Hello!

After spending some time abroad I decided, as a Brazilian, that I love my country and I wanted to show people why. But what do I know about Brazil? I didn`t really travel a lot around the country. I realized what I love is actually São Paulo, the city I know better than anywhere else in the world. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood on the west side of the city. I was always fascinated about people and their cultures, so I guess I was on the right place. As any big city, São Paulo has got a bit of everything in culture, religion, ethnic, etc; but this one has some peculiarities that you couldn`t find anywhere else in the world and I could only understand that when I was away. I also noticed then, that most people know so little about life here that I felt like telling them all about São Paulo. But how can I show the real São Paulo to someone who`s never been to it? I`ve read some statistics, hoping that they would help:
The population is of about 18 million people; the average life expectancy is 62 years for men and 70 for women; 70% of people are Roman Catholic; the temperature is warm and slightly humid, the average being 21C in January and 14C in July.
It sounds like an interesting city, doesn`t it? Except that’s not São Paulo.
18 million people is the sense, but there is no sense of how many people live in each favela of the city, and that being a really large area (not as large as Rio in proportions but pretty large) I wouldn`t be surprised if that number increased. The average life expectancy is probably lower than many nice cities in Europe and in the U.S. Well, my grandma is 80 years old and she walks up and down the hill to go shopping for lunch, go out in the afternoon for a walk in the mall and watches the soap-opera in the evening. Many old ladies in Sao Paulo follow similar routines and what I always hear from foreigners that come here is that a lady of that age in their country would be confined at home, or a nursing home, unable to do stuff by herself. The Roman Catholic fact is actually interesting because most of those called catholic don`t even go to church. And you can easily find “catholics”, even the ones that do go to church, trusting the Orixas, carrying Jewish amulets for luck and having little Buddha’s in their houses to keep a “zen” environment. Besides, my TV has 5 Evangelic channels, a Christian religion of fanatics that has got very popular in the city. They show on TV their huge churches, crowded with believers screaming and yelling their prayers, while there`s no Catholic channel or much mention of the religion on regular ones. About the average temperature of São Paulo I just can`t figure it out, in any season. First you wake up and it`s freezing cold outside, so you get a nice coat and put an umbrella in your bag just in case; you come back for lunch carrying the coat because is sunny and warm and when you go out in the afternoon you leave the umbrella because there is no sight of rain; you come home in the evening soaked wet because a storm came out of nowhere, felt for half an hour and it was suddenly cold again. I have pictures of Christmas parties on which I`m wearing very light summer clothes, and others that I`m wearing sweaters.
All that make the statistic look a little controversial, don`t you think? This city is made of disparities and details that make it special. To understand the controversies of it you would need to live each one of them like the Paulistanos (people from São Paulo). So I think the best way to show how São Paulo really is, would be by stories that people have to tell about their daily lives in the city. I have a bunch of stories myself, that happened to me or to people I know, so I`ll share as many as I can. Hope you`ll enjoy!