Sunday

Went to my first choir practice today. They're doing a cantata thing for Easter and needed some first sopranos...Marizete borrowed my keys and left me a single serving of homemade lasagna for post-practice...I think she knew that I would be too lazy to make anything for myself!

Junior and I snuck out between church and Sunday school (which I hardly EVER attend) to grab pastels and caldo de cana (sugarcane juice), and on our way back, there are cops posted at the corner of my house and all the way down the street. The guy is cradling his machine gun and staring in a very uncomfortable way at me. Junior and I just go on, pretending that life is normal and that he doesn't exist until we get to the door. I'm a little shaky. Cops do that to me now. And Junior is breathing in that sort of angry way that he has...

Jenna: I don't like seeing guns that close to me. Policemen in my community. Not like that.
Junior: I don't like seeing Robson.
Jenna: Robson? Who's that?
Junior: Haven't I told you about him? That cop on the corner, he's the one who kills everyone here...
And so we are both agitated but ignore it and go back to church, passing people going about their lives: fixing air conditioners, teaching their kids to ride bikes, going to the market, flirting, all treating the men in black and bulletproof vests as if they were invisible. In a way, I guess, they are. They can never understand or take part in life here. The minute they turn their backs, drop their guard, they're in danger. Physical danger. Emotional danger. Because if they let us into their hearts, could they still do their "jobs?"

Poor Mateus is so frightened of the police and guns and the tank that he talks about them: tiro, tiro...gunshot, gunshot...
Kids shouldn't grow up like this. But how can we shelter them? They're going to hear things. They're going to pick up on our fear. Yesterday I was standing at the bus stop with a little boy about seven or eight years old. Three of us flagged a bus that flagrantly passed us where it was required to stop. And the kid just shrugs his shoulders and says something to the effect of:
You know why they do that? Because we live in Manguinhos. And they don't want our money. They think they're too good for it...for us...

The picture below is a view down my street, looking right from the window or the porch. Matt or Ben took it sometime last year...