AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…Brazil... I love this country so much, it hurts to have to hate it!
Today I was at my house talking to our construction worker and he told me that this guy from Pinhal (My home city) put a 180 000 Reais ($90 000 Canadian dollars) light fixture in his living room. I couldn’t believe it! I said, “that’s crazy, with that money I could build three of these houses.” One of the workers that was close by, turned to me and said, “How about me, I have to screw in the light bulb every time I go into my house because I cant afford a light switch. This is Brazil. A land where dichotomy rules. While one guy lights his living room with 180 000 Reais, another person screws the light bulb every night in order to see. And the worst thing is that this is normal. This is accepted not only by the well off, but what’s even worst, it is accepted by the poor. It’s all wrong down here. The man that said this is one of the nicest people I have ever met. I have never seen him in a bad mood working on my house as a labourer where he makes $30 Reais (15 Canadian Dollars) a day. This 40-year-old man calls me Sir and speaks to me like I am better than him, higher somehow. This is also very normal in Brazil. Older men from lower classes call middle, and rich class teens Sir. That bothers me so much. They feel they must respect me because I am higher than they are in the social triangle. Respect in Brazil is measured by the size of your wallet, and not your actions. This feeling that money some how makes a person better than the rest needs to be changed. We are all humans; we are the same.
Someone needs to raise a clenched fist and break these people free.
But before something can be done, the poor must decolonise their minds.
“A revolution will only come after the people have been educated…,” Ernesto Guevara.
