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Rafaël, six years old and in the streets
Bom Dia! My name is Rafaël. I’m 18. I lost my family when I was six. For 14 years, I lived between institutions shelters and in the streets. I’ve gone through happy times as well as difficult ones.
My dad started to drink and take drugs. He became aggressive and hit my mom. He stopped giving us money to eat. When I was five, my mom left him and took me and my little brother with her.
We arrived in Sao Paulo in a big park. This park had 36 different entry points. My brother and I got separated from my mom. As we wandered out one exit and came in another, we couldn’t find our mom. I have never seen her since.
The police saw us. Because my brother was only two, they put him in a special institution and I went to a different institution. When I was six, my father found me in the streets. He said he was happy to see me again and wanted me to live with him. In the beginning, I was happy too. But, after two months, I saw that he hadn’t changed. He drank a lot and the apartment which he shared with others was full of drugs. Finally, we left the apartment and both went to live in the streets.
My dad made me beg in the streets for money for him to buy his drugs. He never gave me anything to eat. I went house to house, saying I was hungry. Since I was little, people always gave me something and even asked me to stay with them.
One day, I came back to where my dad was and I didn’t have any money to give him. He beat me bad. A few days later, I left and never came back. I have never seen him since and I wouldn’t want to see him again. I would be scared to meet him.
There is always something to do in the streets. When you are young, everyone helps you. There was always someone to play with. Everyone gave me things to eat and even clothes. I was hardly ever alone. I was alone only very early in the morning when I slept in the street.
During the day, it was so much fun. There was no adult to tell me what to do. Seven years old in the streets and I could do anything I wanted. It was great!
But, when you get a little older, people aren’t so generous. They say “You’re a man now… get a job!” But at 12 years old, I wasn’t yet a man, not even a teenager! That’s when I started to get to know dome drug dealers. If I sold drugs for them, they gave me food and clothes. It was very easy. I went into a favela (shanty town) and asked a dealer if he would accept me to work for him. He gave me drugs and a gun, because when you are little, people can take advantage of you and steal your drugs and money. Before, I had nothing and now someone was giving me money, drugs and power… a gun. When you are armed, everyone is scared of you. At 12 years old, I thought I already had everything!
When you are in that world of crime, you think you have everything. It’s only when you leave that world that you realize you had nothing.
The dealers try to take territory away from each other to earn more money. I also participated in shootouts to help my dealer. Once a policeman came to me dressed like an addict. He said, “Please, I really need a hit.” And when I gave him some, four other police jumped from around the corner and they beat me a lot. They took my money and drugs and threw me in the street.
Another time, an older guy, maybe 25 years old, came to my dealer and told him he would pay him tomorrow. The dealer put a gun to his head and said, “There will be no tomorrow” and he shot him. I was shocked! He only owed him five reales (almost four dollars) I asked him, “Why? He could have worked longer for you! You didn’t have to kill him!” The dealer said if he killed him for five reales today, no one would want to owe him 100 reales tomorrow. That is how they think. It’s ****!
When I arrived at SAMMA (please read adjoining article), I was still using drugs. Rosie (the psychiatrist at SAMMA) said she wanted me to stay. She wanted to help me. I thought to myself, “she really cares for me.” For a street kid, there are only two possibilities. Either you leave the street or you die. That was the moment I decided to do something with my life.
I learned to read when I was 14. It was very hard! My dream is to create a sort of theater for dance. I love capoiera and I would love to teach it during the day in a place where we could put on theater at night. I’d have other street kids come to work with me and they could also learn a good job.
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