Brazil's Slums

Well....I'm finally able to post.

Anyways, just wanted to share a conversation I had with my grandmother earlier today. I don't particularly recall how we got started on the subject, but she was telling me of her experience growing up and she mentioned how her and a few of her friends got caught egging some houses when they were younger (oh, teenagers). Anyways, the story goes that a cop caught them in the act and shoved her and two of her friends into his squad car. The officer then threatened to kill them but ultmitately decided it would be better for him to drop them off at the favelas, which he did. The whole ride there he just laughed and teased them about how they were going to get raped and murdered. Pretty disturbing stuff.

Anyways, I assure you this has a point, but I just decided to bring up this story because I was reading one of the posts mentioning some Brazilian Documentaries, and one post discussed the documentary Bus 174. Anyways, I found this interesting because if you've seen the film, you know about the message it sends on cops vs. criminals and the very grey area regarding both. This made me think of her story, since she stated to me that once the officer dropped her and her friends off at the favela, the only reason she believes they made it out of there unscathed is because she literally saw people running into shadows and dark corners, hiding from the squad car as it pulled up. She said they were truly terrified of the sight of the car. Everybody hid.

So, yeah, a very unnerving story but interesting none the less. Like Bus 174, sort of makes you question who the bad guys are.