A Time for Change

Leaning a cheek crusty with face paint against the bus window, my host sister eyeballs protestors on the street bedecked in the patriotic colors of her Brazil: yellow, green, and blue. My Brazilian host family and I bounce violently in our seats en route to join the “manifestação pacífica,” peaceful protest, congregating in the streets of downtown Uberlandia. The bus, cramped and electric with passengers eager to participate, finally wheels into the station, around which polícia units stand guard. It’s time for change.
Brazil is slotted to host both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, but its people aren’t feeling very hospitable, for good reason. Protestors’ posters spell out their grievances and demands for reform in the nation’s healthcare, education, and transportation systems and redirection of government funding.
The crowd grows denser as we match strides with the current, and the energy of rebellion tangled with patriotism is tangible inside this concentrated urban space. My face paint cracks as I squint up at the apartment dwellers singing Brazil’s anthem and swinging flags at the masses below. Karen, my host sister, teaches me the chant that our crowd has adopted: “Vem pra rua!,” which translates as “Come to the streets!”
At first, the protest marches on parade-like. Tens of thousands of protestors transform Uberlandia’s urban landscape into a tri-color flood of bodies filling the streets, waving flags, and spinning noisemakers. We follow the heads in front of us along sidewalks lined with tropical trees, around police barricades, under beautifully painted bridges, our sing-song voices echoing beneath them. I can’t help but stare at our reflection in windows of business buildings we pass, mostly national banks that closed early in hopes of avoiding protest wrath. Only a few days have passed since protestors raided banks in Rio de Janeiro.
As the sun begins to set, the crowds fire up and start chanting for police reforms whenever we pass UPPs, police pacifying units. The bright streetlights cast shadows over street vendors and homeless figures huddling in city pockets, meters away from polícia armed with tear gas. A little girl in front of me, drowning in a Ronaldo football jersey, drags a poster painted with lyrics: “Eu sou brasileiro, com muito orgulho, com muito amor...” My Google translate app translates for me: “I am Brazilian, with great pride, with great love…”
For today, I am Brazilian, proud and in love with my people.