Finding Relief in the World’s Most Congested City: A Sunday Afternoon on São Paulo’s Minhocão

São Paulo’s population is the largest of any city in Brazil, the Americas, and the Southern Hemisphere; there are more people living in São Paulo than in New York City, Mexico City, or Lagos. It will thus not come as a surprise that São Paulo has been named the most congested city in the world and that Paulistas, the 20 million people living in São Paulo’s metropolitan area, give in to the worst traffic jams on the planet, every single day. But there is one place in the city where, once a week, cars are strictly prohibited, a place reclaimed every Sunday by the city’s pedestrians, cyclists and soccer kids: the elevated highway in the city center, known as Minhocão.

Upon its completion in 1970, the highway was officially named Via Elevada Presidente Artur da Costa e Silva after the second president of Brazil, who was in power during the military regime in the 1960s. But among Paulistas, the highway is only known as Minhocão, meaning “earthworm” in Portuguese. The Minhocão, an 80-feet long, Loch Ness-like creature, has been said to slither through the forests of South America since the 19th century. According to legend, its shimmery black body digs through forest soil until, when hungry, the tentacle-decorated head emerges to devour whatever it finds, animal or human.

In the same way that the forest creature supposedly causes houses and entire roads to collapse when its massive body digs by, São Paulo’s Minhocão destroyed beautiful structures in the city’s center during its construction. In the 1960s, São Paulo was a modest city of two to three million inhabitants, but traffic was an issue even then. Then-mayor Paulo Maluf suggested a corridor of traffic that would literally lift the problem: an elevated highway. In 1969, it was the biggest project of reinforced concrete in all of Latin America.

Since the very day of its inauguration, however, São Paulo’s urban development experts have been contemplating taking the structure down. During the week, with a daily load of over 80,000 vehicles, the highway presents a perfect example of the city’s outdated infrastructure—massive, old and harmful to its surroundings. But when you come on a Sunday, this 2.2-miles long concrete structure winding through forgotten boulevards and pixações-sprinkled apartment buildings (including the infamous wavy Edificio Copan) becomes a rare public space in an overcrowded city.

The Minhocão has been closing off to motor vehicles on Sundays and holidays since 1976, and Paulistas know how to take advantage of this valuable urban space available to them every now and then. Whether soccer player, weekend cyclist, enthusiastic jogger, ambitious musician, urban dweller or lounging youngster, the Minhocão is the place to be on a Sunday. It is the kind of place where you ride your public bike from one of the UseBike stops across the city to meet some friends, people-watch and have a picnic on top of the concrete divide between two highway lanes.

As you munch on some olives, you observe a family of three walk by, the father holding a kite far too long for their 5-year old son. When the kite flies high above the buildings, father, mother, son stand on the edge of the highway, holding on to the railing, and observe its elegant dives. The highway is framed by high rise buildings with fresh laundry or a Brazilian flag occasionally dangling out of a Plexiglas window. Patches of old grass infested with cigarette buds peek through the concrete road, and graffitied lamp posts lead the way from one end of the Minhocão to the other.

Dogs are the secret protagonists on a Minhocão Sunday. One merrily bounces towards a homeless woman who snoozes in the shade of an awkwardly bent lamp post. The dog’s owner is slow to follow. Before she knows it, the dog licks the sleeping woman’s big toe. The owner, shocked and embarrassed, chastens her dog. But the sleeping woman simply awakes and pets the dog. Other dogs handsomely jog along with their owners, while still others stretch out full-length on the warm concrete, entirely oblivious to the highway’s true week-day purpose.

The Minhocão also has its regulars. Among them, a bare-chested twenty-something year old with a huge afro who wanders for hours, shifting his glance from one person to the next. Ice-cream and coconut water sellers readily replenish exhausted kids who either try to or have already mastered all there is to soccer balls, bikes, and tricks.

