Who is this idiot, Craig D. Guillot. What a crock of Sh_t.
I have lived in Rio for 3 years and I can tell you that there are
very, very few Porches and BMW's or any other expensive cars in Rio.
Most of the people that can afford them do not buy them. They do not
want to call attention to themselves. It is a poor country and yes
there is a very large difference between the have and have-not's.
This country, of over 175,000,000, has only 3% of its population
graduating collage. With the average Brazilian never going past the
8th grade what can you expect. It's a shame when a person can actually
earn more by begging on the streets then by working. I pass a street
every day that has a young boy of about 16 or 17 years old sleeping on
the side walk. I actually felt sorry for him and on occasions I would
by him food…. I assumed he lived on that street and lived in the
cardboard box he slept on. One morning at 7 am I had to walk down the
street and the boy was noticeably absent. I asked the doorman of the
building next to where the boy had been laying where he was and he
said he usually showed up at about 9am with his box and leaves about
8pm…. When by begging they can earn you as much in a month as someone
working 45 hours a week. What incentive do they have to work? I now
tell my friends NOT to give them anything.. sounds heartless but I
don't care…

I guess Craig D. Guillot has never been to NYC with the street people
there being ignored by all the New Yorkers. I think he should have a
very good carrier as a fiction writer.






The Ghosts of Rio
By Craig D. Guillot

Christ watched over me, high on his hill in the distance, as I
prowled the streets of Ipanema's shopping district on a muggy
September afternoon.
Behind the thick glass windows of the ritzy stores lay the products
destined for Rio's elite. Up and down the avenue cruised some of the
newest luxury cars on the market, as the upper class pranced along in
their designer clothes, gold jewelry, and cash-laced wallets. There
was a sale on gold Rolexes, and Ferrari had one of its newer models in
stock. Next door, a new shipment of Persian rugs had arrived.

I thought for a minute that I had stepped into Beverly Hills or New
York's 5th Avenue, but as I looked harder, beneath the glitter and
glamour of Ipanema, I could see something entirely different. Between
the stores and malls, stood nervous men armed with Uzis and AK-47s.
With fingers rubbing the triggers, their bloodshot eyes wandered up
and down the block.

They were on the lookout for ghosts.

Among the Porsches and BMWs creeped the ramshackle city buses, packed
with the rest of Rio's 10 million residents. Crammed like sardines in
a tin can, the desperate souls in fourth-hand clothes leered and
pointed at the commerce around them. Belching clouds of exhaust, the
buses cruised towards the shantytown favelas rising high into the
mountains. It was a cruel, teasing form of urban planning, where day
after day the poor would look down to see the world that didn't want
them; nowhere on earth does such wealth and poverty lay side by side.

Along the elaborately designed sidewalks and outside the jewelry
stores, lay the occasional motionless body. A small child was curled
up underneath a sidewalk bench, while a legless man begged on the
corner. Then there was an old woman, who lay in a pile of trash on the
shoulder of the road. With her head resting upon her hands, she slept
like a baby as cars raced past only inches from her head. A taxi
pulled up alongside of her as two women, with gold necklaces and bags
of loot, stepped right over the sleeping body.

Across the street, a group of small children, with dirtied faces and
rags around their malnourished bodies, scurried underneath the outdoor
tables of restaurants in search of crumbs. They looked just like
pigeons pecking for birdseed in a park. It wasn't long before a
bearded man with an automatic weapon chased them away like a pack of
wild dogs.

Every block or two, a body lay right across the sidewalk. I did as the
cariocas, Rio's residents, did, and stepped right over them. The
cariocas shopped for gold and talked on their cell phones, as the rest
of the city died beneath their feet. The poor simply did not exist.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a man emerge from what appeared
to be a small drainage hole. Slowly standing into a hunchback
position, he started to wobble his way onto the sidewalk. Draped in
torn, filthy rags, he had a ski mask on his head; it was tilted
sideways, so that only the right eye showed, but through the left
hole. A large tear in the rags around his body revealed what appeared
to be burnt and disfigured skin.

The man crept his way in my direction, dragging his aching feet along
the concrete as men with Armani suits and Rolex watches scurried
around him. Mothers led their children around the trail of blood,
while others trudged right on through, as if the blood were just a
puddle of water.

As the monster walked in front of the small store where I was
standing, a man with a pistol strapped to his waist came outside and
started yelling at him. All I could understand of the Portuguese was
"Leave, leave... you are f*****g up the sidewalk!"

The masked man slowly wandered into the street. Cars honked their
horns and swerved around him. A splashing sound suddenly caught my
attention. I looked back down the sidewalk: a shop owner was dumping
buckets of water on the blood.

As the masked figure made it to the other side of the street, he
dropped down onto an open area of concrete, falling on his back. The
enormous pool of blood forming from his feet made it apparent that
death was coming for him. While the sun started to set, the crowds
began to thin, so that the drug gangs and killers could take control
of the streets. After all, Rio had to meet its annual murder count of
6,000.

Taking one last look at the man, I thought that was why he had crawled
out of that hole in the first place: to die in front of everyone, in
the hope that someone would notice.

Nowhere on earth have I seen such indifference to so much suffering. I
wanted to show the man that I cared. I walked around him.



Kurko wrote in message ...
Simply because in normal daily life its next to impossible to encounter all
these
drug lords, thieves, muggers and murderes. In Rio more annoying are
beggars, shoeshiners and all kinds of sellers not to mention "samba bands".

Rio is very beautiful city (Cidade Maravilhosa), quite safe too for
tourists as long as you understand
and obey the "rule": Don't be stupid.

Kurko

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 21:40:02 -0500, clint wrote:

After reading all the Rio posts, why with all the wonderful places to go,
would anyone travel to Rio?