Ok, I've blogged like 8 entries so far without ever showing a photo of what Sao Paulo looks like! So I thought I'll start today and show you a bit around Sao Paolo. My boss was more excited than me about sight seeing. And since he was gonna go visiting, I get the free transport while accompanying him. For some reason, he wanted very much to go to the Cathedral in the central of town. It wasn't the most safe place to go, but I guess Sunday morning was the best a time that can be to visit it.
We used Uber while traveling around Sao Paulo, so he called a cab and off we went. When we arrived, I would never forget the scene and smell that greeted us. The driver, almost as per routine, told us to be careful and don't take out our phones. Just outside the church, probably hundred or so homeless people were gathered. You could actually smell the human waste around the area. We got off the taxi and quickly made our way into the church.
What a contrast the inside and outside of the church was. Inside, everything was clean, and mass was on going. The ceiling was high, and stained glass all around. Singing could be heard, such lovely music. And people praying. But outside, poverty, filth, human suffering. Why did God exist again?
It was a beautiful church inside. But I just couldn't quite get the image outside of the church out of my mind, nor my conscious. My boss wasn't too trouble by it. Maybe its because he was from India and it was kinda same there, except there I didn't see so many homeless people gathered at a same place.
We walked around individually, exploring the church. It was 75% filled with people. Some I suspect, came in to get some peace from the madness outside. I wondered what would happen if the homeless people all stormed inside to have place to stay, or took away some of the richness of the church....
I have been to many churches before, so this was perhaps just another one to me, except that it was in Sao Paulo. I guess my boss enjoyed this one more than me. While I leave you to enjoy some of the view of the church inside, let me also share what was outside. After exploring the church, we actually went out for a walk among the homeless people. They didn't approach us or make any trouble for us. So we walked around the homeless park of the city. You can literally smell urine and human waste here....
One of the shocking thing I saw was seeing the homeless people washing their clothes at the city fountain. The water inside wasn't exactly clean, but they proceed to wash their clothes there in the public place anyway. It was kinda hard to stomach. On one hand, there were rich people in Sao Paulo as I work for a luxury car brand there, but on the other hand, I see all these before my eyes. It was really hard to stomach.
Anyway, such is life. Look at the beautiful churches! Perhaps that will give you hope. You can always pray to god. Perhaps God will help....
Well the priest was giving blessing at the end of the mass, and my boss decided to lined up to receive some blessing and to talk to the priest. I help him took some photo but I didn't line up. I was after all, an atheist and felt it wasn't appropriate to do so as I thought they were receiving communion at first. Anyway, that was the first sight we went the first Sunday we were there.
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