As dusk starts settling, and the last drops of sweet, colored Popsicle water have run down children’s fingers and dripped onto the asphalt below them, the jungle of buildings is drowned in the pink sky of the city’s indigested pollution. A TV light flickers through a window and the rubbish bins are filled to the rim.

An architectural mess (maybe) and a sound pollutant (absolutely), the Minhocão each Sunday transforms into a public space in the true sense of its definition: a social space—accessible, free of charge and open to all.

To check out more fabulous Sam Wolson photos, please see full story: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2012/05/finding-relief-worlds-most-congested-city-sunday-afternoon-minhocao/2040/

A Familiar Face over Chocolate and Bread: Urban Dwellers in Bogota, Colombia.

The man next in line is about 65 years old. The gray stubs on his face stand out against his dark skin. He steps forward and looks up at me.

“Ah,” he says, meeting my eyes, suddenly agitated. “I have seen you on television!”

I hand him a piece of bread and smile.

“Thank you.” He takes the bread but stops.

“But tell me, you work in television, don’t you?” he asks, examining my face.

I laugh and say “No, not on television.” He joins into my laughter and steps aside.

It is 10pm at night on a dark street in Bogota’s city center. The Torre Colpatria building flashes its 36 Xenon color lights into the night. The tallest building in the country (and second-tallest in all of South America), it can be seen from every corner of central Bogota. Ironically, even here, between rugged homeless men and short-skirted prostitutes. Pink. Green. Red. Over and over again.

A friend had told me about Chocopan por una Sonrisa (Chocolate-bread for a smile) and with a vague idea of what to expect, I agreed to come along.

It is alarming how strikingly similar urban challenges in completely different contexts can be. Chocopan turned out to be something like a dessert-variation of Paballo Ya Batho, a mobile soup kitchen I volunteered for during my time in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Paballo Ya Batho, “Caring for the People” in Tsutu, provides approximately 500 homeless people with food and drink every Wednesday night; Chocopan serves hot chocolate and a piece of bread every Thursday night to about the same number of people. Both collect and prepare the drink and food before-hand and take it to several stops on some of the unsafer areas in inner-city neighborhoods; both rely entirely on the help of volunteers; and both strive to engage with those they serve. Both leave you with the same slight dread at a dawning understanding of the city.

But the main difference between these two unconventional “soup kitchens” is the association: church versus–believe it or not–rappers.

Paballo operates out of the Central Methodist Church in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, and is therefore somewhat of a religious service (this, however, is not to say that everybody participating is indeed religious). When a Catholic priest called for the ministry of Johannesburg to address and befriend Joburg’s homeless in the late 1980s, the Central Methodist Mission responded with the foundation of Paballo Ya Batho. It has since evolved into welcoming everyone who wants to help, see for themselves and experience a part of the inner city that might be inaccessible otherwise.

Chocopan had an entirely different beginning. Four, five years ago, a group of rappers, who also happen to be motorcycle-enthusiasts, from the neighborhood got together and decided to give. Although I do not know how they came up with chocolate and bread, I like imaging them sitting in a circle in one of the motorcycle garages, brainstorming. After weighing food preferences against financial feasibility, they must have settled on a safe combination, popular with the old, the young, the strong, the weak: hot chocolate and bread.

Ever since, they have been going about town once a week with a blue barrel of steaming hot chocolate and huge black plastic bags filled with croissants and the like. Starting out from a garage, the rappers and their friends bare-handedly push the barrel on a cart, while others shoulder the bread bags. For hours, a caravan of children, youngsters, men and women slowly migrate from one street to the next. They halt at run-down buildings filled with children whose sticky hands carefully balance the filled cups of precious hot chocolate back to their rooms. They halt at street corners where junkies organize for their weekly treat, their faces twitching in suspense. They halt for hungry passers-by, the shoe-shiners, the grandmothers, the forgotten and the lost ones. And they halt to try the hot chocolate themselves.

As I hand out bread to others in line, the elderly man continues to examine my face, trying to understand why it seems so familiar. Finally, as the line is shortening, he gives up, smiles at me once more, lifting his cup of hot chocolate, and walks away.

