« Home | Aniversario de Pedrinho » | Rock! » | To aqui ainda... » | Eu esqueci o titulo... » | Eu voltei! » | Viagem a São Paulo » | Sem Escola » | Polícia Federal » | Tudo bem? » | Oi! » 

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 

Os gringos foram roubados!

This exchange is no fairy-tale and it's not supposed to be either. Apart from the obvious discomfort of being taken away from home, thrown into a foreign place, with different customs and a unknown language, there can be just be plain bad things that happen. Just like they happen at home.

You may have noticed in my posts so far, although I focus on the fun things I do and the nice places I visit, I also comment on some of the harsh realities I come across. Brasil, as I see it and as is well known, is a country of "extreme extremes", and hereby I am of course referring to the inequality of wealth distribution. It's a country where the richest one percent of the people have fifteen percent of the wealth , and the poorest forty percent has less than a tenth. An equally interesting (less numerical) fact is that Sào Paulo has more private helicopters than any other city in the world, more armoured limousines and armed security personnel. Yet at the same time there are currently 45 million people living in conditions of poverty. Brazil is second to South Africa, as the country with the biggest inequality of wealth ditribution in the world. This great divide, you can safely say, is roughly divided into blacks and whites. I could recite a little Yoda-style "poverty leads to desperation, desperation leads to crime" type cycle, but that's basically what it is. So crime...

Saturday the 8th of April, there was a churrasco at the church here, the second one since I've been here. I invited Sammy and Jarryd to come too, as we had plans to go out afterwards to a birthday. Churrasco is a brazilian barbeque, with large chunks of meat, heavily marinated with salt, speared onto spits and cooked over a coal fire. When cooked, the meat is then sliced and cut up into little pieces to be passed around. About 8 o'clock the three of us plus Cleverson, my friend plus the guitarist at church (17 years old) went to call over another guy from church, Renato. He only lives two streets away, all in centro de Vila Velha. Lost in conversation we walked one street too far, so we took the next street and walked around the block finally ending up at the house. We let another resident inform us that Renato wasn't in so back we went. Just before reaching the corner of the street, three black guys (couldn't have been all that much older than us) approached us from the rear, all of them on bikes. One pretended to ask Cleverson for street directions before getting off his bike, slamming into the ground as he did. At this moment I knew, as it's always in the back of your head, plus all of a sudden, the situation seemed to be just right for it. Say bye to what's in your pockets I thought. Their demands were quite clear; "carteira! carteira!" (wallet). The scroungy short one decided to empty my pockets, sticking his fingers in his shorts, signifying he was armed. I didn't resist in giving my cell phone and the loose note of ten reais that I had. Thankfully boardshorts have only one pocket... He was pretty delighted at the sight of my phone, calling over the other one, but other than a house key and a scrap piece of paper with the address for the birthday of that night, I had nothing more to give. The second threw the key hard against the ground and the three mounted their bikes. I picked up the key and looked at the others, all looking pretty stunned. We walked calmly until they were out of sight and then ran back to the church. It's all a compressed memory now, as things like that happen in seconds. The total loot: two cell phones, 120 reais in cash and a watch.

Yes, not happy about that. We tried to find the ladrões afterwards, having a pastor, a sergeant from military police and a federal police officer in the car, hahaha. They are all associated with the church. We didn't find them, which is probably better that way. Because it would have led to more nastiness, probably a fight or whatever. Numerous people tried to call my phone, and a few got an answer. A lady picked up one one attempt, and as it turned out the phone and the rest of the goods had already been traded in for drugs at the local drug point or Boca da Fuma (smoke-mouth). Apart from the monetary loss, my phone had quite a few photos on it and all my contacts and phone numbers, which will take some time to re-attain. Luckily we weren't personally harmed. Most of these muggings are solely in the interest of gaining money to trade for drugs, and unless you resist or do something stupid, the ladrão won't try to hurt/kill you. We did the right thing, by staying calm and just giving whatever we had. I don't think they were armed, and people I've talked to like to put up a big voice and say "Oh why didn't you run or beat the guys"!!? Easily said, but it all happened in a split second and I don't think it's worth the risk. Good news is, insurance will pay all, and the fact that three gringos got robbed and that I am without a cell phone is a continuous source of jokes.

It seems like following this incident on the 8th there has been a spree of looting or attempted break-ins in the area. The furniture store across the road had an attempted break-in, luckily the guy that lives on the opposite corner was woken by the guard dog in time to scare off the criminal. This same man informed us that two nights ago our car had some interest and nearly got broken into. Sabor da Terra, the restaurant where we eat almost 3 times a week was robbed by two ladrões with revolvers during lunch time last Tuesday. Took over 2000 reais and robbed the clients. On the same street the car-wash got robbed and just today a jewellery store on the main road behind our block got robbed, and shots were fired. Police presence is minimal and their atitude and naturally I now feel less safe and am more aware slash paranoid. You can see how racial prejudice arises like this, because my gut feeling tells me now that whenever a black youth passes (on a bike or on foot) and he looks a bit suspect; this guy is a ladrão. I know this is an unfair judgment, but on the other hand you can't blame me. And the possibility that he IS a criminal is higher, that's just a fact! And in a way it would be ignorant and stupid of me to ignore that...

Anyway. I'm not trying to scare anyone, nor trying to make it sound like my life is hanging by mere threads, but it's part of life here, part of Brazil's makeup, I view it as a good experience, despite the fact that we got mugged... =P

I think I'm done for this post. I don't spend much time on the pc and the computers here don't allow me to upload the ton of pictures I have for you guys. I am still writing however, and I have a couple of other posts lined , they're just waiting on photos.

Até a proxima pessoal!

Sejam Bem-Vindos!

  • I'm Edgar Roex, a Dutch-Australian exchange student, headed to Brazil.

  • Follow this dedicated travel-blog as I record all my experiences in Brazil in 2006.

Notícias

Contact Information:

  • My NEW address:
    Rua Antonio Ataide,
    679, apt.302, Centro,
    Vilha Velha,
    Brazil
  • Home phone:
    +55 (27) 3329-4251
  • Mobile:
    +55 (27) 8133-8233

      

  • Livro do Convidado

    Ligações

    Powered by Blogger
    and Blogger Templates