The de Goes home is always open to family and friends. In addition to Sebastiïo, Maria, and the children, I saw a regularly changing cast of people sleeping in the house--Maria's sisters, friends of Sebastiïo, you name it. Yet despite this amazing openness, the neighborhood is full of fear, inspired by exorbitant levels of theft, violent crime, and corruption. The result was that the de Goes family, like the others that I visited, had installed heavy metal bars over doors and windows. Inside, the house was spotless, the floors mopped daily, the walls scrubbed weekly, the aluminum pots and pans shined to brilliance, and all belongings put neatly in place.
Sïo Paulo is so huge and its transit system so dysfunctional that two-thirds of its people own cars, much more than the rest of Brazil. Sebastiïo and Maria scrimp and save to pay for their vehicle, and told me they even knew people who go without eating to pay for their cars. Little wonder that the air is so bad in this city! Although the couple sometimes struggles, the two are content with their lives and love their children deeply.
