On a hot Christmas Eve morning in Curitiba, a stroll along a largely residential street summed up the city’s contradictions. Open windows displayed large flags – two Palestinian banners and, a floor below, two Brazilian flags – while nearby trees and quiet pavements gave the place the feel of a neighbourhood that could be overlooked by anyone who did not look up.
Curitiba morning reflections
The scene suggested a modest drama of neighbours rather than an outright confrontation: perhaps differing political sympathies fluttering silently; perhaps a municipal indifference to what people display in their homes. From street level the flags were not obvious. Only those who raised their gaze would notice the colours and imagine the story behind them.
Proceeding towards Praça Tiradentes, the writer encountered a sharper reality. People who had nowhere to go slept along the square; the smell of urine hung in the air. Inside the cathedral, tourists moved through the nave and some visitors peered down at the square, surprised at what lay beyond the church’s doors. The city’s polished tourist image rarely shows this view, and such contrasts appear to be growing.
Yet small acts of human warmth punctuated that harsher picture. Standing before the Blessed Sacrament, the writer was approached by an older man who offered to pray for him. The exchange was simple: gratitude rather than a plea, a short shared prayer, a moment of mutual surprise and calm. Later, social workers collected some of the people sleeping in the square, a reminder that amid hardship there are systems and people trying to help.
On the way back, the old bookstore owner Chaim provided another counterpoint. The writer has a personal habit of buying books from street bookshops at Christmas, and none in Curitiba matched Chaim’s. He recommended a reissue of Joaquim Manuel de Macedo’s A Carteira de Meu Tio and suggested this, wryly, as a way to understand how long political deceit has been part of Brazil’s story. The writer also picked up a collection of Dalton Trevisan’s short stories and a portrait of Dante Mendonça.
Before leaving, Chaim handed over two paçoquinhas, the small peanut sweets common in Brazil. That gesture — a simple, local kindness — closed the morning on a gently human note. If the writer suggests that a novelist is a brother of Cain, then the bookseller appeared to be a brother of Abel, offering charity where cynicism might have been expected.
The day’s walk, brief and ordinary, captured several themes: civic visibility and invisibility, public suffering and personal generosity, the quiet politics of household symbols and the small rituals that sustain neighbourhood life. For anyone who walks slowly and looks up, Curitiba still provides scenes that are easy to miss but difficult to forget.
Key Takeaways:
- Flags in adjacent windows captured contrasting political and national sentiments in a quiet Curitiba street.
- Public hardship was visible: homeless people slept near Praça Tiradentes while the cathedral hosted tourists and quiet acts of charity.
- A local bookshop and its owner provided a human counterpoint, offering books and small kindnesses.
- The piece frames everyday generosity against urban inequality, ending on a hopeful note.
