"it is like that"

if cities have a gender, rio is certainly female. she is a lady for sure - but one with 2 faces. there is the beautiful face, the one with a smile, with the beaches in the background, sun always shining, with an eternal bossanova as a soundtrack. and there is the other face of rio. the ugly face, that people prefer to ignore, forget or look away from when seen. the face with warts and scars, an empty toothless laugh, yellow piercing eyes that do not blink. let's have a look at that face.

1. they are everywhere. and most of them are quite happy and resourceful. they will try to sell you peanuts, gum or sweets. they will polish your shoes for a few pennies. or they will simply ask you to give them a coin or 2. often they are playful - racing eachother for an empty can on the street (a bag full of them is worth 2 reais/65 eurocents!). some of them take care of younger brothers or sisters, sometimes carrying a baby on their hip just as comfortable as a mother would. yes, most of the kids living on the street in rio de janeiro seem quite content there.
but not this one.
he must have been 7 or 8. too old anyhow for the dummy he had in his mouth. he had the look in his eyes of a child that is beyond crying. lost. looking for someone.
his eye then caught her: his mother. she was walking, no rushing into the crowd. beer in one hand, cigarette in the other. she did not look back for the boy. she did not wait. she had the aimless nervousness in her behaviour that addicts sometimes have. restless legs, vacant look in her eyes.
the boy quickly lost his mother in the crowd. he stood there frozen, in the heat, between all these people drinking, making noise, talking loudly to eachother, flirting.
after a few minutes i wanted to go over to him. but right at that moment the mother reappeared. this time rushing off to the other side of the street. again without looking left or right - and certainly not looking for or even at her son. this time the boy had more luck though. he caught hold of the mother's skirt and held on tight. the mother did not seem to notice the boy. but the boy held onto the skirt with all his might, sucking even harder on his pacifier.and everything in the boy said: take me home. give me a bed. shelter me. care for me.
i was close to tears. the boyfriend held me in his arms and whispered in my ear: it is like this, it is like this.

2. it is like this, the boyfriend tells me, as we make our way through the packed street - away from it all.
it is like this, the boyfriend's friends tell me, as i tell them what has just happened.
what has just happened is that i have been pickpocketed.
a textbook example: a very busy street, with a lot of movement. too many people pushing and leaning into eachother. then there is a couple nearby, shouting. she seems to panick, yelling at her husband. he tries to calm her down, to hold her. she tries to escape his hold on her, thereby pushing people into eachother, into me. the couple draw a lot of attention. a guy bumps into me.
and oddly enough, 2 seconds later i realise i have been pickpocketed. cards gone - credit card, bankcard, drivers license- and the key to the house. what a motherfucking pain!
now the whole crowd seems hostile to me. i want to leave this place as soon as i can.
ofcourse i am upset. particularly because i always thought i would notice being pickpocketed. it would not happen to me. it could not, because i always pay attention. i put my cards away in that difficult pocket, that sometimes even annoys me when i have to take things out - precisely because it is so difficult to get things out!
it is like that, my boyfriend tells me.

for me 'it is like that' is a starting point - to amend, to make things better, to change.
here it is an end point. it means: there is nothing we can do about it.

difference in opinion? i guess.
oh well, it is like that...