My First Bus Chat

In one of my first posts I gave a bit of an overview of the buses here in Rio – they are such a great way to get a snap shot of the people of Rio that it seemed a good place to start. And although I described some of the negative aspects, I hope the overall impression I gave was one of affection.  


One of the the first things that the buses showed me about the Cariocas is their willingness to chat. I watched as complete strangers sat next to each other and passed the time, discussing all kinds of interesting subjects in an amiable way. I remember thinking back to all those miserable bus journeys back in London where everyone would sit in a kind of suspended animation, where the closest thing you’d get to conversation would be someone tutting at the traffic. And then I would return my attention to Rio and the cheerful strangers in front of me as they discussed who knows what. 


Perhaps I am idealising the situation somewhat. It has occurred to me that my limited understanding of the language does mean that I’m missing all the bitching and complaining that may well be going on around me. They could well be moaning about the traffic in just the same spirit as my former co-passengers back in London. Well maybe they are, but at least they’re talking!   


Anyway, as much as I enjoy watching these conversations, I always felt rather sad that I couldn’t really take part in one. Although I was here and in amongst it, my lack of decent Portuguese meant that my role was restricted to that of spectator… Until tonight!

The bus home from work was quite busy and I was tucked in a corner, reading a book. A few rows in front of me there were a couple of teenage girls, one of whom was playing (awful) music through the speaker of her phone (yes, they do that here too). An oldish guy who looked like a doorman sat down next to me and immediately started talking and gesticulating at the girls. Luckily for me he didn’t seem interested in my meek (read: lame) apology for being English and not speaking much Portuguese. 


We proceeded to chat for the next 15 minutes until I regretfully reached my stop. But it was great! I’ll be honest, I probably only caught 50% of the words, but that was enough. We started our chat by discussing how inconsiderate the girls in front were to be playing their music (I think this was the main thing that he just had to say to someone). We went on to discuss all manner of things – his home state of Paraíba, learning Portuguese, reading books, his job, the people of Brazil. It was my best journey home ever. 


As I hopped off the bus I realised that I was finally a part of it, this happy population of people who aren’t so inhibited that talking to a stranger is deemed ‘weird’. I often play down my Portuguese skills (if self-deprecation was a sport I’m sure England would clean up at the Olympics), but I am now at least good enough to get involved in bus conversations, which makes me feel like less of an outsider tonight than I did when I left home this morning.