59 Days–6 Apartments: The Insanity of Real Estate in Brazil.

One of those nights in São Paulo, a Brazilian friend is telling me about his country. It is Thursday and we are having typically Brazilian super-ice-cold beers at a bar just off of Paulista Avenue. The buzzing of after-work discussions all around us overpower the voice of a famous Brazilian singer coming from the TV above our heads. Joel J. leans over the table, so I can hear him better.

“Latin America was always like the garden of the U.S.,” he says slowly, choosing his words. “The U.S. only took care of it when it felt like it,” he adds and takes a sip of his beer. Then he leans closer again. “So, in Brazil,” he continues, “we decided to become economically independent.”

Indeed, it seems that Brazil has learned to take care of itself: Its poverty rate has halved in the past twenty years and the economy is booming (it recently overtook the UK as the world’s sixth largest economy). Whether everyone is better off remains questionable given the number and ever-expanding favelas or slums found in every major city. But without a doubt, prices are on the rise in the host country of FIFA World Cup 2014 and the Olympic Games 2016. According to a Cost of Living survey 2011, prepared by business consulting firm Mercer, São Paulo (Cidade da Garoa, the City of Drizzle) and Rio (Cidade Maravilhosa, the Marvellous City) were the most expensive cities in the Americas, before New York and Los Angeles.

Brazil’s higher incomes, lower unemployment and declining interest rates led to a bubbly real estate situation with certain properties increasing in value by 80% — every year. Some can afford it, especially the “state-less and super-rich,” but, like most Brazilians, I struggled as I moved from one place to the next trying to pay the rent. The result: my little saga of 6 apartments in 59 days.

Sao Paulo.

Clueless Arrival: Tucuruvi. 

Date Moved In: 22. January 2012. Price: $45/night. Nights spent: 8.

Tucuruvi is an interesting area. High up in the North of São Paulo, this residential lower middle-class to lower class neighborhood peacefully stretches over hills and little else. Quiet and relatively safe during the day, it shuts down early and thus becomes unpredictable at night. Good for families, not so great for young and desperately connection-less researcher/journalists/freelance types. The highlight of this apartment was without a doubt our landlady, Rachel Q. On the one weekend she spent at the apartment with us, she managed to introduce us to her entire family, pamper us with Mediterranean cuisine and chocolates and take us to a pre-Carnival Parade practice.

Getting Used to It: Bela Vista.

Day Moved In: 30. January 2012. Price: Free. Nights Spent: 6.

An Austrian photographer/producer, Kate R., rescued us by inviting us to stay at her stylish loft in one of the better neighborhoods of São Paulo–for free.

Avenida Paulista, one of the most important avenues in Sao Paulo (credit: Lucas Chiconi).

With a huge Italian population and located by Sao Paulo’s, arguably, most important street, Paulista Avenue, Bela Vista is full of museums, cafés and numerous beer hubs. In the restless mania of São Paulo, Kate R. taught us how to find some peace within yourself (through the law of attraction), live the Brazilian life as an ex-pat and explore Sao Paulo’s “Japantown,” Liberdade, despite the rain.

Liberdade, Sao Paulo’s “Japantown” (credit http://www.skyscrapercity.com).

For one week, we were blessed to awake to São Paulo’s sunny cityscape and talk until late at night over wine with the lit-up skyscrape-jungle as a backdrop.

Day and Night in Bela Vista (credit: Sam Wolson; http://samwolson.viewbook.com/).

Living It: Vila Madalena.

Date Moved In: 5. February 2012. Price: $30/Night. Nights Spent: 11.

Will A., a fashion/style/wisdom/foodie/chillness-guru and one of the best friends we have had the pleasure to make in Brazil, convinced us to move in with him by serving us a delicious brunch on a Saturday morning (involving artichokes, fresh fish, salad, rice and beans–his trade mark meal). We soon discovered that living with Will, in Vila Madalena, had many more advantages.

