Sao Paulo is a busy, highly concentrated city with constant traffic and endless high-rise apartments. In the outskirts of the city there are underserved neighborhoods with tenuous infrastructure, struggling families and serious water problems.
Unlike many American cities where the suburbs ring the center urban area and tend to isolate themselves from the central city, Sao Paulo’s situation is just the reverse. Even now Brazil’s seemingly inexhaustible water supplies are scarce in the suburbs and the city’s program for getting more water to them is stalled In some neighborhoods there may be only two or three hours of water a day and this may, or may not, correspond to times when people are able to be home. (I’ll post more about this later).
Much of my walking and feet-on-the-ground experience is in a more central part of the city where the infrastructure is generally good and the sidewalks walkable, if not very even. It is still safer to keep your attention on the sidewalk rather than higher up — you can walk fairly comfortably but with concentration.
On these walks you see an increasing number of bicyclists, shoppers, commercial businesses, dog walkers, and schools for suburban young people. The amount of privilege varies from one street to another and the disparities of Brazilian economic and social life are almost always visible.
In the midst of this we made a remarkable discovery on one such walk. There are always unusual species in fairly expected places — small decorative plantings outside apartment buildings and in the park. But we are also discovering an unusual form of urban gardening with “exotic flowers” in unexpected places.
This is an example of a flower that seems to be an iris, but has tigerish center blossoms that are unusual. Having grown up in in a place where there were two kinds — white and blue — these tiny irises are a revelation.
These blossoms are not exactly on the street, but in a botanical section of Ibirapuera Park.
The orchids below are different, though. They are “planted” on a street so busy that drivers can scarcely see them and pedestrians may not think to look up to see them.
These orchids are placed in packets of moss attached to trees and are obviously cultivated. This is not just one tree, but there are dozens along this street. Like all the streets in this neighborhood it is named after a Brazilian bird. This one is called Inhambu, named after a brownish ground bird that no longer has any habitat here.
Actually the orchids do not have a natural habitat here either, but there seem to be urban gardeners who care for them. Astonishingly, the flowers seem to reach maturity safely on these busy streets.
Orchids are not the only plantings. This huge staghorn fern also grows in mossy packets attached to trees. The size suggests that this one has been here for some time.
There are other unexpected urban pleasures. There is a street in this area named after the bird called Bem-te-vi. The name mimics the cry of the bird who calls (in Portuguese) “Bem-te-vi,” “good to see you.
On my balcony this morning, and yesterday as well, a Bem-te-vi appeared. We watched each for some time. It is about the size of a large North American robin or smallish pigeon, but elegantly gray-brown with two white strips along its crown and a brilliant yellow and white belly. When it flies it flashes the yellow-white which also spreads across the underside of its wings.
Somehow it finds me on this rail on the 9th floor among hundreds of city apartments.
This is not as mystical as the morning three eagles joined me at the edge of a Wisconsin lake, but it is an unexpected blessing among the high-rises which, for a moment, transforms the urban morning.
On this same balcony there is also a hummingbird nest. At the moment it does not seem to have a tenant. In the past the nest was occupied and I could watch the parent bird feeding the young. One day I watched one of the young birds perch precariously on a small branch. It teetered and shivered for some time, and then flew away. I hope one of them will come back to nest.
This last orchid is a special favorite
