when i arrived i went straight to a hotel downtown in Praca da Republica, its in a slightly rundown area, there are gay bars, and loads of people hanging around on the streets. my room was right by the street and it was the last night of carnival, so there were people partying all night, due to this and my own neurosis i was totally unable to sleep. In the morning my sheets were in a sweaty knot.
i went out walking open and sensitive to what i might encounter and to what was going on inside me. i had the street training manual with me and decided to try a few of the instructions contributed by people in camberwell south east london. the first instruction in the manual, in the path of joy section is whenever you can stop and smell flowers. i found a tree with purple flowers and smelled them and thought i should document this and wanted to ask a passer by. The only person near by was an old man who looked very disheveled and i thought he probably wouldn't be able to use a camera. 
i tried to take a photo of him but he hid behind a car.
then i asked a dog walker to take a picture of me smelling some other flowers, these ones smelled really sweet and strong.
. i continued walking and just felt really tired, so i decided to find a place to lie down and sleep. i really liked the way, in Bahia, a friend of mine just lies down on the floor to sleep when he is at home and other places. I had done the same a few times and was almost able to sleep like that directly on the ground.
In Sao Paulo in the street its a bit different though. there were small parks around but they looked dirty and dodgy, there was one near by with palm trees and concrete benches. I sat on the bench and as in many cities the bench was designed to be impossible to sleep on. but i could stretch out my body and so i did, i let myself relax put my arms behind my head, felt the soft texture of my plaits under my arms and hands. heard the sounds around me, felt my feet heavy and tried to let go, i was able to drift off a bit to stop thinking and relax. then i began thinking that i would like a photo of this so i took one of myself and looked around for some one to ask as well. the only other person near was an even more senile looking man, so i asked him and he understood nothing of what i was saying or showing him, but i placed my camera in his soft dry hands and said 'pullar' here which i since discovered means jump not press - anyway. i put the camera in his hands and went and lay on the bench closed my eyes and waited. i looked up and he was looking very confused. just then a plain clothed policeman came over and i asked him to take my photo. which he did.
i talked with him for a while and he said his brother in law lives in England near London that he prefers the countryside to being in london itself, he said London is too hectic for him he said his brother prefers to be in nature. 
he told me that Sao Paulo is very dangerous and that i should be careful 'cuitatdo' or a word like that. he said there is a lot of crack and that usually this place would be more dodgy but its quiet today because its a holiday. I was hungry and thirsty and found a wonderful place on a corner to have something to eat. them i was sleepy again and there was a park right there so i went and tried to lie down on the grass but people walk their dogs in the park so it was covered in dog shit and impossible to sit down. the park had kids playing football and well dressed people walking dogs on one side. on the other side were street sleepers and their cardboard and stuff. There was a clear line dividing the park between the two and i saw that where the street sleepers were was perfect for a nap with a wide ledge like a bench and so i walked over to it and sat down. i felt self conscious and at the same time no one was really paying any attention to me. After a few moments i felt so tired that i lay down and was actually asleep when i felt a tap on my arm. A teenage boy was standing over me, he wanted me to move along the ledge a little to where his sheet of cardboard and grey blanket were so i could sleep better there. He actually made me get under the blanket i wanted to sleep on top but he said get inside and i'll be just over there. he went off and i felt more secure in some ways was able to relax but my mind was going crazy thinking what might happen and wondering what to do. he came back again with an ice cream tub with some yellow stuff to eat but i didn't like the look of it. he asked me if i was on the streets and i wasn't sure how to explain myself, i said no i have a hotel just over there, but i can't sleep. I'm really tired and couldn't sleep last night. he said its really strange to come and sleep here. i said that in england its not so strange to sleep in a park and that over there is covered with dog shit. we talked for a while, he brought a friend over we talked and i asked them if they like hip hop they sang some to me and i sang a salt and pepper or maybe money love song that i remembered, then they asked do you know the red hot Chilly Peppers? and would you sing something from them so i sang.sometimes i feel like i don't have a partner
sometimes i feel like my only friend
is the city i live in
the city of angels
lonely as i am together we fall.
they liked it a lot even though they didn't understand the lyrics.
then as i'm an artist and can't help trying to extract some cultural product from the situation. start to think i really want to get some photos of the situation. so i get my digital camera out and the boys eyes are out on stalks because the value to them is huge. then i say - so this is really strange is it? me sleeping here and they say yes and i say well will you take a picture of me? so i hand one of them my camera lie down stretch out and close my eyes. He takes my picture and hands my camera back then he suggests that we take pictures of ourselves together.
I moved out of the Hotel and into a lovely flat in to St Cecelia to stay with a wonderful woman named Beiju who is a capoeirista in the Angola tradition. I went out Street Training again, it had rained hard all day the day before so the morning sunshine was very welcome and on a street corner i remembered a Street Training Technique passed on to me by a dancer in Linz Austria she said when its been cold and rainy and the sun comes out just stop, stand there in the street and feel the sun on your skin so i let the warmth sink in.
Again or course wanted to document this so i asked the nearest person who was a man wearing a sign - he was happy to do it and then after i thanked him and began crossing the road he shouted after me, to take his picture in return. Which i did.
I continued walking and saw a boy climbing a tree
so i asked him to show me and we climbed together 
then i sat and talked to his mum for a while, she said his dad was from Ecuador.another instruction from the street training manual was "share your chips, crisps or what ever food you have with people around you" this was contributed by a teenage boy at Archbishop Michael Ramsey School in Camberwell. I was walking down a street when i saw a man with no legs and a wheelchair piled high with plastic bags and a shoe shine man. i sat down with them and offered them my watermelon that i'd bought earlier. Neither of them wanted any. we talked for a while the man with no legs ranted against jewish people and the shoe shine man asked if we have people to clean shoes in the streets in London. I was happy sitting there with them - i got the sense they were uncomfortable and confused about me being there. often i felt i was imposing my privilege on people - that i have such freedom to do what i want, why would i want to come and take up their space.
when i was in the park in Aurouche people said that it was dangerous but that a few streets lower it was really dangerous so i should avoid them. The next day i walked to the dangerous streets, as i walked along the street i saw a large romany family with kids and little plastic bikes. on the corner was a woman selling sex and beer calling out advertising herself and the beer. Later i walked back along the same street and went to a corner bar for a juice because i had seen two young boys fishing in the drain and was curious about what they were doing. I watched for a while and eventually went and asked them. They were beeming with excitement and explained that there was an ill rat down there. they said they had seen it crawl accross the street and then go down into the drain. they were trying to get it out with little bits of a broken wooden crate. They did impressions of the rat looking sick by hanging their heads to one side and letting their tounges hang out to the side, i laughed a lot. then their mums came over and we talked - they are from romania and i said i'd been to Timisoara so they called their husbands and cousins over to meet me. it started to rain and we sheltered under the eaves of a building. they said living there was really shit and they didn't seem interested to talk to me so i said goodbye and walked off.
