onto the beaten path (pictured left). There went one of my dream-walks, so I kept to the paved road, which took me around the center of Jarinu and eventually back into the center of the town. Another day, another dirt road leading off into the distance, only this one ran alongside the bus depot and toward various sitios (large houses). The road curled around open fields overgrown with weeds, up onto a hill that gave a beautiful panoramic view of the main highway that passes by Jarinu, and back around toward the town. On this stretch, again, I encountered a series of loud, angry dogs. They always scare me, for they seem to want to eat my face, and often they are loose, their owners not in sight. I braved this fright and came upon an old man working in a large, dirt-covered yard. In my comically inadequate Portuguese, I asked him whether I could walk through the overgrown area ahead and reach the center of the city. He indicated in Portuguese (which I did not understand) and with his hands that I had to go back the way I came: through the canine gauntlet. I made it back to town unscathed but stayed away from that otherwise attractive winding road.
Humans, this trip, gave me some scares as well. Another long, beckoning road stretched out and away from town and I turned into it, but a young man on a bicycle came up beside me, on the other side of the road, and looked at me with an expression that indicated mild hostility. Maybe he felt I was encroaching on his home turf, but I was afraid he was checking out my iPod (I keep it out of sight under my shirt, but the cables are very visible), so I turned back. Foiled again by a fear inspired by repeated warnings of those who ought to know, who certainly know better than I do.
Another day, another dirt road leading into the countryside, this one with sentimental connections: my wife's parents built their sitio on this very road. Since then, the early 1950s, some workers' houses have sprouted along the way. As I approached the houses, I saw a girl of perhaps 12 or 13 years of age standing alone beside the road facing away from me, looking toward the green growth off to the side. When she heard me, she started, threw something into the weeds, and hurried down the road toward the houses. I announced (in bad Portuguese) that I was just walking and that she should relax. She started running and soon disappeared into one of the houses. I continued walking, turned around after a few minutes and repassed the houses. This time, the girl was with three young men, older than she, and she was counting a pile of money into someone's hand. I nodded, said "Bom dia," and kept walking. A young man on a small motorcycle (a ubiquitous sight wherever I walked) sped past and stopped by the group. I glanced back and saw in their hand motions some kind of exchange. I figured a drug deal was taking place. Then I remembered the girl by the road and the faint smell of marijuana. Ah, she was smoking a little of her own product, I thought. There went another road, this one too risky for the stranger.
My wife later said that Brazilians seem more "paranoid" now than before, for the warnings have increased, though we never saw any signs of criminal activity-unless we count the girl's activity. But I am more cautious than ever, sad that a harmless visitor is barred from paths of interest by fear of being robbed. Brazil is just too big and too beautiful and too interesting to have its visitors barred from its best features by threats of danger. Maybe I should carry a white flag of peace when I walk abroad; better yet, maybe I should lose the flag I do carry, that white iPod of mine.
Biography: Born July 25, 1935, in San Antonio, Texas. U. S. Marine Corps, 1954-58, Attended the University of California, Berkeley, 1958 to 1973. Ph.D. in English literature. College English teacher at U. C. Berkeley, 1965-1972, and in Modesto, CA, from 1972 to 2003. Publications: Salem Press has used dozens of my essays on the works of Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emerson, Denise Levertov, and Louis Simpson. More than fifty literary journals and magazines have published my poetry. Harvard Review has also carried many of my literary reviews. My critical study of the poetry and prose of X. J. Kennedy, Taking Measure, was published in January, 2003, by Susquehanna University Press. You can contact Bernard at spbmorris@pacbell.net.
Previous articles by Bernard:
Further Impressions of Brazil
Brazil: Walking in São Paulo
Reflections on Brazil Part 4
Reflections on Brazil Part 3
Reflections on Brazil Part 3
Reflections on Brazil Part 2
Reflections on Brazil Part 1
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