Please Love, Danger’s My Middle Name [FF Vol. 11]
Don't be discouraged by the length of this edition; I tried to make it more concise already. In fact, according to the über-reliable www.numberofwords.com, this will take seven minutes to read.
I've had downtime recently which means writing time. As of today, I've been out of the United States for nine months. Long-term travel plays weird tricks on time. Nine months whisked by while simultaneously feeling like a good handful of years when reflecting on the experiences. I still need more time to work out how to convey that strange feeling. Until then, here are some thoughts comparing how information flows outside of the United States, an honest breakdown of the "dangers" of Brazil, and my semi-successful attempt at a silent retreat.
One-Way Traffic: the U.S.’s Information Dilemma
On a bare, grey wall, in a dimly-lit corner of Brazil’s Salvador airport, two television screens are playing the daily news. One is tuned to GloboNews, one of Brazil’s largest national news stations. The other is the United States broadcast of CNN. I stand there watching both, puzzled as to why, on a wall with only two spaces for showing news broadcasts, one is tuned into United States domestic events rather than Brazil. Standing in front of those two sad screens I wonder, “Is there a single screen in a United States airport currently playing the domestic news broadcast of a foreign country, with zero pertinence to how it may affect United States interests?” My belief is… not a chance.
Salvador, Brazil’s Farol da Barra
The United States, while not quite deserving of pity (especially based on its economic-imperial history in Latin America), tends to lack a strong flow of information about the internal situations of many countries outside its borders. Whereas other nations keep a pulse on what happens inside of the United States, bringing foreign news back to domestic consumption, the media in the United States instead directs most news and updates internally. Perhaps “suffering” from its historical dominance and success, rather than watching another nation’s happenings like others do, living within U.S. borders means consumption of domestic news principally—barring select sensationalist news pieces when something wrong happens abroad.
While the United States may suffer from a drought of true international news, I continue to be astonished by the sheer familiarity my Latin American peers have with the political landscape, social issues, and popular culture of the United States. Aside from leaving me disappointed that I don’t have the same level of content or opinion to return fire, I admire how read-in many people are down here to international affairs. That’s not a commentary on the assumed superiority of information access, but more of an observation of how media is directed and consumed in Latin America compared to the United States.
This difference in information exposure and consumption, unfortunately, makes us in the United States more susceptible to believing inaccurate stereotypes or simply not being aware of what happens in other places. Rather than being updated by traditional media outlets as to what’s happening with the Brazilian presidential race or what’s happening to Argentina’s economy, it’s more our responsibility to research and dig for the truth of life in foreign countries. Of course, when it’s our responsibility, it’s not likely everyone is going to follow through on that duty, leaving us instead with assumed perceptions about a foreign place based on a passing comment or editorial found online.
Samba Night—a cornerstone in any Brazilian city
This reflexive focus on the United States rather than an external focus on the world manifests itself into a stereotype of its own—a stereotype this time depicting the average traveler hailing from the United States as ignorant of reality outside their borders. The number of times I’ve shocked a shopkeeper in Chile with a tidbit about their hotly-debated constitutional changes or a dockhand in Brazil by simply understanding that it’s indeed Portuguese spoken in Brazil and not Spanish is unnerving as a representative of the United States myself.
That being said, I am certainly nowhere near a stereotype-slashing samurai. I’ve walked into my fair share of assumption buzzsaws and plan to walk into more. All that means is that, without setting foot into a new place, it’s best to take conventional assumptions with a grain of salt until arrival. Or just bin them all together. Also, if it’s your first time learning that Brazil does not speak Spanish as a first language, it’s best to get that over with now rather than in person…
Field Work: Is Brazil Dangerous?
In continuity with stereotypes, there’s a particular belief in North America that Brazil is extremely dangerous, even deadly. Although careful not to cast my own generalization fallacy upon the greater U.S. population, in many circles, the common perception is such. Oddly enough, the reality is that, upon stepping off the plane, no one is going to be there to rob you immediately, nor is there a guarantee to be caught in a favela firefight the same moment upon pulling up to Rio de Janeiro and first seeing Christ the Redeemer.
No, rather Brazil is a country just like any other; it has problems that are different than those in other nations, sure, but those problems don’t indicate a higher level of danger per se. What does exist is extreme class inequality (not shocking here in Latin America) and greater proportions of poverty, with an unfortunate 29.6% of the Brazilian population impoverished. This level of poverty gives way to what many folks here deem, “opportunistic” crime; i.e. theft that isn’t premeditated or even violent.
On a jog around Dique do Tororó—Favelas surround this lagoon in the middle of Brazil’s 2nd most “dangerous” city, Salvador (ranked 19th globally)
The question of “safety” lies in the definition of “dangerous”—both relative measures depending on which part of the nation one chooses to wander. A quick Google search for the cities with the highest crime index globally will return a list by Numbeo placing eight Brazilian cities in the top 50. Cities in the United States make up ten other places, and cities in Europe are a mere three. However, this crime rate can be anything from petty theft like pickpocketing up to, indeed, homicide. Since these rates don’t break down the classification of each crime, it’s hard to determine the true dangerous nature of a place. After all, pickpocketing or even having a phone stolen out of the hand (both admittedly more regular crimes in Brazil than in the U.S.) indicate vastly disparate levels of danger than the risk of homicide.