The neighborhood first became popular in the 1970s as more and more students from the nearby University of São Paulo moved in. Today, it is a good place (if not the place) for artists, writers, journalists and other people active in the cultural scene of the city.

Walking home from the subway: Vila Madalena streets.

Vila Madalena is home to countless galleries, bars and graffitis as well as an infamous alleyway completely plastered with graffiti.

Many evenings in Vila Madalena are spent chatting about movies, travels and other life-matters, and we gladly joined the crowd.

Carnival Madness: Leme.

Date Moved In: 16. February 2012. Price: $90/Night. Nights Spent: 6.

When Carnival came around, it seemed natural to experience the craziness first-hand: in Rio de Janeiro! So we hustled around a bit and ended up at the place of a friend-of-a-friend’s. The location was unbeatable: Leme, just North of the infamous Copacabana Beach. For a week, we enjoyed the sun, beach, Carnival alcohol excesses and street blocos with fellow Brazilian and foreign partiers. Highlights included: sipping caipirinhas at a street corner in Lapa prepared by a Tupac fan, singing Beatles songs at a street bloco, trying to climb a bridge to watch the Sambadrome competition for free and observing a man suggestively touching himself while he watched a naked couple kissing several meters away, at 4am on Copacabana Beach.

Street bloco in Lapa (credit: Sam Wolson; http://samwolson.viewbook.com/).

Caipirinha expert and Tupac fan (credit: Sam Wolson; http://samwolson.viewbook.com/).

Carnival Madness (credit: Sam Wolson; http://samwolson.viewbook.com/).

Struggling: Botafogo.

Date Moved In: 22. February 2012. Price: $55/Night. Nights Spent: 2. 

When we sort of ran out of money but did not want to leave before visiting Rio’s biggest favela, Rocinha, we moved into a closet. Literally. Somehow, we found out that Nadine B., a translator working at the German school in Rio, was renting out a room in her two-room apartment. Well, it turned out it was what used to be the maid’s room and what nowadays is usually used as a boxroom. Squished into this windowless sauna-closet together with our suitcases, single-person mattress, computers and cameras, we made it for exactly two nights. Highlights here: Nadine B. bugging us about “water stains” on her precious, size-stacked, polished pots and her roommate, a strict, abstinent Catholic who always locked his door and refused to lend us his double-bed mattress because we were boy and girl. We never saw him.

Coming Home: Vila Madalena II.

Date Moved In: 25. February 2012. Price: $23/Night. Nights Spent: 10.

Our neighbor lady and her cat (credit: Sam Wolson; http://samwolson.viewbook.com/).

After fleeing from Nadine B.’s overpriced closet in Rio, we happily returned to Vila Madalena in São Paulo; it was like coming home and it was comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that we got a bit domesticated. On Wednesday and Saturday morning, we’d shop for fresh vegetables and fish at the local farmers’ market; we bonded with the old neighbor-lady who always sat on the terrace in front of the house (she is even on GoogleMap!); and we organized barbecues with friends. This is also when we met Amanda and Alexandre, a down-to-earth couple  who taught us how to prepare excellent, salt-infused meat and drink and samba until the early morning.

A BBQ night: Alexandre and Pablo (credit: Sam Wolson; http://samwolson.viewbook.com/).

Amanda and Alexandre took us to the Heliópolis community (a former favela) and their parents’ house by the beach in Santos; we took them to one of our favorite places in the city: the Minhocão, an elevated highway in the city center, on a Sunday.

Amanda and Alexandre.

Finishing It Up: Lapa.

Date Moved In: 6. March 2012. Price: Free. Nights Spent: 14.

When Will A. returned from his Carnival vacation, we were once again homeless, but luckily, the mother and father of a highschool friend, Helvio and Monica M. offered us to stay at their house as we finished off work in the city. The house was located in Lapa, a safe, residential neighborhood in the Southeast.

