Traffic Rhythms

Rainy Wednesday in Pelourinho

A few weeks ago I was caught in a sudden tropical torrential downpour without an umbrella.  A young-ish man with a charming smile came to my rescue within seconds. Appearing to the right of me, he was wielding a large beach umbrella. “Hello there, I can provide shelter from the rain so that you can cross the street,” he said in a voice that was full of chivalry and with seemingly no strings attached.  I was then escorted across each lane of the four lanes of traffic, from one side of Avenida Sete de Setembro to the other.

Sometimes it’s the little things that help you adjust to a new place: Finding the nearest supermarket, figuring out how the transportation works, acclimating to the weather of a different climate. Simply learning how to cross the street is probably somewhere near the top of my list.  Initially, my instinct here was to step out into the street as I had become accustomed to doing in Southeast Asia. I made my way down Rua Marques de Caravelas on my first day in Salvador and I stepped out into the street, expecting that the traffic would effortlessly swerve around me if I crossed one lane at a time.  To my surprise, instead of becoming one with the traffic, I was almost side-swiped by a bus as I stumbled back for the safety of the curb.  Traffic just doesn't roll like that in Brasil.  Trust me, you will be run down!

Waiting for the 'refrain'....

As one day turned into a few days which turned into weeks, I began to relax into the rhythmic patterns of my surroundings. There are those gorgeous moments, almost like a musical refrain, when the cars queue in a line to make a left turn - that’s my opportunity to cross. I started to find the ubiquitous bass line in the roaring of a bus engine and the staccato in the frying pop of dende oil. My Spanish soon muddled itself like the limes in a caipirinha into a sort of make believe Portuguese where ‘ventana’ became ‘janela’ and ‘poquito’ became ‘poquinho’.  ‘Hablar’ morphed into ‘falar’ while ‘calle’ glided into ‘rua.’ I've oddly come to find some success in my communication efforts.

At the end of a day of strenuous technique training, some friends and I ran into the young man with the umbrellas at a beach near Porto da Barra. I asked him the price for 2 umbrellas for the 4 of us to share. 

“Ah…você fala bom Português,” he said. 

“No”, I replied. “I really only pretend to speak 6 words of Portuguese, but it seems to be working.”  

(PS… I've now been crossing the street perfectly fine on my own for about a month.)

Meu próprio guarda chuva