Gabriel Augusto de Castro Becki -Santa Catarina, Brazil
“I went out this morning, the city was pretty deserted. There were just a few souls walking around.”
Gabriel has a list of talking points on his phone; an inverse of the usual relationship between journalist and interviewee. Propped up against a wall with his laptop, he looks casual but alert in his bright-blue T-shirt. One of the first stories he tells of the coronavirus in Brazil is a police-generated sandstorm. When sunbathers flouted rules of social distancing and took advantage of the ‘break’, a helicopter was used to cause chaos and drive the rebels home. He laughs and explains Brazilians are struggling with the measures; hugging and kissing is the normal way to greet, and so the idea of touching elbows strikes a particularly odd note.
Amidst the 570,000 people of Joinville, Gabriel isn’t one of those struggling to resist fraternising. He is a self-described homebody who prefers gaming online to partying, and has only gone out that morning to take photographs of lock-down in his city. His work has stopped with the pandemic. His wife, Tania, is one of six from her office that have no children or elderly at home. As a result, she remains on the rota, travelling into the office once a week to continue necessary tasks. Her husband, a self-employed photographer, relied on his clientele of gyms and restaurants. Now, he is at home with his dogs.
With their large garden, their four medium-sized canine companions have been joined by a fifth, smaller friend. His grandmother’s pet had a heart attack two weeks previously, much to the family’s distress. With Gabriel living in a larger city with better services, he is its temporary carer. With a smile, he tells me she’s relatively tech savvy for a 70-year-old and is able stay in contact using WhatsApp. Laughing, he explains excessive stickers are a by-product of this, but that’s okay. She is isolated though, and the smile falters for a second talking about her.
Scrolling down his smartphone list, Brazilian President Bolsanaro is one of his central concerns. We were set to interview the day before, but he had messaged me to postpone. Nothing was wrong, he said, but quickly qualified that nothing was immediately wrong; Bolsanaro had made headlines the previous day when he announced employers could temporarily fire their workers, and many of Gabriel’s friends could be in trouble. During our interview, he tells me the policy had been revoked and “[Bolsanaros] pretty stupid, but he has a lot of wise people around him.”
“Hmm” he considers, then checks his phone for his next detail: “Another thing; do you know about the stock market?” The list includes details of the economy, examples of ‘clandestine hand-sanitiser factories’, and the number of cases diagnosed, both in the country and in his state. He messages me information both before and after the interview, contextualising details of his experience. The photographer doesn’t spend time talking about himself, but instead mentioning his friends, family and the country as a whole. He says that estimates of 30% or even 40% unemployment are in the air. In Joinville, he is secure with family to support him and his spouse if needs be. Others are not so lucky. Some allowances for travel and food had been introduced, but he doubts it’s enough.
Checking Google Translate briefly, he is surprised that “purchasing power” is indeed the phrase he wants – “Money doesn’t have the same purchasing power here in Brazil, even though the wages are much lower. The minimum wage is about 1040 reals, which is around 200 Euro per month, but things like Ben and Jerrys, and beer are the same price.”
The couple had their chance to travel already, having saved for three years and travelled to Ireland. We had met on a St. Vincent De Paul soup run when he and Tania (then his fiancé) were helping the homeless in Dublin. Now back home, he is concerned about friends who had availed of the same opportunity “There are a lot of Brazilians in Ireland – I have a theory that in 20 years they’ll have the best football team in the world.”, he quips, before quickly turning serious again. Two of these friends had moved to Ireland in the few weeks prior and were struggling to find both employment and a home.
Gabriel tells me for many Brazilians, travelling to Europe is a dream that can take huge effort to realise, and many require not only years of saving but family support to afford the tickets and initial funds: “There are some parents who all they want is their child’s dream to come true, and they put everything they have into this, and then this happens. I had that opportunity, and so I really have empathy for them.”
Throughout our call, whenever I ask about a facet of the situation, be it the economy, governmental support or public reaction, Gabriel wants to know how Ireland is coping in the same respect. Still clearly invested from his time in the country, the homelessness crisis is on his mind. When I comment that housing is bad in Dublin at the best of times, he says “I know, I remember”. While I was aware of some measures in the UK or in France, I hadn’t been following what was going on at home, but given the extent of the problem pre-pandemic, it was worrying.
He nods. “We don’t have a really bad situation like Dublin. We have a couple of people living on the streets. Some of them just shelter themselves. There are places that have a room, and they take shelter there. There are also homes for the night that are free. We still have plenty of homeless people, but it’s not like in every corner like in Ireland.”
“Normally, we have a situation with beggars at traffic lights. Today, going out, there weren’t any. There were no cars on the streets, so they had no one to beg to.” He ponders if bigger cities will have more of a problem, like Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. He thinks these cities act as a beacon for those hoping to live a better life; “I mean, what can they do? They think they’ll have a future [there], and they’ll have a better chance, and can end up on the streets with no money to get home.”.
Asking if he noticed anything else while he was out, he says people avoided him taking his photographs; there were some wearing masks, and no elderly on the street. Supermarket shelves weren’t empty as they were in other countries, but he notices that people are being more prepared than usual, himself included (“Usually we buy two bags of rice for the month, but now we buy three.”)
Gabriel shared an entire folder of photos he had taken, spoiling us with options to choose from.
A few nights prior, the couple went for a late-night drive to see the city and how it was faring. The once-thronged roads were empty, as reality had set in for its vibrant inhabitants. The thriving hotels that once made up entire districts had transformed into derelict, modern monoliths.Now, the dark streets seemed closer to a film than reality. “We had the windows closed, and we wouldn’t pull them down. ‘But honey, I want to breathe the air!’” he gleefully impersonates Tania, with a laugh “You can’t, though.” As he describes driving home through the eerie setting, he seems grateful - grateful for their home, their security, their four-plus-one dogs, and for one another.
What Gabriel is listening to - Cross Me, by Ed Sheeran
Sam Cox