We took a lot of buses those days. Mobility in São Paulo is a huge issue; the city has recently been named the city with the worst traffic jams in the world. Getting anywhere was difficult, but we managed to visit our favorite places and people once again. More samba, more cairipinhas, more Heliópolis and Paraisópolis, more late-night conversations and strolls in the park.

“We still have our problems here,” Joel J. continues the discussion over super-ice-cold beers at the after-work bar off of Paulista Avenue. “Racism lurks under the surface and inequality is huge. But we are doing better. The big sporting events are happening here and our export market is growing: We are the second largest exporter to Africa after China!”

He sips on his beer and smiles. “But don’t listen to me,” he says. “I love this country.”

(all photo credits Christina Gossmann, unless otherwise indicated)

Evolution of Myth and Religion: Easter in Paraguay

“I don’t even know anybody who has ever been to Paraguay!” exclaimed a Colombian friend when I mentioned to him that I had just visited the South American country a few weeks prior.

My friend is not alone in dismissing “The Other Guay.” This tiny, land-locked country, surrounded by much more influential and well-known neighbors, Brazil and Argentina, is utterly overlooked.

One distinct characteristic of Paraguay is the native population, the Guaraní. Regarded as inferior, superstitious and even cannibalistic during colonial reigns, the Guaraní, along with their language and traditions, have become a point of national pride for modern Paraguayans. Walking the streets of the capital, Asunción, one will not only notice walls covered with graffiti in Guaraní and catch the distinct, slightly nasal language at almost every corner.

In fact, though only five percent of the population belong to the indigenous peoples, an estimated 90% of the population speaks Guaraní, making Paraguay the only country in the Americas whose majority speaks a native language.

Guaraní culture is ancient. Long before the 16th century, when the Spanish colonial empire conquered the land that is now Paraguay, the Guaraní were living in nomadic communes, passing down their language and beliefs by word of mouth. Since then, their amusing, preposterous and at times frightening myths have been believed, told and re-told all over Paraguay–until this day. Snakes with parrot heads, running trees and a man with a penis so long that he literally needs to tie it around his waist.

Pombero, the mythical, humanoid imp.

The most notorious among them all is a mythical, humanoid creature called Pombero. Mostly active in rural Paraguay, this short, hairy and incredibly ugly imp is said to create all kinds of mischief, including stealing eggs, scaring cattle and impregnating women by running between their legs. The only way to appease him is a sacrifice of tobacco and liquor. Under the city’s electric lights, these stories are shared and laughed at over drinks with friends and family, but on the country side, away from the safety of urban globalization, staring into the pitch black night can easily convince you to leave a bunch of cigarettes and booze out on the window sill–just in case.

As time (and Jesuits missionaries) passed in Paraguay, animistic mythology was replaced with Jesus Christ. Today, 97% of Paraguay’s population identifies as Christian. It will not come as a surprise then that one of Paraguay’s most significant holidays is Easter. Asunción’s streets lay practically deserted, as most Paraguayans travel to the countryside to visit family and friends. Semana Santa, the Holy Week, is largely spent baking and consuming enormous amounts of chipa, a bagel-shaped pastry made of corn flour and cheese, among other traditional foods.

Paraguay’s largest Easter celebration takes place in Tañarandy, a small traditional village located in the municipality where the Jesuits built their first mission. Every year, on Good Friday, the town’s dusty red streets attract thousands of visitors from Paraguay and around the world. In the glow of a sea of candles and torches, they follow a procession, carrying the Virgin Mary to the other side of town where living paintings commemorate the stations of Jesus’ crucifixion. Over the years, the procession of lights has become a all-out tourist attraction: Visitors can pick up rosaries and icons alongside cotton candy and neon plastic toys on their way out of Tañarandy. But for two humbling hours, one is lost in the sacred chants of a long-lived tradition.

Also check out photos by Sam Wolson: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-wolson/the-evolution-of-myth-and_b_1463478.html