Crazy extremes in Brazil

We had been warned about Sao Paolo before we got here. And when I say warned, I mean everyone we spoke to immediately said "ooh, be careful!" upon finding out this was one of our destinations. We were told to expect bulletproof cars and robberies on every corner, and to avoid the dreaded favellas - places where if you made you're way into, you were unlikely to make your way out of. So it's fair to say we were on edge as we arrived in this infamous city.

Sao Paolo shares some similarities with parts of South Africa - high fences and security guards in suburban areas, and large slum areas (favellas) located throughout the city - just on a far greater scale! The more we drove the more we got a feel for just how big this city is.

One of the big points on our to-do list was to go to a Sao Paolo FC football game and fortunately for us there was a game on the day after we arrived. Unfortunately for us Sao Paolo had been knocked out of a cup competition mid-week and their fans were boycotting the game in protest. The 80,000 capacity Morumbi stadium was therefore populated with around 3,000 fans for the game against Coritiba and there was very little atmosphere or excitement to the game (which is a problem when atmosphere and excitement were the two main reasons people told us to go see a game in the first place!). So we felt a little bit ripped-off but at least we got to see some Brazilian football. The other cultural experience did not disappoint - churascaria. A churascaria restaurant includes a massive buffet counter - consisting of pasta, seafood, fruit, vegies - and an endless supply of succulent, tasty meat. My friend Goran guided us through the process, warning us not to overfill our stomachs on the buffet and to be patient and wait for the later rounds of meat to be brought to our table. We did as we were told but were still no match for the sheer quantity of meat on offer at the restaurant. And it was good too! Prime cuts of beef, lamb, pork, chicken... whatever you're into. The only slight catch was that Connie is a vegetarian and so didn't quite get to enjoy the experience like we did, but as any good husband would, Hunt took it upon himself to eat her share too.

A couple of days later I had probably the most hectic filming day of the whole trip so far. It started with a drive out to the home of Paulo Sergio, a 1994 World Cup winner for Brazil who is now the Executive Director of Atleticos de Cristos, an orgnisation that has a large proportion of the Brazilian national team amongst its members. One of the intriguing features of Brazilian football is the connection between football and Christianity, with Kaka and his "I belong to Jesus" t-shirt providing the prime example, so it was exciting for me to be able to interview the man in charge of the organisation that encourages the players to carry out such activities. It was a good interview, although in hindsight I didn't ask as many tough questions as I should've, mainly because I was a bit intimidated by him (he is a World Cup winner after all!) and also because interviews are always a lot harder through a translator. I had a chance at redemption though as we drove straight from there to the offices of Atleticos de Cristos, where I interviewed Silvio, another former professional player. I put the tougher questions to him and he responded well to them. It's strange that something so natural to them (i.e. players demonstrating their faith through football) seems so unusual to me, but I guess that's the beauty of meeting people from other countries and hearing their different perspectives. They're both good guys and I was encouraged to find out they're about more than just the t-shirts...

The next stop took us about as far away from World Cup medals as you could imagine - the favellas (slums). Eight years ago Junior (his actual name, but would also function well as an ironic title - he's a big guy) left a successful career in banking and dedicated his life to bringing about transformation in the lives of the favella kids. He began dance and education programs with the kids and a few years later he was joined by another guy, Gui, who added soccer to the program. Together they have formed Generation New Life, which aims to bring about holistic development in the kids through sports, arts, education and job training. These guys are incredible - they have an immense love for the kids, a commitment to improving their lives and a persistent desire to do whatever it takes to give them hope. They are seeing great results too - a complete reversal in school attendance rates (from less than 20% to greater than 80%), improved behaviour and five youths recently gaining entry into University. The extent of the need was really brought home to me when I spoke to one of the boys, Danilo, and visited his home. Danilo's father died when he was young, his mother and sister were recently arrested for drug dealing and not only does he now live by himself but he has to look after a younger cousin who has also lost his parents. He cried as he spoke about how he used to come home to find the living room table stacked with drugs and about how much he now misses his mother. The only person Danilo has to look after him is Junior and yet he still had the strength within him to say, "I am going to be different to them". It was really emotional for everyone and it knocked me around a fair bit. Once we got home I spent that night in a daze, just trying to come to terms with the things I'd seen and trying to comprehend what life would be like if it weren't for Junior and Gui being prepared to sacrifice their own ambitions in order to love these kids. I also began to resent my role as interviewer - it just didn't feel right trying to bring out people's pain for the sake of the film. It will only be worth it if this film can actually make a difference to kids like Danilo by challenging people all around the world to do something about their situation.

On Wednesday we headed down to a town called Itanhaem (pronounced Itan-yay-em), which is a couple of hours out of Sao Paolo. Itanhaem itself is a beautiful coastal city, or so I am told... things didn't quite work out for us down there. For a start, it rained for most of the time, which meant that the beach soccer we were excited to film never happened and we couldn't hang out much on the beach ourselves. In addition to this, Itanhaem was the final (but inevitable) coming together of Hunt being sick (he had been sick since the start of Spain), Connie being sick (she got sick at the start of Brazil) and me being sick (I got sick once we arrived in Itanhaem). My version was pretty unusual - I had a sore throat one day, a blocked nose the next, and then on the third day I felt completely sick in the stomach and couldn't stop shaking the entire day. I was messed up - I couldn't get warm, I felt like I needed to throw up but couldn't, and pretty much wanted to crawl in a hole and at least be unconscious for a while. They wanted to take me to a hospital but I was supposed to fly out from Sao Paolo to Miami that night and just wanted to get out of the country, so I told them just to take me to the airport. That was when I encountered one last twist of fate - they had arranged for a local to take me to Sao Paolo airport, but what they didn't tell me was that this local was completely and certifiably insane. As soon as I he got in, he put a Brazilian CD on and turned the car stereo up to about 25, which meant that each note felt like a punch to the head. He also didn't speak English but nevertheless tried to communicate with me by dancing to the music and encouraging me to do likewise. Even this didn't prepare me for what was to follow though - a sequence consisting of him pointing to the music, dancing, kissing his hand and then giving a few pelvic thrusts in no particular direction with a huge smile on his face. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that rather than coming on to me he was in fact telling me what he likes to do (to women) to this music, but that wasn't much solace in what had turned out to be the trip from (or perhaps to) hell. My only escape was to pretend to be asleep, although this didn't save me from the sound of the CD on its second, then third and then fourth rotations (apparently he didn't have any other CD's). He left me alone until we arrived in Sao Paolo, when he saw a good looking girl cross the street, aimed a few pelvic thrusts in her direction and raised his hand in expectation of me giving him a high five for his efforts. I did. Shocking, I know. But desperate times call for desperate acknowledgements, and my only concern at that point was for him to leave me alone and for the car trip to end. It did, eventually, and when I arrived at the airport I realised not only had I stopped shaking but my appetite was beginning to return, so I had a sandwich and began to dream of health... and florida :)

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