Surprises in the Subway

I have been using a lot of public transportation now, since I run out of conversations with taxi drivers and decided to control a little bit my expenses. Buses are quite an interesting experience, but the subway was by far the most surprising one for a number of reasons.

First, when you arrive in a station in São Paulo, you will see bullet proof booths (it reads Bilheteria Blindada, in Portuguese).


I guess I do not need to explain why they decided to get these booths and put a sign up there saying they are bullet proof, right?

Then, I was surprised by the amount of people trying to use the subway during rush hours. The problem is so severe that the company is considering hiring people to push passengers inside the trains. This is already used in Japan, and apparently is being tested in some stations in São Paulo.

Last, but not least, I was positively surprise to find in Rio wagons that are exclusive for women during rush hours.



I guess this requires an explanation: in overcrowded trains, some men take the liberty to harass women (physically). As you can image, there is not much a woman can do against this in an overcrowded train -- except to scream and hope for the guy to stop under social pressure.

To avoid the problem, the local government in Rio created cars that are exclusive for women. There are signs in the stations, indicating where these cars stop




And the one I took was not even overcrowded



This is the advertisement, which says "Women's Wagon: Respect is a good thing, and they [women] deserve it."



I wonder why the government of São Paulo is not doing the same thing.

Family Conversations

My father told me he needed to have a serious conversation with me.


He is very concerned with my blog, because a "hacker" could get in and steal the pictures. To his surprise, I told him that you do not need to be a hacker to do that. Anyone can access my blog and get the pictures. He is now even more worried...


I told him that to give him some peace of mind I would post a picture in the blog showing all my concern with this serious problem. So, here it is:



This is my mom and my sister, not paying any attention whatsoever to the conversation between me and my dad



This is when they started paying attention and my mom was telling my sister that this is only a concern for famous people (which of course we are not). My sister just found the entire interaction incredibly dull


Then, they stop paying attention again



This is my mom having a not so serious conversation with me


My sister liked this conversation much better


Then, my dad decided that we should have time for a girls talk and took care of the pictures, from a safe distance.



I can´t recall what we were talking about. In first one, probably my mom was talking about the bees nest in our roof



And the second one looks like one of my mom´s funny stories. She really has a talent for story telling or stand up comedy (or both combined).

My dad, on the other hand, is a very serious man, but today I captured him pretending not to be concerned with my blog...




Hackers and non hackers, please help yourselves!

Birthday in Brasília!

I am currently in Brasília, reunited with my family to celebrate my father´s birthday. He just turned 60! We had a delicious meal and desert prepared by Gil, who used to be our nanny and is simply the best cook in the face of earth. The girl sitting next to Gil (in the right) is her daughter, Nayara.

After the meal, we had a proper happy birthday:




Yes, people calp here when they are singing happy birthday. You should try: it is much more fun...

Before the meal, my mom and I got some pitangas (a fruit that is rich in vitamin C) from a loaded tree in our backyward.





It is good to be back home! ;)

Time for some legal stuff

In a previous post, I told you that the police was on strike in São Paulo (see "Police War"). The strike came to an end recently, thanks to a Supreme Court decision stating that the policemen do not have a right to go on strike.

In my previous post, I said that the streets of São Paulo look pretty much the same as they did without the strike, and the same is true now: everything looks pretty much the same as it did during the previous 60 days before the end of the strike. But now I know the reason: the Supreme Court had issued an injunction, which was reversed this week, where it did authorize only 20% of the police force to go on strike (80% of the policemen were still working).

The newspaper that I read and often quote here (Folha de S. Paulo) devoted an entire page of today´s issue to the debate about the judicial decision, and I thought you might be interested in hearing the arguments on both sides.

The debate is whether police officers should have the right to go on strike (i.e. whether the case was rightly or wrongly decided).

Legal arguments against the right:

The Supreme Court´s decision seems to be based on a constitutional provision according to which the military forces cannot go on strike. Police forces are equivalent to military forces. Thus, they should be also subjected to the same restriction.

There seems to be at least two arguments to support the idea that police forces are equivalent to military forces. One is that they are both armed. Another argument is that society has a right to be protected and to ask the state to guarantee public order in the streets. Those who make a vow to protect these citizens cannot violate this right and cannot hinder the State´s ability to protect its own citizens. This would apply both to the military and the police.

