Ai, que calor!

Wipe your tears, my dear reader! I’m here! I just couldn’t write this post before. I don’t know if this heat will kill me. I belong to a nation of survivors! If we, Brazilian people, survived the colonization, the military coup and Psy singing Gangnam Style in Salvador, I believe we can survive the heat! I’m almost dead, anyway … Maybe I became a zombie in the last few hours. Fancy a slice of human brain, dear reader? (By the way … I’m a vegetarian. If we’ll become zombies in a near future, how will I feed myself? If zombies eat human brains – what a bad taste! – how will the vegetarian zombies survive? Hey! I’m worried about that, ok?!)

When I was younger, I met some foreign people, from Europe, and had to hear the same sentence dozens of times: “Oh, I would love to live in a warm country! ” Back then, I was a heavy metal listener, a very straight to the point person and stereotypes about my country made my blood boil. I used to say to my brother and friends that I would love to wrap those people at the top of Catedral da Sé, at noon (on Summer, of course), so they would see how lovely existance can be in warm countries, especially in big cities!

Catedral da Sé, one of the tour spots of my beloved city, located in downtown (If you want me to wrap you at the top of it, at noon, dear reader, just let me know! There’s still a little bit of heavy metal blood in my veins … ):

It’s easy to imagine a delightful existance in a warm country, if you don’t live in one. Many Brazilian people say that life must be glamorous and wonderful in European countries, because it snows on Winter. But my European friends tell me about experiences and problems they face due to snow, and there’s nothing glamorous or wonderful about it! Imagination and reality are different things, babe. Extreme temperatures are terrible, in my opinion, no matter if they’re hot or cold! February is the hottest month of the year in Brazil and, as you already know (if you read my blog often, of course. And you do it, don’t you?! ), the Brazilian Summer is very hot during the day and rainy in the evening (or afternoon). The sunlight is so bright, that you easily get dizzy when you walk on the streets, unless you’re in sunglasses. It’s over +30C in the most part of the days and there’s no cool breeze outside! I live in São Paulo! But things are not different in Rio de Janeiro. Believe it or not, the most of the population doesn’t spend the whole day at the beach! If I was at a beautiful beach, wearing a bikini, layed over a canga (canga is a colorful fabric that we, Brazilian women, wear to go to the beach. The most of them cover half of the body, but some of them cover the whole body.), on the smooth sand, under two palm trees, feeling the cool breeze and drinking coconut water (Hold on a sec! I will cry for a few minutes, because I’m not at the beach …), I would feel just fine! But I am surrounded by buildings. My poor brother go by subway to college and bears a crowded public transportaion where a lot of human beings are sweating at the same time! Cool, don’t you think? I thank God because I work at home. Everytime I need to go out, I want to cry! I pity the ones who work on the streets.

I’m not a Summer person at all, but here in São Paulo (this strange fortress in a tropical country) people don’t seem to love Summer, either. My brother and friends hate it. They’re long hair men () and we, long hair people (no, I’m not a man … *lol*) suffer a lot due to the heat! We sweat, no matter how many showers we take during the day! I’m too sensitive to high temperatures! I’m also the type of person who puts on a sweater when the average temperature drops two degrees, but I’m more sensitive to high temperatures. My head aches, sometimes my nose bleeds, I feel useless, can’t work right, feel extremely tired and in a bad mood. It happens to my brother and friends, too. Some scientists (?), who like to find stupid explanations to complex problems, say that the heat influences people’s behaviour, that’s why we, South American people, are not hard workers and decent people. Well … the people of the so-called “Third World” have build up the world. A huge ammount of the real hard workers of this planet come from South America! People who sacrifice everything they have to be humiliated and discriminated in the North Hemisphere! Then … aren’t we decent? Why? Because we wear less clothes? What’s decency? I think that it’s a huge lack of decency to say terrible things about people to justify some oppressions. But this is my opinion … Well, well, let’s get back to the heat. It’s pretty obvious that people from warm countries behave in a different way, because we have different problems to face! It doesn’t mean we are inferior or superior. We need to slow down our rhythm because it’s impossible to move or exercise or work right, when the weather affects your body! It’s actually very hard to deal with the heat, especially nowadays. We need to protect our skin with sunblocks (at least we should), drink a lot of water, avoid to expose ourselves to sun from 10:00 AM to 16:00 PM (who can do it, in a big city?) and slow down our rhythm. We’re usually stressed in São Paulo, only who lives in a big city knows how does it feel. The heat makes our stress grow exponentially! It’s a huge challenge! Sometimes, I have the impression that we, Brazilian people, are real warriors …

We should pay attention at the seasons and live according to them. In big cities, the most of the nature was destroyed. So, we can’t defend ourselves from the heat! Our suffering is a result of our attitude towards nature! This is sad … I do my best to respect the seasons. I just can’t be so productive when the days are too hot, period. But I’m a privileged person. Everything must change when the temperature is too high. We need to drink more water (I drink a lot of water, so, this is not a challenge to me), eat less food and a very light and healthy food, take care of our skin, wear light clothes and slow down our rhythm. This is not possible to everyone. And it makes me sad. It’s pleasant to enjoy the hot weather, when you’re having fun, at a nice place, surrounded by nature. The daily life, in a big city, is a nightmare in the most of the time. Every morning we know that the sun will rise. And, sometimes, we’re not sure if it will set …

Warm hugs to you all! (I really mean that …)

Luna