The other day I was waiting for the bus (as I often do) on one of the busier commercial roads in Florianopolis – it hosts a bunch of night clubs and upscale restaurants, a shishi supermarket, as well as a few gyms and auto dealerships.  Then what should come jingling by me, but a man on a HORSE AND BUGGY!!

Add this to the list of amazing things to see in Brazil.  I guess you are more likely to see this in a country that is developing as rapidly as Brazil is.  Fancy shopping malls, LOTs of construction, new homes, and interior decorating businesses alongside farmers and harvesters who still live off the land on the outskirts of the city  In the south of the island, weather worn old men still make a living off the sea and head out to the beaches every night with their hand nets.  It gives me pause to think about how this change gets negotiated by the people who are living through it, the fishermen whose kids are perhaps going to end up living very different lives than them, the separation from the natural world that occurs when people stop working with it directly every day.  But for now, I am just enjoying the jingle of buggy bells amidst the hum of midday traffic.