Legal arguments in favor of the right:

The very first argument is that if there was any legislative intention to include the police force in the constitutional provision, they would have done so. Thus, the lack of any reference to the police in the constitution indicates that they should be entitled to the right to go on strike.

Another argument is that the military and the police are not comparable, because they perform different functions. The police protects citizens and their property, while the military should protect the nation. I am not even sure what follows from here (maybe it follows that we don´t care about the safety of our citizens anyway when they are threatened by other citizens, so you better buy a gun...). Anyway, you got the main idea: this argument shows they are not comparable, and therefore the constitutional restriction would not be applicable to police forces.

The third argument is that the services delivered by the police are considered as essential as services such as education and health care. And the professionals in these other areas have the right to go on strike. It is discrimination not to consider that policemen have the same right.

Notwithstanding the heated debate, everyone agrees in one point: we need a police force that is better paid, better trained, and better equipped.

What surprises me is the fact that nobody is discussing whether the right to go on strike could help us achieve these ends (i.e improve our police force in any way). It is as if we had to extract the meaning of the Constitution, its most pure essence, without looking at our reality. As if we could afford such a luxury...

The unknown side of Brazilian music

Brazil is famous worldwide for its music (especially what is known as the Brazilian jazz and the carnival), but very few people know how musical the country really is. Live music can be found pretty much everywhere around here.

Live music can be found in the streets:





These two guys with musical instruments were in a bus stop in Santa Teresa (one of the most charming neighborhoods of Rio) where I happened to be with Marcio and Sarah, waiting for a bus. Then, a guy who cleans the streets (the one in orange) asked the musicians if he could play with them. Please note that they did not know each other. The musicians simply unpacked the instruments, and started playing samba right there.

And it gets better. The owner of a newspapers stand, sitting on the other side of the street, decides to join the group and gives a dancing show for the amusement of (almost) everyone at the bus stop:



For the first time since I arrived here, I was very glad that Brazilian buses take so long to show up.

When the impromptu show was over, I talked to the guy who cleans the streets (they are called "garis", in Portuguese). He told me he wants to be famous like a colleague of his (Renato Sorriso), who appears on TV every year when is cleaning after the carnival parade in Rio.

Live music is also played in nightclubs:



These are famous and not so famous musicians playing together in the lively neighborhood of Lapa. As you can hardly see (apologies for the bad quality of the video...), they are really enjoying themselves. And the portion of the video where everything is black should have shown that people are dancing. So, it is a lot of fun for everyone!

The friend who took me there used to be a singer (before becoming a law professor) and told me who is who in the band. The most interesting character is actually a mathematician who plays in his spare time. I would ask you to guess who he is, but I am sure you cannot see anything in this video...

Of course, there is live music in weddings!



This is a picture that I took of the wedding place (a gorgeous beach in the state of São Paulo, called Juquehy) a few minutes before the ceremony, where a friend from São Paulo tied the not with a Russian.

This is the band that took over the place once dinner and speeches were over. And they played until 4am!



And before you start thinking that music here is all about samba, let me tell you that Marcio and I had a pleasant encounter with a very good friend at this wedding. His name is Fernando Anitelli and he is a musician (you can watch one of his shows here)



Fernando's history shows that there is music outside the circuit of big record labels.

He decided not to sign contracts with record companies, and sells his stuff independently. CDs are available after the show and his music is available for free downloading in the Internet. And he is a national phenomenon with CD sales comparable to leading singers.

A recent survey by Folha de S. Paulo asked the readers to name their favorite singers. Fernando came up among the top five, despite the fact that he never received any attention of the midia. The title of the article was “Far away from the midia, but close to public”.

There is a professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Ronaldo Lemos, who analyzes the success of artists like Fernando. What happened to Fernando seems to be quite common in Brazil. If you are interested, in this lecture, Ronaldo provides some interesting data and discusses the implications of this phenomenon for intellectual property law and policy.

There is also music at hostels!

In a recent trip to Salvador, the first capital of Brazil, I found out that the guy at the reception desk was the former guitar player of a famous rock band of the 80s, called Camisa de Venus. This is me and a friend with one of the nicest people I have ever met, Karl Hummel:



Last but not least, there is music at law schools...

