Throughout
my entire experience in Brazil
I discovered so many misconceptions in all aspects of life there that it is
hard to believe. Whether it was
government activity, police, ineffective infrastructure, or the mysterious
jeitinho, Brazil
was one of the quirkiest places I have ever seen. Every day was a mystery as to what was going
to happen and what logic, if any, was driving it.
As I’ve
mentioned before (yet can’t get over) is the amount and type of government
activity. Police are almost nonexistent
in every place we went to in Brazil,
and those that were there didn’t seem interested in doing too much. The few police kiosks I saw in Sao Paulo contained a few
cops smoking, giving us weird looks, and (possibly inadvertently) blocking our
path on the sidewalks. It’s a wonder
that there aren’t more riots and unrest with the seemingly lazy police the
nation has to offer. One of the most
interesting problems that I encountered was their overt racism. In a country made up of many different
ethnicities, one would think that racism wouldn’t even be an issue. That thought aside though, it boggled my mind
to see signs with boa aprencia (good
appearance) on them, alluding to not allowing non-whites in certain apartments,
jobs, etc. The most amazingly obvious
problem with Brazil
that I noticed had to do with their infrastructure. In Sao
Paulo we got to see the subway system with its
completely laid out map of lines and named stops that didn’t exist. I couldn’t
even fathom why they would do that and how they got away with boldly displaying
such a lie all over the train system of the world’s 3rd largest
city. Yet, no one seemed to mind and no
one had an explanation for any of it.
Therefore I just accepted it as a character trait for Brazil.
