I am not alone

This weekend, I was happy to find someone complaining about men peeing on the streets of Rio in one of the most important newspapers of the country. The article is called "Dirty City, Dear City".

Funny enough, the author reports a similar experience that I had (reported in a recent post below): he looked at a man peeing in the street where he lives and the man looked back as if he was doing the most natural thing in the world.

It is good to find someone who is not only concerned with this, but is writing about it and asking the government to do something. However, I had a couple of questions.

First, he suggests that the government should install public restrooms around the city. I am not sure if this will be an effective solution. My impression is that peeing is more of an habit, rather than something that happens due to the lack of public restrooms in the city. If the problem was lack of restrooms, I think the women would be doing the same thing, no? It is puzzling that the beginning of the article talks about littering in Rio (which is another major problem) and the author recognizes that it is not caused by lack of trash cans. It is lack of something else, but I don't know exactly what. The author suggests that we should go after these people and fine them for littering. I agree with him: this might change the habit, if properly enforced (see our DIU policy). I don't understand, however, why he believes that peeing shouldn't be dealt with in the same way. At the very least, we should combine restrooms with fines.

Second, he describes the problem as if it were a matter of social classes. He largely suggests that peeing is mostly done by homeless and unemployed people. He also says that "the smell" is quite strong in more popular neighborhoods like Flamengo and Copacabana. He ends by manifesting a huge surprise when he sees a "well dressed" guy (i.e. a supposedly wealthy person) peeing on his upscale neighborhood (probably Leblon or Ipanema). I cannot help but wonder if this is true. We do have a huge problem with classes - I am not denying that. In fact, according to a UN report published last week Brazilian cities "have the greatest disparities in income distribution in the world." And I am not denying that this is the cause of numerous problems in the city. I am just questioning whether the disparity in income distribution has anything to do with the peeing. From what I have seen, I don't think it is fair to blame the poor -- and specially the poorest of poor -- for the peeing.

A detailed account of the report in Portuguese can be found at BBC Brasil.

I am pasting below an excerpt of the original newspaper article in Portuguese. To read the entire piece you need to subscribe to Folha de S. Paulo.

FERREIRA GULLAR

Cidade suja, querida cidade

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Por onde se anda, seja Leblon, Méier ou Barra, é lixo por todo canto; é de dar vergonha

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Tenho uma amiga que viveu durante muitos anos na Alemanha, e ela me conta que, lá, se uma pessoa joga alguma coisa no chão, é multada, e se alguém a ver jogar, a adverte e a manda ajuntar o que atirara no chão. Ouvi isso, incrédulo, imaginando o que sucederia a alguém que, no Rio, se atrevesse a fazer semelhante advertência: seria, no mínimo, insultado ou até mesmo espancado pelo autor da sujeira. É que o nosso modo de entender a coisa pública é diferente: público, aqui, significa que é de todo mundo e, portanto, todos têm o direito de fazer, no espaço urbano, tudo o que desejam, como, por exemplo, urinar na rua.

Há certas ruas, no Rio, de bairros residenciais como Copacabana ou Flamengo, especialmente as transversais às vias principais, que fedem a mijo. Nelas costumam acampar grupos de mendigos ou vagabundos, que por ali mesmo fazem suas necessidades. Um nojo. Mas outro dia, aqui perto de casa, numa manhã de domingo, dei com um rapaz bem apessoado, de calças blujins, blusão e casquete na cabeça, urinando junto a uma banca de jornais, que estava fechada. Ele me viu, mas pouco se tocou, como se praticasse o ato mais natural do mundo.

Está errado, sem dúvida. Mas me perguntei: se o cara mora longe e sente necessidade premente de urinar, que pode fazer? Procurar um restaurante ou um boteco, dirá você.
E se não houver nenhum por perto, vai urinar nas calças? Não, claro, então o jeito é urinar na rua. E se for uma moça, que fará ela? Ao novo prefeito que chega, faço um apelo: mande instalar banheiros públicos por todo o Rio, como há muito se fez em toda grande cidade civilizada.
Trata-se de medida higiênica e ecológica.

Police War in São Paulo

For those of you who thought that men peeing on the streets was shocking, this certainly beats it. As I write, the two police forces of the state of São Paulo are fighting each other with gas bombs and rubber bullets in front of the governmental palace. Some reports say that real guns were also used.

The civil police is on strike for a month now, and had planned a demonstration today. The demonstration was violently repressed by the military police (which is another police force), and the civil police fought back. The result is 18 people hurt.

This is the only picture I found:



TV channels are playing live images and they are literally war like scenes. My mom is sitting by my side asking who is going to put order now, if the two police forces are involved? Not sure.

I believe you should be able to read reports in English about this tomorrow.

Note: I have been in São Paulo for almost a week now, and I was here for some time before going to Rio and I did not even notice the civil police was on strike...

