It's quite difficult to seperate them here sometimes. I spent most of yesterday hearing tales about drug lords having plastic surgery so they can never be found by the police, stories about the kept women of the bosses of jogo do bichos (popular, and illegal, gambling game here) and all sorts.
The backdrop was Vidigal favela (although I took care to use the word communidade while there). At about 7pm, the result of the election was announced, with the Workers' Party (PT) candidate Dilma triumphant as expected. A huge cheer erupted from the admittedly already battered crowd below, and Barry White, of all things, boomed out of the stereo as we watched the sun go down over Ipanema and Leblon, with the orange lights of the Lagoa beyond.
Dilma's party is popular with the poorer voters. Nearly all my students, with the exception of a couple of liberal lefties, wanted Serra, the former governor of Sao Paulo who is slightly more to the right. Under PT, the economy has been more stable (helped by the discovery of oil) but lots of people told me they've voted for Dilma because she's from Lula's party, not for her own sake. Although it's clearly momentous that Brazil has elected a female president, the pullout in O Globo today has a picture of Dilma with her eyes cast down on the cover, with the warning words that she still has a lot to sort out - namely sanitation, infrastructure, health and education for starters. Not an enviable task ahead by any means - and all with the knowledge that Lula will almost certainly want to run for office again when he's permitted to, in 2014.
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