The paradox is total

A week has not jet passed since I landed in Salvador. 

I have spent most of the time worrying about how things will work out. 

I have been to the beach to fry my self in the sun. 

I have been trying to catch up with the pace of everyday life in this strange place. 

It is so easy to forget the problems while remembering the nice things. 

Salvador is a vivid town, welcoming, warm and easy going and at the same time hard, dangerous and suspicious. It’s the place where contrasts are visualized as a schoolbook example. I have learnt that in Brazil, in the statistics, they divide the population in to class A, B, C, D and E, A being upper class and E the lowest, depending upon income. I live in an area where C, D and E coexists. On my streets there are houses with garage and nice cars side by side with houses barely standing. Garbage, construction materials and stray dogs gives the red dirt road (that should have been asphalted many years ago if it had not been for corruption) a special atmosphere

Very simplified, I could describe many of my male nighbours way of interpreting life.  Ether you follow the road of Jesus, go to any one of the three churches schattered a log the street, and try to conform to the demands of God, not drink to much and bring home some moony to your wife and kids, or, you make a turn and take in on the road towards drug trafficking when you turn 17, with the prospects of being shot to death at 19 by your concurrents or the police. It is like choosing to become a high risk mountain climber. 

But, don't worry, drug trafficking and crime is not visible - no one brings crime home to their door - instead worried mothers and poking neighbors talk and attend funerals. People repouse when at home, going to church seeking redemption or turns the volume on their stereos to maximum and plays Pagode and Arrocha to the point that it feels like the house will scatter - all nights of the week. 

This is an environment which makes you fell big and very small at the same time.  It makes you smile so often, it makes you dance and a timid sewed like me can't resist opening up, becoming more outgoing... at the same time this environment makes you doubt the meaning of life, it makes you cry in certain moments.  

The paradox is total.