Sorry, kind of a long post, but My wife and I are in Sao Paulo to visit our daughter and her husband. They live just outside of the city, in a mountainous area, and it's so beautiful we can't take it all in.
But a couple of things have really made an impression on us. The first is the way people drive down here. It's scary! The traffic is horrible.
The other thing is the that people here either seem to be quite well off, or living in poverty.
(Side note: a poor Brazilian was listening to a guy from the U.S. tell how poor he was. The guy from the U.S. was complaining he was so poor he had to walk everywhere because he didn't even have enough money to buy gas for his car. The poor Brazilian just rolled his eyes and said "You have a car???")
Our son-in-law (Todd) has a friend who is a policeman in a very small city somewhat north of here. He told Todd they have budget problems, and for awhile they couldn't buy gasoline for their police car, so it was just sitting at the side of the road. Every day one or two of the cops would walk out to where it was, and then just sit in it to watch the traffic. They had to do that for some days until they got some money from the city. There's only five officers on the force, and only four guns between them. So one would have to stay back from any problem.
On the other hand, around the Sao Paulo area where we are now, the policia have all the firearms they could want. And they need them. Not too long ago one of the bad guys they had in prison threatened the city if they wouldn't release him. They didn't release him, of course, so his pals on the outside went on a killing spree. Todd says they killed 16 police officers and blew up busses before they were through. It shut lots of things down in the city, because people were afraid to take public transportation.
I'd better close this. It's getting too warm in here. Guess I'll go take a swim in the outdoor pool.
Oh well it's coat weather & that means I get to carry the Desert Eagle. 
