04. The Baiana

Is she really from Salvador, from Bahia de Todos os Santos? Surely she was simply born in a favela at Penha¹. It doesn’t matter. It’s Rio’s Baiana.​

Leaning against the wall, she reigns, spread in her dark fleshes, behind her glassed stall. Like an imperturbable ebony statue she watches the carioca strollers parade by.

Next to her, a little charcoal stove made from an old petrol tin on which, from time to time, abandoning her hieratic attitude, she reheats mysterious foods.
1. Slum in a neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.