Sampa, eu te amo.

(Trabalho da faculdade, por isso esta em ingles.)

If you ask me why I like São Paulo, I could take the easy way out. Very simply put, I like it because it’s where I was born. It’s my city, the city where I grew up, and end of story. Well, I honestly don’t think it’s fair to São Paulo to leave it just at that. Sampa, as it’s dearly called, is very hard to decipher. It’s wild and hectic. It’s polluted and there’s too much traffic. It’s way too fast paced and it doesn’t wait for you to catch up with it. But on the other hand, Sampa’s sparks fly every which way in a beautiful frenzy. There is a compelling energy just draws you to it, like a moth to a flame. So in this moment of epiphany, I say I love São Paulo because the city is alive and breathing.

It’s the Brazilian ginga, the colors, the presence, the grit, or the way I can lose myself in this massive urban jungle. It’s the indifference, the apathy of a big city, the paranoia, and the way I can get caught up in endless routine. São Paulo sure hits both sides of the spectrum, but in a very cliched manner, I say good trumps bad in this big city. Something about it, some force always manages to bring you back to appreciating it so much, maybe even more than before.
São Paulo is big. I mean, outrageously big. It is the fifth biggest city in the world. It can take hours to get from one end to the other, not to mention if you add grid-lock traffic. I moved before I was old enough to get my Brazilian drivers’ license. So when I’m there I either hitch a ride with a friend or take a cab. Sitting in traffic always gets me nervous when I watch bikers zig-zag in the narrow gap between lanes, dodging side-view mirrors. But if I considered it time wasted, I because I wasn’t paying enough attention. Instead of whining about traffic, I could take a second to look out the window and see the monumental skyscrapers on Paulista Avenue, the graffiti under a bridge on 23 de Maio Street, the historical Sé Cathedral, or simply the old lady across the street trying to catch a bus. A second is all I need, because in São Paulo, life happens in matters of seconds.

11 million people call the “Drizzle land” their homes, from a bum on a street corner to a business industry tycoon up in his blind-folded utopia. The in-between people are models, dentists, teachers, mechanics, artists, or even drug dealers. No matter what they do, these people somehow manage to coexist (less than chaotically) in such different places of life. What fascinates me is that I can wake up one morning, decide to hop on the Metrô and go somewhere like the MASP. Inside the MASP museum, I’ll see culture on the walls, sure, but culture is what has been slapping me in the face the whole way there. In the crammed subway, I people-watched. I may see teenage girls giggling about a boy, or an old man picking his nose. I could help a lady with her groceries or make room for a guy with a broken leg in crutches. My point is that Sampa forces me to interact, communicate and inevitably connect with other people in the same boat as myself, or in this case, same subway. In São Paulo, you not only meet more people, but you meet people more.

São Paulo is irony and juxtaposition. It’s the stunning Ibirapuera Park against countless crude sky-scraping structures. It’s the freezing weather in the early morning and the scorching sun in the afternoon. It’s torrential downpour with overflowing rivers versus the dry air of weeks which makes the city dusty and thirsty as if it were an old Western movie. It’s sadly also the mansions turning their backs on the slums, and sometimes it’s trying to figure out which side the police is on. But above all, it’s the territory of hard-working people who may never get reach the goals they set out for, but still exhaust themselves trying.

Although I haven’t lived in São Paulo for the past 7 years, I never miss a chance to brag. I was born in this hasty and heavy city, but I am proud to say it’s anything but dull. São Paulo hypnotizes some and frightens others not only for its grandiosity, but because it has a beating heart and soul. I love São Paulo and it’s not just because I was born there, amongst the body heat and the sound of moving gears. I love it because this city is special in its own beautiful and rugged ways. Because it’s perfect in all its flaws. I am only another paulistana who ventured somewhere else in the world, only to find that I’d be taking any possible chances to fly back to the flame, seeking to once again sync my heart with the one that is alive and beats through the city lights.


---Bruna