A few days in Rio

 Sonia arrived on Boxing Day, delayed by the late cancellation of her flight the previous day. We spent the afternoon on Copacabana beach and I enjoyed a Boxing Day swim, wriley thinking of the snow back home. The water was cool and delicious, an inviting escape from the heat of the beach. The sea, and the ice cold beers, were an enjoyable wind down after a busy few weeks. We did the same the next few days, and one day we met up with friends we made in Brighton and exchanged Brazil stories.

One worrying story was from our English friend, Mark, about the Rio public hospital he had trained in as part of his UK based medicine degree. That the doctors spend half their time on their phones, Facebook and Whatsapp and ignore the sick and dying patients was half expected, but still sad. As was the confirmation that, while there are some excellent, dedicated doctors, the majority are concerned more with the prestige associated with the profession, and the career plan to make lots of money.

Mark found one case particularly upsetting. A patient arrived clearly experiencing a heart attack and in need of urgent attention, 10 minutes of which would have been effective. He was left unattended in spite of Mark’s pleas. He died within 35 minutes, and the subsequent 30 minutes of attempted resuscitation had no effect. The doctors were unmoved. Well, moved only to use the still warm body to practice inserting a tube down the oesophagus and encourage Mark to take the chance to do the same, as this is the only practice they have. Even a physiotherapist was having a go.

Death is so present in daily life here and more so in the case of doctors, that there seems to be a cold detached attitude towards even avoidable death. And of course, it’s all ‘God’s will’ anyway.

I hoped never to be dependent on the services of a public hospital in Brazil.

Mark also mentioned his a visit to a bank in Bahia, the famously laidback state in northern Brazil. He walked in and found no obvious queue. The customers were all sat down, but he could not find the ticketing system common in other parts of Brazil. Then he found the queue – a line of flip flops leading up to the counter.

My own experience of a queue was at a supermarket. The queue was barely moving, the attendant was stood with hands on hips chatting to the customers. There were only 2 people in front of me, but by the time we got served (which involved the manager finally pointing out we were in the elderly queue – something the attendant felt no need to indicate to the growing queue), the customer in front had 3 empty beer bottles on the conveyor belt.

We had a nice few days in Rio, around Ipanema and Copacabana. Expensive though. Often London prices for sub-London stadards. We wanted to visit places outside the city, but to get anywhere involved combinations of long and expensive bus rides, connections in favelas, and taxis. We did one day trip, the subject of another entry. The hotel had been nice, but the staff unhelpful and disinterested.

One afternoon we met a local guy called Quieroz over some beachfront beers. In typical Brazilian style he was very warm, open and welcoming. We had a few beers, and exchanged numbers to meet up another day, with his wife. Although open to abuse, I like the transparency with Brazilian people – they make it clear when they like you, and why they like you, and when they don’t like you (and why). Queiroz was certain Sonia and his wife would hit it off. These spontaneous friendships are definitely an attraction of Brazil, and do much to compensate for the other things you may notice me enthusing less over.

They do love their Speedo's