Noise Pollution

I was reminded again this morning that Brazilians don´t seem to understand the concept of noise pollution. Before I was even out of bed this morning, although it is true that I was sleeping late, I was being assaulted with the sound of someone selling watermelons on the street outside our window. It is common for farmers to drive their beat-up old trucks to town with a load of melons, pineapples, strawberries, or whatever with a loudspeaker mounted on the top of the cab and an annoying tape on a continual loop.

Of course one sympathizes with the desire of the small farmers to sell their produce and of the residents of the city to buy directly from the farmers instead of the markets. But the process wouldn´t have to be so invasive. Farmers Markets similar to those in the US already exist throughout the city.

If it isn´t the farmers who are disturbing my peace, it is some small neighborhood store or restaurant which has a man with a microphone and a speaker standing on the sidewalk haranguing the passersby, although I don´t know that I´ve had that experience since we moved to our new apartment, in a neighborhood a little less commercial.

Perhaps these tactics are used because they work, although it is just as possible they are old patterns that have persisted since forever, and nobody has ever studied their effectiveness. If everyone were to adopt my way of thinking, namely that I wouldn´t eat in your damn restaurant if you were giving the food away, or buy that pineapple from you if it were the last one on earth, maybe the practice would continue because that is just the way things have always been done.