In Rio

Here´s a question you´ll never catch me asking again:

Me: Hey I like your tatoo. What´s it of?
Her: My dead brother.

I arrived in Rio on Tuesday night. Miracuously, I bumped into someone I knew at the bus station in Rio, she was on her way to Sao Paulo. That never happens to me, even in London where I know many more people.

After chatting with Isabelle online last night, during which time she managed to insult me on a very deep and personal level, and after promising her I was gonna have an early night, I called up the only person I know here, Nubia, and went out.

We went to some bar or other in Ipanema which was very pleasant. One of her friends, a blonde girl, was yapping on at me for ages and ages. It was about 2am at this stage and I was straining to understand even 10% of what she was saying. Sometimes I can understand Brazilians very well, sometimes like with this girl, I´ll understand nothing. This, however, didn´t stop her talking AT me for an awful long time and she didn´t become suspicious at the fact that I wasn´t intervening with anything other than ´sim´ or ´nao´ every minute or two. I really can´t understand people like this, who are obviously interested in only the words that are coming out of their own mouths. I may well have not been there. In fact, because of what happened later, I wish I wasn´t.

After we left we went for a bite to eat at one of the food stalls in the street. Although it was about 4am, we were instantly surrounded by children, either begging or selling something worthless. The thought of these kids has stayed with me for the last two days. One child in particular seemed to be very intelligent. She was 7, although she looked 4 at the most, and she seemed to understand everything I was saying even though I was speaking mostly in Spanish. At first they just wanted money for their chiclets or some other nonsense they were selling. I said if they were hungry they could have some food with us, but I wasn´t going to give them money. Eventually, after Nubia intervened they sat down and ate. It´s about 5am at this point. They were the sweetest kids you could ever imagine. Through Nubia I asked some more details. 2 of them were related, the other 3 were their on their own. Where do you live? I don´t remember the name of the neighbourhood exactly, but it was at 45 minutes away I was told. Where´s your mother? In an apartment nearby. Turns out that she brings them there at nighttime to beg whilst she´s doing whatever she´s doing, I dread to think what, in a Copacabana apartment. Nubia confirmed my initial impressions about the one girl, saying she was very intelligent and very funny, mentally much older than her 7 years. ´Her mother will probably sell her´ she said. The whole conversation, probably only 30 minutes in total, left me incredibly depressed and guilty but mostly angry. Angry, because I don´t believe that whatever situation their parents are in it could possibly justify what they´re doing to their children. The single biggest determinant of the quality of our lives is the quality of our parents, these kids got the short straw and it isn´t very fair.