First Impressions of Rio

You probably heard that Rio is beautiful and violent. In my first days in Rio, however, a couple of other things called my attention.

First, men urinate on the streets. Every single day I saw at least one man peeing. This happens in broad day light. It is incredible how comfortable they are in doing that: they just stop, unbutton their pants, and look at you as if it is the most normal thing on the face of earth.

I thought I was the only person bothered by this, until I found this billboard, posted by the local government, asking people not to do that (it literally says the trees are healthier without your pee).



Nice try, but this has no effect as far as I am concerned. We might need something like the DIU law (see my previous post entitled Universal Wisdom of Taxi Drivers) to stop this practice....

The second thing is that people walk VERY slowly. It is really hard to use the sidewalks. It look like as if everyone is a tourist while I am in a rush to get to work. A friend of mine says I walk too fast. I think they walk too slowly. Probably the truth lies somewhere in between, but get ready to slow down if you come here.

More impressions of Rio coming soon...

Jesus Christ!

This is definitely a Catholic country! This is probably a very belated conclusion for me to reach, since I was born and raised here. However, for some strange reason, three weeks ago I was inundated with a series of encounters that made me realize that again (or perhaps for the first time in my life).

As you might recall, I visited my grandma in Santos. As I was leaving the city, the conversation with the taxi driver on my way to the bus station took a wild turn. I was asking about his family and his kids (just because I was curious about social mobility in Brazil). The driver started talking about his grandson and this created an opportunity for him to tell me that women are blessed to have the ability to bear a child. At some points, I had the impression that he thought it was unfair to men not to have the same privilege. Of course, he did not put it that way because it was God's will, according to him. This, of course, led to a whole conversation about God, and Christ, and how he died for us, and etc. I silently listened to a 15 minutes monologue about the topic and was mesmerized by his excitement. Luckily, we reached our destination before he was done talking and I had a chance to scape without being asked what is my opinion about the topic.

I then went to Rio, to teach there. The second encounter was in a store at the airport. As I was inquiring about beach shorts (because I have none and I have no idea how to buy them), I was prompted by the following question:

- Are you Catholic?

The salesperson, out of the blue, asked that. She was anxiously waiting for an answer while I was holding two pairs of beach shorts and staring at her. The conversation went more or less as follows:

M - Why do you ask?

SP - Just because you are so calm.

M - Do you mean Catholic people are calmer than other religious people?

SP - Oh, no. We are all sons of God. We all believe in Christ!

- Moment of silence -

I was at this point thinking that I know a number of people who would easily be offended by the sentence. However, if you check the numbers in Brazil, you will see that non Christian religions are not well represented here, what makes some people assume that everyone believes in Christ. Moreover, only 7% of the population consider themselves agnostics or atheists. I guess she never came across one of them...

My moment of silence gave the girl an opportunity to go off on a monologue about God, Christ and everything else. Do you see a pattern here? I really don't know what's up with these monologues. I might look like a really good listener or someone who is really religious...

While she was talking, I could not help but wonder what would be her reaction to hear that there are people who do not believe in Christ, and there are even those who do not believe in God (or at least not in the same God she believes), but I decided to do this little experiment in another opportunity.

The third encounter was shortly thereafter. As soon as I arrived in the apartment in Rio, I decided to do some grocery shopping. There is a small supermarket right around the corner, which is very convenient. On my way out, however, I noticed a little altar on the top of the wall by the cashiers with Jesus and a saint, as you can see:



I did not ask anyone because I was done with the monologues at this point.

My fourth and most interesting encounter with religion happened, ironically, in the university. I am participating in a reading group at the Catholic University in Rio and when I arrived there for the first meeting, I was surprised to find coffee (which is a topic that deserves more posts...) and a crucifix in the class room.



The good thing was that there was no monologue this time. Instead, I had an interesting conversation about that with my friend who is organizing the group. During this conversation, I found out that there is also a crucifix in the main room of the Brazilian Supreme Court despite the fact that our Constitution declares the separation between State and Church. (picture coming as soon as I have a chance to go to Brasília, my hometown)

The most predictable encounter was the famous Christ the Redeemer in Rio. I went there with my sister, who came to Rio for a quick visit. The views of the city are incredible from the top of the Corcovado (the mountain where the statue is), what makes it really worth a visit even for non Christians.




The most interesting part of all this is to know that despite public displays of Christian faith (and lots of monologues on the topic) a large portion of the Brazilian population does not practice the religion. Around 80% of the population declare themselves Catholic (which means they are baptized and married in the church) but only 10% attend masses regularly and participate in church activities. Who needs church with these images everywhere, and with people's ability to talk endlessly about the topic?

Long time no see...

Life has been busy here, as you can imagine. So, here is a series of posts that have been in my mind for a while, but I simply did not have the time to log in and provide you with an update.