Two friends (the one that took me to samba club and the one that went to Salvador with me) were captured in a duet singing Madonna in at the law school in Rio. The movie is lovely and shows that they both sing very well, but I did not get their permission to share it with you…. Yes, Brazilians can also be shy, believe it or not!

Thanks to my superqualified audience...

...I've learned that:

someone else is taking much better pictures of Rio than I am. This competitor came in quite handy because I lost the cable to download pictures from my camera. So, by all means, check out this blog...;

the "guy" in the supermarket altar is not Christ (as I described in a previous post), but a saint who is the patron of Rio, São Sebastião (for the Rio reference, read the portion on patronage);

peeing on the streets is not a carioca phenomenon. It goes on in many other cities, including São Paulo (see the comment on the post on peeing, in Portuguese), and other countries, including U.S.A. and European countries;

women are peeing on the streets of Lapa, in Rio (alas, I have only a hard copy of the article). So apparently Rio is still beating everyone else with their unique audacity of peeing!

Thanks for the comments and for being such a super qualified audience!

Big hugs to all of you!

More Impressions of Rio

Probably you heard of the beautiful girls of Rio and their tiny bikinis. A non-Brazilian friend of mine, while visiting one of the beaches here, told me that the Brazilian bikini was the best invention in the history of humankind. I should add that the boys of Rio also deserve their minute of fame: they certainly are way up there with the girls even without tiny bikinis.

No picture here – you should come and see for yourselves.

Of course, if you live in one of the most gorgeous cities of the world, enjoy life, and have sun shining pretty much 365 days a year you are likely to be lighthearted and in a good mood most of the time. This certainly helps making these people beautiful. But a great deal of it is simply physical beauty, and by that I mean bodies in pretty good shape.

Walking in the streets of Rio, you quickly find out why there are all these beautiful bodies in the beaches: there are gyms everywhere. Every single corner in the block in front of my apartment building has a gym. Thus, the secret of the carioca beauty is not hidden anywhere, on the contrary (“carioca” is how people from Rio are called).

The entire gym scheme is very welcoming: there are gyms for everyone. There are expensive ones, for those who want (and are able to) invest lots of money in their workouts.


There are also cheap ones for those who cannot afford the fancy ones, or simply don’t care that much about fancy machines.



There is also spiritual ones, for those who believe that a healthy body only comes with a healthy mind.

(see picture in the next post because I reached the limit for this one...)

The gyms are always full, especially in the mornings and evenings. I tried one for a couple of days and in the “rush hours” (i.e. after office hours) you need to wait in line for a vacancy in the treadmill. And this makes them even more welcoming: those who are waiting chat with each other, making new friends and/or flirting with other beautiful people. Thus, no time is wasted.

When I first arrived in Rio, the fact that there were so many gyms and that they were so busy was a puzzle to me. These people can exercise outdoors anytime they want. And they can do that for free. Take a look at the running track by the seashore in my neighborhood.


You certainly miss the socializing part, but if you go to the seashore you get one of the most astonishing views on the face of earth, which is this one.


I could not understand why people would choose to be locked inside a gym, on the top of treadmill, starting at a boring TV set, instead of having the privilege of going outside.

I could not understand that…until I decided to go jogging by the seashore. It was 5 pm. It was not dark and there were some people using the running track with me, but nobody had their music players ostensibly exposed as I did (I had it in my armband). It did not take long for two guys in their late teens to block my passage with their bodies and ask for my I-Pod. Somehow, I sensed they were not well intentioned long before that. This gave me enough response time: before they could react, I got out of the track and run with all my forces.

Shortly after that, while I was recovering my breath, I saw from a distance two other guys coming from the seashore towards the running track, staring at me (more specifically they took a good look at my shoes and my I-Pod). I rushed to the side of a well-built guy who was jogging in front of me and safely passed by them pretending that I was “accompanied” by someone who would get into a fight with them, if they did not behave.

My carioca friends, after hearing the history, simply told me “Mariana, you are not in Toronto. You are in Rio.” You can certainly run outside, they said, but do so at your own risk. “Welcome to the jungle”, was the closing sentence.

Now I know why people go to gyms. It is the peace of mind they are looking for. Those who want the bodies in shape and the view need to face the risk of being robbed. Sadly, nobody is thinking how we can have a country where anyone who wants an I-Pod should be able to afford one. If cariocas were thinking about that, I think they would be even more beautiful.