It is a bit alarming when your colleagues turn to you and say, “we might get shot today”. And then put on matching white t-shirts and march out the door anyway.
No, it didn’t happen to me. But since I started writing this blog I started also reading some other blogs of people traveling, taking pictuers, this kind of stuff… And yesterday a blogger named Megan wrote a disturbing post from where she is now, Tanzania.
In Brazil, now, life is hard because it is getting too hot in this summer and people are worried we won’t have our soccer stadiums readdy in time for the next World Cup. In Europe people are suffering a very intense economic crisis… So they can’t buy a new car or make a trip to a foreing country next vacation. Ok ok, I’m over-reacting here, maybe. Everywhere there are those trully suffering, and once you start talking about countries as if there was only one reality inside it, you are making a mistake. I know that… In Brazil may be around 20% of the whole population live in extreme poverty, and while there is now an ongoing economic boom in Brazil, those really lacking conditions are living bad.
And then you read about a country where this amazing number of doctors are letting people die, and are themselves into serious trouble… and you read it not in a distant article as in a newspaper, but from an “insider”, a person who is deeply living the country… Suddenly every other “terrible” problem seems a bit of luxury. Well, read it yourself…
PLACES, PEOPLE AND STORIES 
Axel – thanks for visiting my post. More importantly, thank you for the link to Megan. I went there and was shocked. I’ve notified Avaaz – gave them the link to Megan’s blog – and hope they/we can take some action.
Axel – younger people will hopefully have the strength of character, the power and the smarts to tell this world that we have had enough of this insanity. Some of the leaders have been marinated in nonsensical egotism and self-centeredness. All of us need to make every effort to stop it.
I hope to learn what to do, really… soon I’ll be back in Brazil; a country with nearly 17 million people living under EXTREME poverty conditions and where politicians are trying to give themselves a rise up in the salary which will amount to roughly the equivalent to 1 billion euros a year. It’s difficult to negotiate better salaries for teachers when the budget sums up to some millions, but all of a sudden we are going to “invest” around 6.5 billion dollars to prepare ourselves for the world cup. And it’s usually difficult for me to make people understand why I like soccer only when it’s played among friends or at most in college competitions without money at stake…I really don’t know what to do now, I’m trying to set up my life right now… but I hope that expressing my concerns is already something; and that soon I find ways to do more than just talk, so I won’t feel nearly hypocritical by doing nothing more than talk… let’s see! About the posts and the blog… I’m completely ignorant about the reality of Tanzania and I would not even imagine all these problems weren’t by the blog and the post; it’s something that may be just isn’t “interesting enough” to reach the local news on TV…. Well… thank you for writing, I’ll keep following the blog…
Thanks for the comments on my blog and for your response to my post about the doctors strike. It’s so nice to know that someone is reading! Thankfully the doctors reached an agreement with the government on Friday and are back at work. Not everything has been addressed, but at least its a start. And at least people are talking about the state of the medical system in Tanzania and Sub-Saharan Africa.
I am happy for the good news! It is always nice to hear things like that; let’s hope these people working to save other’s lives will find their deserved respect someday soon… 🙂