Resigned

There are two things that I have resigned myself to here in the Venice of Brasil: Dengue and being mugged.

Dengue is a mosquito born disease common in tropical areas that causes a high fever and makes your bones hurt as if they are being pulled out of your body. There are varying degrees of torture and if you take aspirin (or is it Tylenol?), you can die. Or so the stories go...they also say that this type of mosquito only bites during the day. I seriously doubt this one, but I take comfort in the idea because I am mostly attacked after dark. We sleep with a fan pointed at us in a mildly successful attempt to keep them away. We also purchased an air conditioner (that we have never used...electricity is expensive, but summer is coming). The purchase of the air conditioner was mostly because the parents were coming to visit. They have since changed their minds and now we have a giant hunk of expense looming over our bed. It also seems to attract mosquitoes. I now have a daily ritual called "shaking of the closets." Dark places are a friend to the mosquito so we try to make their little lives as uncomfortable as possible. I shake all of my clothes and other miscellaneous things in the closet at least once a day. On a good day, I get to dislocate about 20 of them--right into my bedroom. Sigh....

Mugging or "asaltado" is also a part of daily life here. It is also everyone's favorite topic. The middle class loves to make itself even more frightened (is that possible??) by telling the horror stories of someone getting asaltado over and over. Granted, everyone and their mother has a story that usually involves people with guns (or pretending to have guns) stealing their cars, their bags, their bikes, etc. I normally go about my daily life with little fear and a lot of precaution, but after a "storytelling" session, I have a hard time leaving my house for a couple of days. This used to happen more when I first got here, but now I just brush it off.

The other day I mentioned riding my bike in one of my classes and my students immediately started telling me, "Don't do that! It is too dangerous. They will mug you and steal everything. Don't leave your house! Stay home and eat chocolate." It makes me feel bad for them. Their lives are so insulated from reality. They go to school, their apartment, and the shopping mall. These are the only "safe" places for them and their parents.

I showed them a video about violence that some of the communities made and most of them had no idea that these communities existed. They had no idea what life there is like. They only knew the names from hearing them on the news in connection with violence. It is a weird thing to come to terms with--violence. Of course, it happens in the US, but somehow it is different. I have had my car stolen and broken into many times, and the police perpetrated the only personal act of violence against me. Here it seems more common ("normal" as my friend Claudia puts it) and more random. When I got here at the end of January, over two hundred people had been killed and not one person was charged with the crime. There are absolutely no consequences for crime.

The middle class are retreating to high-rise apartment buildings that feel more "secure." There are at least 8 thirty-story high rises being built in our neighborhood alone. We live in a construction zone and are starting to watch the buildings grow and the breeze diminish. When the next one gets a little higher, it will block the sun. Everyone is afraid to live in houses. When I tell people that I live in a house, they get a horrified look on their face...until I tell them that we have two pit bulls. I have to say that having the dogs makes me feel better, but I always feel safe in my house. Maybe it is the location, maybe it is the bars, maybe it is the pit-chi bulls; it feels like home. I think that is because of the hammock on the porch.

I have resigned myself to these things, but "graças a deus" I have not had to deal with them yet.