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Travelling to Rio



 
 
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Old March 29th, 2004, 01:02 PM
David
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Default Suffer the Children

Avenida N.S de Copacabana and Rua Sao Paulo?? Firstly, there is no Rua
Sao Paulo in Copacabana.... The closest street with a name like it, is
Rua Sao Paulo State, and it's nearly 8 kilometers from Avenida N.S de
Copacabana...

I personally do not believe anything this guy writes. It's easy to
make claims but he does not offer one bit of proof to back up his
stories.....




(P E T E R P A N) wrote in message om...
http://www.bootsnall.com/travelstori...ferchild.shtml

Suffer the Children
By Craig D. Guillot

The screaming and shouting had been attracting a crowd near the corner
of Avenida Copacabana and Rua Sao Paulo. Breaking out into a
slow-paced jog, I approached the corner of the building as a small
child in tattered clothes ran past me. He fled off into the distance
and vanished into a crowd of pedestrians. My dark curiosity continued
to draw me around the corner and into the commotion.
With bare, bloodied feet slamming against the broken glass on the
concrete, dozens of children scattered like roaches from the abandoned
building. Crying, cowering, and throwing rocks at the police, they
scurried along the block as the men tried to grab hold of them. One of
the street kids' only sanctuaries had been discovered by the local
community, and it was time for them to leave.

It looked as if someone had discovered a rats' nest and they were
shaking it up to get all of the pests out. In the streets of Rio de
Janiero, Brazil, that's exactly what it was - exterminators getting
rid of the unwanted pests.

As the crowd of spectators grew, the police began to control their
tempers. A few of the older and larger kids were whacked with small
clubs, while the rest were left to flee down the street towards the
shanties that loomed in the mountains above us. There would be no
exterminations today, but the children knew that when the sun went
down, the wolves would be out to get them. As I went to sleep that
night to the symphony of gunfire, I wondered how many of those
children would wake up dead.

More than a half-million children sleep beneath the arms of Christ the
Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. They run the gamut from runaways to
orphans to toddlers fleeing abusive parents. With few options, the
children resort to whatever it takes to survive. Sleeping in the
parking lots of the Mercedes dealerships and eating out of the garbage
of the five-star hotels, they wabble the streets like lost and
abandoned animals. In the quest for survival, the children form small
gangs and bands for protection and companionship. Sharing horror
stories about narrow escapes from armed men, they tell each other new
ways to make money and bandage each other's wounds with dirty napkins
found in the gutter. Quite too often, they bury one of their friends
in an unmarked grave.

It's perfectly logical to turn to crime in such desperate situations.
Stealing to eat, some children advance in their deeds, from armed
robbery to murder-for-hire. If only by sheer numbers, they threaten to
tear the city apart, and there are those who refuse to sit by and
watch. There are an average of 1,200 children murdered every year on
the streets of Rio. They are called "pivettes" (little farts),
"undesirables," "trash;" they are hunted down, tortured and killed by
the city's mysterious death squads. It is widely known that many
business owners and police plan an active role in the squads, which
pick off the children in their sleep like flies.

The average price to have a "street urchin" killed: a mere $70.

In Ipanema, the mutilated body of a 5-year-old boy is found wrapped up
in a rug. Not far from the scene a boy walks into a hospital, bleeding
from the groin. His penis had been cut off.

When city workers went to unclog a drain during a recent flood, they
found a young girl with a slit throat. Ask anyone about the Candelaria
Massacre, and they walk away. Rio would rather you forget about that
time a group of armed men fired upon 70 sleeping children outside of a
church. It's a picture that wouldn't look too good on a postcard.

At the young age of 11, Jao is the head of his family. He and his two
younger sisters live in an abandoned chopperia which had been vacant
since the owner was sent to prison for murder. I could look into Jao's
eyes and see the cold, hard stare of a war veteran. It was the look of
a boy who had seen far too much in his short life. The two girls do
what they can during the day to scavenge food from dumpsters in the
backs of hotels and restaurants, while Jao does other things that he
would rather not tell me about. Tonight was a special night though, as
Daniella, the older sister, had found a few half-eaten hamburgers, a
stale loaf of bread, and a half-full pint of beer.

As their aching bodies grow weary, under the cover of darkness Jao and
his two sisters creep back to the shack. The two girls cuddle in the
corner on a stolen beach blanket, as Jao peeks through a crack in the
wall at oncoming pedestrians. He knows that their lives depend on his
suspicions. All across the city, beneath the view of Christ, sleep the
hundreds of thousands of homeless children. It is not just the poverty
and loneliness that haunt children like Jao. It is that the city wants
them dead.




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?

 




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