Two Adjectives to Describe the Culture of Palmas

Palmas, 2008

On my first trip to Palmas I played a game of beach football. I ran into space to be available for a pass, monitored my teammates availability, looking around when I had the ball, looking to pass.

A common perception in Palmas.

It was all a waste of time. You get the ball, run and shoot. When you don’t have the ball, you do nothing. The person with the ball will not pass to you, so why bother? 

It was not a team game, it was a game for individuals to seek their own individual glory.

At the end of that trip, leaving the airport, I was attended to by an airline agent. Another customer approaches, interrupts and the attendant serves him first. The “culture” here does not allow the attendant to refuse the interruption but obliges him to attend the interupter.

These two experiences serve as perfect metaphors for my time here in 2015.

Palmas, 2015

In another post I’ll detail some (recent) experiences that have led me to these conclusions (there are too many to include in one post), but here is a summary of my one year of living among the people of Palmas. And please remember I am not talking about everyone. There are many truly genuine, generous people. But my impression of the culture as a whole is thus.

Arrogant and selfish. These are the two main adjectives that spring to my mind, and that I hear on the lips of anyone here who has a perspective of the overwhelming attitude in the culture here.

The individual's priority is to look out for onself. At every moment of their lives they are searching for an advantage over others. Overtaking on the inside lane, or on a roundabout, queue jumping, interrupting people being served, arriving late for work, leaving early and doing nothing in between.

Short term individual resolution is all that counts. The consequences of a lie told today are not considered. The “culture” dictates that people should pursue the easiest resolution for today, now, regardless of how this may affect other people today, or you tomorrow.

Brazilians have a very strong image overseas as friendly, welcoming, open. Solidarity and community are apparently essential to Brazilian culture. And it’s true, amongst people you know, amongst family and friends, people look after one another extremely well. I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of many people here. Sadly, however, here in Palmas my overwhelming experience is very different to the image everyone expects of Brazil.

I understand there are reasons for this attitude. Given the history of colonisation, theft, slavery, corruption, dictatorship, exploitation and extreme poverty, survival for oneself and one’s family takes precedent. However we are no longer living in those times. Society has moved on but the attitude remains in the past.

What is also frustrating is to see this same attitude amongst people you would hope would be instigators of social change – educated, intelligent, well-travelled, socially aware people often behave in the same way as everyone else. To see a doctor or lawyer driving drunk, and terribly, with kids in the back seat and no one using a seat belt for me is the worst of all. 

“Skol Skol Skol Skol!” The unexpected predictability of life in Palmas

One of the impressions of Brazilian people and the way of life here is that of spontaneity. This seems fair to me, in Palmas. Little planning occurs, people live from one moment to the next and enjoy life. People do things without much analysis or stress, and obstacles that another person might try to foresee are easily overcome as they appear. Potential problems are not considered, only problems that are in front of you at any given moment.

Mushrooms spreading like fungus

There is another side though, which has surprised me. That is the predictability of the daily routine. Maybe it's the fact it's dark at 6.30pm every day of the year.  Or, being a new city founded only 27 years ago, there has been little time to develop the diversity of older cities.

Most people work the standard 8am to 12pm, 2pm to 6pm. At 7.50am our car park is full. By 8.15am (given the fact that people like to arrive late) it’s empty. By 6.30pm, full again.

One of two remotely interesting buildings in Palmas

Architecture is very limited here. There are only two buildings I find remotely interesting, but neither would engage me in another city. The rest are either standard condominiums (gated residential communities, usually with blocks of flats 6 floors high) or “mushrooms”, a small ground floor with a broader first floor. 

Shoddy paintmanship at the Palace

As a planned city the road layout is very standardised and homogenised. 3 lane highways lined by palm trees and joined by roundabouts. Upon entering a block you are always faced with 5 lanes that meet at one point, and no one in the city understands who has priority (there are no signs) but everyone drives on the assumption that it’s them. The entire road system has white painted curbs, but no one has learned how to paint a curb. Drivers are invariably reckless and aggressive, ignoring all rules such as lanes, indicating, and sobriety.

5 lanes meet with no one given priority

Lunch break for everyone starts at 12pm. By 12.05pm the restaurants are rammed. By 1pm they are emptying out and there is no food left. Everyone eats “per kilo” – it’s quick, good value and usually pretty good food. Rice, beans and meat are essential. We have to be careful who we invite for dinner as most people expect rice and beans and may be disappointed if it is not served. Many people would not like anything I cook as it’s too "exotic" (imagine an Englishman's food being called exotic). I know some who have visited other countries and really struggled without rice and beans every day. One told me that many in their group visiting Korea literally cried at mealtimes, and lost huge amounts of weight.

Our car park typically empty by 8.15am

The vast majority of restaurants and bars have plastic Skol tables and plastic Skol chairs. Usually white, occasionally red or yellow but always the same format. They all sell the same 2-3 brands of lager, always wonderfully cold, in 600ml bottles. Some only sell cans. 

After the sun sets at 6.30pm it starts to cool down a little and people spill out on to the pavements, and sit there.

At weekends people have barbecues, providing endless quantities of delicious meats – steak, sausage, chicken, pork. Accompanied by rice, beans, cassava and salad (lettuce leaves and sliced tomatoes with no dressing); Skol, Guarana and Coca Cola.

Other people find it fun to spend Saturday afternoons drinking on petrol station forecourts then drive home drunk.

The principle pastime is attending church. Churches in Palmas are as ubiquitous as pubs in England. Every street has one, usually Evangelical, and outside of work and home, they are where most people spend their time. Religion is a huge part of daily life and conversation here. Yesterday my mother-in-law invited me to her church, asking “do you not like Jesus”. Everything that happens, for better or worse, is thanks to God, or what God wanted. 

So when Palmeiras won the Brazil Cup earlier this month in a penalty shootout that was delayed due to the amount of prayers the players were offering, with a penalty taken by their goalkeeper, I can only assume it was because the goalkeeper who scored had attended church more than the goalkeeper who failed to save the penalty.

(Disclaimer: these are only my observations aimed at summarising my experience of living in Palmas, Tocantins. They do not claim to be solid fact, nor represent anything beyond my humble impressions)