Police Response

[Note: The following description is by no means complete. That is on purpose because I still only understand about 60% of what was said. My own stress, and that of those around me made it very difficult to understand Portuguese last night. It also may include some hyperbole and understatement.]

Most of the time living in Brazil has become such a "normal" thing to me that I don't really think about it. Last night, however, was a glaring reminder that I live in an entirely different part of planet Earth.

There is a bar next door to our house. They play loud music. At all hours. No. I mean really loud music. It has at times, started at noon, and gone past two. Yesterday it started at about 10 o'clock AM, and we had no respite from it most of the day.

The heat here has a big effect on the architecture, more stuff takes place outside. Also, windows are there for two reasons, security and to keep the rain out. The majority of the time they are open. A great many bars are outside, including this one. Let's make this in to a mathematical formula*:

Heat + Bar {Success of said bar ≈ amount of noise created by said bar.} = Noise outside

Tempers stew. Words exchanged. We have another formula:

Heat + Temper + Time + Bar Next Door + Words = Brewing Storm

If we take the results of the previous two formulas and put them together, we have:

Noise outside + Brewing Storm = Need For Police

Here is where a major diversion form how the formulas would work in most developed countries. The formula would look like this where I grew up:

Need For Police + Call 911 = (Police Sent + Firemen Sent + Ambulance Sent) Total Response Time ≤ 5 Minutes

After arriving on the scene, the police would determine what needed to be done. Reports written... etc. Here is what the formula looks like here in Teresina Piauí, Brazil:

Need For Police + Call (x and/or y and/or y and/or z) = "Police are on the way." + (14 intense minutes + Call (x and/or y and/or y and/or z) again + 21 more intense minutes + Police car drives by twice)

[Where x, y, and z = different police departments]

And here is the finger of accusation: The police here (which are plentiful) do not seem to work very hard. I am sure that some are open to bribes, too, though I don't know that for a fact. When a situation of the gravity of last night's encounter is not responded to for over half an hour there is a problem—no, a number of problems.

The general consensus here (from what I have heard) is that the police would rather clean up a mess after the storm has passed by, than intervene. What is the point? It is my understanding that death threats were traded last night (Second-hand, I did not understand much of what happened last night.), this would surely result in some action by the police at "home"(though I am not sure what).

I have heard locals accuse police of not going into areas where criminals are "because it's to dangerous!" I guess they lacked foresight while choosing a career.

Why am I coming down so hard on this issue? Because I love these people. I want to see the situation improve. Nobody was hurt last night. While words were exchanged, the situation was resolved eventually. However, there was a time when I felt that it was going to end in a scuffle at the very least.

So, to sum up our mathematical equation from earlier, here is pretty much what happened yesterday:

Heat + Bar {Success of said bar ≈ amount of noise created by said bar.} + Temper + Time + Bar Next Door + Words = Need For Police + Call (x and/or y and/or y and/or z) = "Police are on the way." + (14 intense minutes + Call (x and/or y and/or y and/or z) again + 21 more intense minutes + Police car drives by twice)

[Where x, y, and z = different police departments]

*I am not any good at math, so just ignore any mistakes I make, and try to get the general idea. Thanks.

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Adventures and Blessings

Here we are in Parauapebas. Many things are different than we expected, but we should have expected that!

We apologize for not updating you all sooner, but there have been many things that got in our way of getting to the internet. First, I will let you know that Nádya has a completely clean bill of health (the thing they removed was benign), and has nearly recovered from the surgery.

Our trip here was quite a story in and of itself. The bus left an hour late at 9 PM, then broke down at about 4 AM. We got under way again about 10 or 11 AM, and had to change buses (planned) at a city about 3 hours from Parauapebas. When we were on the bus, and around the corner (we did not have seats at this time, and were standing in the aisle!) from the bus station this bus broke down. I think this was about 10 PM, but times are all pretty fuzzy now. The driver, and mechanics were fiddling around with it for awhile, got it started, drove 20 meters, and it died again. So the went to tinkering again.

About 11:30 we pulled into the bus station again. We were told that they would give us our money back for the trouble, so we got off the bus, and I was waiting for luggage. We were unsure of what we would do for the night. Suddenly a police car pulled up, and I found out that we were getting back on the bus.

The police got on the bus after most everyone had gotten on (some had had enough, and did not wish to go further that night, so we had seats at this time). They walked the aisle fully armed–which is to say one had his hand on his sidearm, and the other had a very mean looking short rifle, which was probably semi-automatic at the least.

They looked in my bag to make sure I was not a criminal (but not many others), and took two guys off to do a full pat-down. They returned shortly, and were seated. The police, not finding anything or anyone that looked suspicious enough, decided to escort the bus just in case.

We were under way about an hour later. The bus had not broken down, it was just a stall tactic to decide what to do, I guess. A tire blew later that night, and that took an hour to change. We finally arrived at something like 3 AM.

It was a long trip.

Both of us are still waiting for jobs. Nádya had an interview early last week, and from all appearances she has a job. First she has to have medical exams, though, which will take place the first week of July. Karl has an interview with an English school the morning of the 27th (tomorrow, as I write this), as well as other opportunities. The English school would just be for 3-4 hours per week, at the most, so I am keeping my eyes open. One of my other opportunities is to work with CVRD the same company Nádya will hopefully work for. I interviewed the day after we arrived, and the man I talked with was very interested in having me work there. He was concerned that we find a good fit for me, though, so we might have to wait a while before I actually start working there (they need to find a position that will work, as well as my possibly needing to take some tests.).

We are living downtown in the second story of a building that overlooks the central square. It is quite noisy from 5 AM to about 10 or 11 PM, with a slight lull between the hours of 12 and 2 PM (the lunch hour).

On our arrival, we found that we had been blessed with a bed-frame and mattress (He felt it was the least he could do, as my in-laws were very hospitable to him and his friend while they were in Teresina for medical reasons.).

It is about 95º F during the day–in the house, anyway, it seems cooler when we go outside. But at night it is very different than Teresina. It cools off! It actually gets down to about 70º F most every night. This makes sleeping much more comfortable and effective.

We do have internet at home, but are limited to how much we can be on it, as we pay the phone company for usage by the minute. Please let us know if you want to send a large file, so we can plan for it.

I suppose I could go on for a few more paragraphs, but I will need something to write about next time, too! All for now.