The first African-American man in Brazil I met was Mark Travae, a Detroit native who has been living here since 2004. Once thought of as a third-world country, Brazil is now home to 2 of the top 15 most expensive cities in the world – Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.Īs Brazil’s economics have changed, so too have the draws for visitors, and Black men are no exception. Rather than a land teeming with women desperate for African-American male attention, I found a country full of beautiful women who didn’t know much English, had jobs as lawyers, doctors and engineers, and weren’t all that interested in talking to a stranger who couldn’t speak their language. But I was met with a very different reality.
