Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
Haley A

Filed under: height

I promise I'm really not THAT tall

If this exercise in blog-writing has taught me anything, it’s that I’m not good at blog-writing.  I think about what I’m going to write a lot, it’s just that I never actually write (type) it.  Eventually, I forget what I was planning to write, so it’s like I have to start all over again.  But there is one thing that I’ve been wanting to write about which I am forced to remember, since I’m always being reminded of it: 

Brazilians (except for the occasional odd balls) are not tall.  I’m assuming it was for this reason that things here were built for smaller people.  Clothes, the metro, airplanes, staircases, etc are just not really made for anyone over 5’8”. 

I kind of arbitrarily chose that height because I’m somewhere between 5’9” and 5’10” (yeah, I still don’t know the metric system, so I can’t tell you my height in centimeters, sorry).  I’m not sure whether or not there’s any data on the average height of Brazilians, but I know there are a lot of people who are the same height that I was in, say, fourth grade.  I’ve always been “tall,” but, at home, I don’t feel like a giant.  When I flew to Bahia, my legs didn’t fit in the space between my seat and the one in front of it.  Sure, we flew on an airline which may or may not be real (Webjet), but I noticed very few other people with my problem.  When I end up in one of the seats on the metro that has a seat right in front of it, my knees hit that seat- which has made for some awkward encounters with people in said seat.  It’s not normal for me to have to duck while walking down the stairs (because of a low clearance), but I have to do that fairly often here. 

While many people mistake me for Brazilian (I think it’s because I walk so quickly that I give the illusion that I always know where I’m going, despite the fact that I get lost roughly once per day) and ask for directions, I have the suspicion that others can tell I don’t belong because of my height. 

Now, I have some serious questions for the Brazilians over six feet (about 183 cm):  how do you survive here, where do you buy clothing, and do you feel excluded from your own people?? 

Tall