Tranquil Fishing Village (Bahia, Brazil)
What may be more telling about the most “violent” or “dangerous” cities is the homicide rate per place. These statistics tell another story. According to a 2022 report by Mexico’s Citizens Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice, of the world’s 50 cities with the highest homicide rate per capita, 10 are Brazilian and 7 are in the United States. More interestingly, the U.S. is the only of the two nations that breaks the top 10 with New Orleans settling in 8th place adrift in a sea of 9 other Mexican cities. While these numbers don’t quite demonstrate a level of safety within Brazil, it’s important to note that it’s no more dangerous than places within the borders of the United States. In fact, if you’ve visited any of New Orleans, Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, or Philadelphia, you’ve statistically already been to more “dangerous” destinations than the majority of Brazil, including its two largest cities Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, both of which don’t appear on the list.
Sundown over the shark-infested waters of Boa Viagem Beach in Brazil’s 8th most “dangerous” city, Recife (ranked 35th globally)
That being said, it would be a shame to only visit Rio’s Copacabana Beach or the concrete expanse of São Paulo and take Brazil at face value as such. I’ve now ambled through three of Brazil’s cities in the top 50. Aside from a lost phone, I can’t indicate many times when I have felt unsafe. In fact, these places in Brazil make up a majority of my time spent in the country and hold my fondest and most impressive memories.
Combing the markets in Natal, Brazil’s 6th most “dangerous” city (ranked 28th globally)
As a traveler, you’re admittedly more apt to stay in areas deemed safer for tourism. There are rules to follow like not walking in low-movement areas at night and avoiding wearing too luxurious of items out. Certain zones within each city are more dangerous than others; albeit, understanding which neighborhoods are safer than others is nothing novel to any other metropolis. From firsthand experience, equipped with a slight tolerance for ambiguity, Brazil is just as eligible and safe a destination as any other in the Americas.
Actually, I revise that. It’s not eligible—it’s essential. Extraordinary even.
Limiting Input in the Information Age
A couple of months ago, I forged into the rural community of Bongue for a week of disconnected rest. Sitting on the border of the Serra do Cipó in Minas Gerais, it took 8 hours via a bus, a hitchhiked ride from a surprisingly nimble 83-year-old miner, and another lift from a pick-up driver in exchange for R$5 (Brazilian reais) to travel just 100km. In my determination to unplug, I soon found myself marooned on a rainy hillside for five days in a one-room hut with an outdoor kitchen and six neighbors, all sharing a one-kilometer dirt loop. This was the town of Bongue.
Destination: Bongue, Minas Gerais
Why did I head to the hills? I’d like to call it an objective social experiment on what happens to someone when they stop taking in information and ruminate solely on what they already have. That it was an act of meditation and a vow of monk-ish silence for purity’s sake. Truthfully though, it was because I felt that, in a period facing some major crossroads in my journey, I could use it from a personal standpoint for some clearer decision-making.
This is the age of information. That’s what everyone calls it anyway, on Twitter, on philosophical Instagram story posts, in podcasts battling technological reliance, and in books depicting how addicted we are to our phones. There exists a glut of resources demonstrating our reliance on informational input. We never evolved to live in a society with this much access to information. And, funny enough, these resources preaching the merits of an information-intake reduction, no matter the medium, are yet a piece of the problem—more input, with little option for output.
In Bongue, I wanted to eliminate the input, so I turned off my phone, eliminated all music and podcasts, and opted to leave the books alone. The only activity I permitted myself was writing in my journal, which I left open on the table of my outdoor kitchen with a pen at the ready. I wrote 20 pages on my first afternoon there. Again, stopping the flow of input allowed for further output.
The casinha on the hillside
Cutting out all forms of information input is quite an unnerving act. Without notifications pinging from all angles, without the distraction of podcasts or books, and without music to drown out thoughts, the mind starts to race after a few hours. It’s as if the buzz of stimulus is removed, leaving one with themself solely. For relief from the silence, I took walks frequently around my dirt loop. After the first couple of laps, I got to know my neighbors better; a good thing too as I ran out of food by day three and relied on them for supplies of goat cheese, flatbread, chard, and some eggs to sustain my final days.
Strolling the neighborhood
I didn’t make it all five days. In fact, I made it roughly 30 hours. The isolation was pretty suffocating. So, resolved to continue limiting information input, I used my time there instead to call friends and family, read, and write some pieces that I had been putting off for some time. Social media was still off-limits, as were news websites. No, the five-day silent retreat was not successful—this time. Regardless, I did leave Bongue in a clearer mindset at the end of my stint; that stint helped me develop some habits that could help me limit my attention given to the social algorithms that demand it. Leaving the phone alone until an hour after wake-up, deleting social apps from the phone, and paring down my podcast range have all contributed in positive ways. Although I don’t think I’ll take as extreme of a silent retreat the next time around, I do believe in the importance of being self-aware of our information intake—sometimes we’re better off taking some meditative time to think about the excess we already have.
The Mute Meanderer of Minas
If you enjoyed this edition, be sure to share it with someone. My goal is to have this newsletter reach those interested in traveling unconventionally and long-term, without requiring much cash. Or, at the very least, be an entertaining narrative of times on the road in South America. Either works for me.
Until next time,
