Dani and I live in a tall apartment building in one of the wealthiest areas of São Paulo. We're on the same block as one of the city's most convenient Metro stops (think L'Enfant Plaza). We're a short walk from world-class food, shopping and the most important banking center on the continent.
And yet there's no escaping the reality of São Paulo's poverty. Even in areas far richer than ours (there are tens of thousands of millionaires here), the needy always have a presence. You cannot walk more than a few blocks without stepping around one.
At the end of our short street is a tiny triangle-shaped park. "Park" may not even be the best word for it. There's just a handful of trees there.
A few days ago, a group of 10 or so people set up makeshift shelters in the park. Each of them was clearly in deep poverty, but not necessarily resigned to it. Among their tents were a few hand-pulled wagons that are common around here. Men lug them down the street and pile garbage onto them (the carts are big enough to move a couple of motorcycles). They then sell the scraps to recycling centers. It's about as grinding a job as there is in this world, especially when you add in heat, rain and the traffic they share the street with.
The group didn't seem like trouble, but there was still enough of a shirtless-man-standing-around element to make us take the long way home a couple times. The group only stayed a few nights. Then, as if the whole thing never happened, they were gone.
On Monday night, I went out with a friend to watch the US soccer game. Dani stayed home alone. She heard a commotion going on outside. Not from the park, but a different area of the street. It seemed the group had made its way through the rusty gate of an abandoned house across from our building. A problem of some kind had broken out between them, and their voices, man and woman alike, were at full volume.
For the record, Dani and I don't feel in danger in our building. Like most establishments in São Paulo, our apartment complex is similar to a military fortress. To visit us on foot, you'll have to pass through two iron gates, one of which is topped with an electric fence. One to three doormen keep watch over the premises 24 hours a day and you cannot gain access to the building without speaking to one, who then phones the appropriate resident to get the okay. In a lot of ways, I feel safer here than any house (with one deadbolt) that I've ever lived in.
The commotion from the new squatters, however, that could be a different can of worms.
The next day, I stepped outside and paid attention to the house for the first time. As far as abandoned homes go, it's pretty nice. There's a concrete wall around it that's barely holding in a massive, lanky tree--taller than the two-story house itself--that's sprouting softball-sized orange flowers. The house is expansive, maybe three or four bedrooms. The architecture has an Old World Portugal feel to it. Were its windows not missing and its gutted hallways not black from no electricity, it would be a beautiful place to live.
Dani asked me that first night if she should call the police. By the time I arrived, the voices were dying down. There was no indication that something violent had taken place. I said no. Yesterday, we kept a close eye on things, but I heard nothing other than a woman singing a soulful song of heartache as I walked past to get some lunch.
This afternoon, black clouds crawled in over the city. They broke open and a heavy rain, then a decent amount of hail, fell from the sky. I jumped up from my conference call to race around the house, closing windows. It was not a safe time for anyone to be outside.
Afterwards, I went out for an errand. When I returned home, I saw two children standing outside the home's open gate. One had a bucket in his hand. He bent down and stuck it in the gutter where the street's brown rain water washed by. He filled it and then both kids returned inside.
I hadn't told Dani about this moment until she brought up the new neighbors again at dinner. She's worried about them, as am I. Then I told her about the kids and we both didn't talk for a little while.
It's easy to pick up the phone in the tall, secure building, call the police and make a problem go away. But there was no escaping the fact that this was a moral decision. That those kids would then be going somewhere else for the night, in the rain, or in the hail, or riding on the cart that their dad had pulled garbage around in all day.
We haven't made up our minds completely on the subject. For now, we're just going to let things be. I can't see this group's stay lasting for more than a week. There's just too many things that could go wrong for them in an area where there's so much visible wealth. The gate will be bolted once again. The house empty. Maybe in a few months, we'll repeat the process.
The truth is that on this street, like all streets, and in front of this house, like all houses, one must remain alert when in São Paulo. There are the violent and there are the calm. There are the rich and there are the needy. The problem is it's impossible to know who is really who.
Who makes a street unsafe? Who is just looking for a roof from the storm? What makes the voices lash out at one another? What makes a lone woman sing out from the dark?
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