Seriously, I'm not making a sarcastic Anti-Brazil insult question. I have nothing against Brazil. I've never been to Brazil but I did meet Brazilians abroad and while many of them were more affluent students they never quite explained it or even had much of an opinion (possibly being upper class they are isolated from it).
By "It" I mean the perception. Brazil joins China and Syria as having their own 'shocking crime video' channels and websites. The Perception is that Brazil is a crime-ridden fuckup country with nothing but monkey riots, bandits, poor 3rd worlders seem to be everywhere.
I made a point of watching about a dozen documentaries on Brazil. Nearly every one of them covered crime, corruption, hedonism, ghettos, shantytowns, insane gangland violence, 'santoria' and every crazy fucking transvestite, street urchins and robbery pickpockets and over and over the 'rising economy' that never happens and just collapses again into a shitty half-ass economy.
And this is all especially baffling since the documentaries and Brazilians tell me 100+ years ago Brazil was actually expected to be 'The USA' of South America. Or even the USA of the Americas - THE big new world advanced superpower. Then 50 years ago again was predicted to be THE next big rising giant star of South America! Then as little as 15 years ago - again people said Brazil is FINALLY going to rise as the new modern 1st world leader and ... I just see 100 shitty shootouts and machete battles with sandal-wearing druggies in what looks like filthy decaying old shithole streets.
Again, this perception MAY BE TOTALLY UNJUSTIFIED but I'm asking any Brazilians or those who know Brazil well to please try and explain WTF is going on?
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[–] Zardoz [S] ago
Just last year a foreign teacher in China had to return to the USA after less than 3 months of his yearlong plans. The hosts failed to explain to him how water needs to be boiled (not just reach a boil but a good minute of boiling). He witlessly cooked and even drank from tap water until becoming sicker and sicker until finally determining he had some kind of metal poisoning from the water.
So its not even things like e-coli or bacteria but whatever heavy minerals or lead or whatever the hell you apparently need to boil off.
But I think Indian slums, Brazilian Shantytowns are a bad choice as I'm told they don't really have water unless they go seek it out and bring it in by hand?