15 de maio: uncertainty leads to panic in São Paulo

I have to admit, yesterday was a little scary. The panic and uncertainty that spread throughout São Paulo was enough to make anyone a little worried.

Shortly after my first post about recent incidents, I received an email from the Council (here’s my rough translation):

Dear students,
You have probably been following through newspapers and television reports news about the violence that has been taking place in the city and state of São Paulo. We will have the opportunity to discuss this issue in Culture class on Wednesday. At the moment, we are concerned about the question of your safety.

CIEE in the United States and probably your universities and your parents are also following with preocupation the events. They are worried about your security. We suggest calling your parents or close family to assure them that you are doing okay and are in regions that are safe.

We also ask that you call us to tell us how you are.

I would like to remind you of some recomendations, that i know you already know, but it’s worth repeating:
The violence has occurred in the periferia, in places that we know you don’t frequent normally. We ask that you avoid those areas and avoid leaving home except if you’re sure that everything’s okay in your region. Talk to you host families and follow their recommendations.

At PUC, classes are still going on. Whatever alteration, we will comunicate to everyone.
Some banks were attacked, as of now, also out of the area of where we are. But we advise that you aviod using these establishments in the next couple days. If you need to use an ATM, do it inside of PUC.

For any doubts or information, we are here for you, during the entire day here at the office, and after hours, at our homes and cells.

We will be in constant contact, should anything change,

Hugs,
Ana Luiza e Maurício.

Council em São Paulo

So I continued with my plans for the day: head over to USP, do some research at the library, meet up with Jefferson and Bruno and have dinner at the bandejão. While I’m on the bus, i get a call from Mauricio saying that because the situation has escalated, the Council is asking all CIEE students to stay at home that afternoon. PUC was already closing early and if you aren’t home already, head that way now. I was almost at USP, so i decided to go there anyway to see if i could find Jefferson. We had scheduled to meet up that afternoon. I get to the library and as soon as i spot Jefferson in the corner with his books, a lady walks in and informs all students that the library is closing due to the circumstances. Many Professors who live far and rely on buses for transportation were liberated so they would be able to get home, so classes were also canceled. There were rumors of bomb threats at various universities and malls, but i don’t know what’s true or not. It occured to me that there was a police headquarters on campus, right next to that graphic crime museum that Jefferson took me to one time. With the email from the Council, then the phone call, then campuses closing down, it was enough to leave me uncomfortable. I kept hearing "o que é isso, meu?" Nobody knew exactly what was going on.

As Jefferson and I descended to the lobby of FFLCH of social sciences, we spotted Bruno and a couple other friends of his. Bruno lives in Vila Madalena, the same neighborhood as me, and one of his friends offered all of us a ride to the area. Not only was everyone rushing to get home, but at the entrance of USP, there were police checking cars. It took us half an hour just to get off campus! And almost another hour just to get to my neighborhood...a drive that should’ve taken 15-20 minutes MAX. That’s the worst traffic i’ve ever seen. The fact that I was with Jefferson and Bruno made me feel better. Everyone in the car was talking about the situation, how they’d never seen anything like this before, and we even made fun of one of the radio news broadcasters. He had one of those dramatic voices: "panico tomou conta da cidade! Faculdades fecharam! Estudantes que tinham trabalhos pra entregar e provas pra fazer agora não podem! Todo mundo está correndo pra casa! As linhas telefonicas estão loitadas! Tem gente ligando cada cinco a cinco minutos!".("panic has taken over the city! Schools and universities have closed! students can’t turn in their papers and take tests that were to take place today! everyone is running to the safety of their homes! The telephone lines are jammed! People are calling their loved ones every five minutes!") gente, da risada, hehe.

But for real, the entire city practically shut down. The prefeitura had ordered all schools and stores to close. A metro station was attacked, so various stops in the centro were shut down too and many buses stopped running early. The streets were pretty chaotic in terms of people trying to get home. Imagine this kind of thing happening in a city like New York. The guys in the car were comparing it to 9/11...a similar kind of panic/uncertainty was probably in the air.

Anyway, i finally got home around 5:30 and found my host mom praying in the dark. She refused to turn on the TV or listen to the radio before everyone was safe at home. "não adiante ficando preocupado e aumentando o medo com tudo que a mídia está dizendo". She said she tried to call me, but couldnt get through. And i had no credits on my cell to call home. I went to my room and turned on the radio to the lowest audible volume. I caught the end of an interview with the comandante of the military police. He criticised all the histeria saying that "hoje é o dia mais tranquilo, desde sexta-feira". My host mom later said he was lying to try to calm everyone down. The city refused federal help claiming they had the situation under control. The reason i started getting nervous in the first place was because i realized that even though this war is between the bandits and the police, the bandits look like everyday people...so if there’s open fire between the two groups, any civilian could be accidently targeted. On the radio they were talking about putting police on the buses, but i think that’s a stupid idea...all you need is for one of the gang members to get on board and bam, shooting party in an enclosed area with lots of innocent bystanders.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. I worked out in our ghetto apartment gym, ate dinner, watched Belissima (a novela) with my host famiily and then stayed up watching a movie (Bulletproof Monk) with my host sister
Helicopter images of Av. Paulista and other main roads showed na empty ghost-town São Paulo. This is probably the first and last time in history that Av. Paulista will have no cars in sight.

If you think about the incidents of the past few days, perhaps the gang achieved one of their aims: making life inconvenient for the fake middle-class world that many people live in. They definitely managed to break the routine of thousands of citizens yesterday. Whether it will have any long term effect, I don’t know. But what’s clear to me is that these guys are revolting against social injustices they’ve sufferred. For sure, 15 de maio will go down in history.

This morning I got up to watch the news to see if there were any developments. My host mom said classes were cancelled so i went back to bed. In general though, things were getting back to normalcy, from what i saw in the news. A couple hours later i got up and called Mauricio to see what the latest was and he confirmed that CIEE classes and morning classes at PUC were cancelled, but PUC was opening after 12PM and would have evening classes. The news said buses and metros were all fully functioning so I ventured out late afternoon to use the computer lab on campus and report to you the latest...