Most people know that there are many very poor people here and also many who are very rich. There are other contrasts as well. Here most homes literally are castles. Basically all houses have a big wall surrounding it, often with barbed wire at the top. You can see an example in the picture below. The door in the lower left corner looks more or less like a door for dogs or cats, but is a full size garage door. I particularly like the little hut for the guard above the garage door… I should probably add that this house is not the average size of a home here. The wall might be a little bit bigger than most, but all houses do have their own wall (like a castle wall and not like a fence).
Even if people hide in their castles, they are extremely friendly when they come out. I think one good example is how it works on the buses. There is no subway or big train system here, which means that a lot of people travel by bus. The buses are therefore often packed with people, with a lot of people standing. The interesting thing here is that people who are sitting down always offer to hold the bags for people who are standing. This is completely normal and no one tries to steal anything. So everyone has a castle wall around their home, but they also happily give away their bags to a complete stranger on the bus.
I also went to a fair or market today. They mainly sold a lot of different kinds of food and clothes. There was also a band on a stage in front of a few hundred people. Let’s say that most of the songs they played were (unintentionally) Brazilian versions of old famous songs. Sometimes they did manage to sing in something that resembled English. At least most of the audience seemed to enjoy it.
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