That day I looked from the top of the catwalk and thought, I think it's better to jump from here than try to face the Brazilian streets, I don't know how to defend myself, I'm small, I would never commit a crime to survive, I'll end up dead with refinements of cruelty, because the street is hostile and probably no one will treat me well in it.

     Absorbed in my thoughts, I didn't even notice the arrival of the young man who had placed the handmade jewelry cloth beside her. 

    Suddenly something hits his arm, I look over and say; may I help?

    The boy looks at him and asks, what is he doing, standing there on this parapet, my sister.  

     I smile and start to tell her that I'm penniless, it was stolen from the pension where she lived and the pension owner sent her away and she can't afford a place to stay and since she's not a criminal she's there analyzing if it's not better if you throw yourself out of there before going through some ordeal too much, since I don't know how to defend myself and living on the street is frightening for me. 

     Even because you are not willing to become a criminal to survive.

     The boy laughs at me and says, my sister, I've been living on the streets for twenty-five years and you only become a criminal if you want to get out of it fast. 

     I then ask and what will I survive on? 

     I don't know, he says, picks up paper, makes crafts, asks, steals, it depends on who you are, and what you're capable of.

     Oh! 

     I have several ways to make some money, you see on the floor this is one. 

     Wow, what a nice trubiscus, she says, is it really hard to make?

     He answers; 

     First, it's not trubiscus, it's work, and if you're willing to learn, I'll teach you, you have a week.

     Go there to the bus terminal and ask for money for passersby and buy a hundred grams of this wire and a pair of pliers like this and come back here.

     I went down to the terminal almost immediately when I heard what the guy said. 

     But it took me a while to get the wire and the pliers.

     I was scared to death that the boy would be gone when I went there to learn.

     But when I got there, he was in the same place, I said all happy, I'm glad I found you here, now, can you teach me?  

     He responds laughing, I would go where, this is the best place to sell my job. 

     You each have my sister....

     The night approaches and I start to get anguished, he realizes that I'm nervous and asks: 

     What is it now?

     My sister, you look like you're with a carpenter, looking around all the time.

     It's getting dark, I was thinking here, where am I going to sleep. 

     Where do homeless people sleep. 

     Ah!

     That's it, be at peace, I'll teach you to get by, okay.

     Beauty.

     He laughs and continues to teach her how to make jewelry.

     The first night will be the most frightening, due to the lack of knowledge of what I'll find, but the following ones will already take away.

     A person's first night on the street is truly terrifying, in addition to the cold, the discomfort of sleeping on the hard floor on top of a similar cardboard, a pet, the pain of revolt for knowing the factors that led you there, and the feeling that something bad is going to happen any minute, because the environment is hostile and frightening in itself.

     The first night on the street we revisited our entire life there, several times, some cry, others curse, others talk all the time, others tremble, others dope, each one has a reaction, to what your conscience shows you, it depends on who if it is.

     In my case I just covered myself, I curled up, I prayed an Our Father, I gave my life into God's hands, saying, if you want me to go through this, help me. 

     If I dawn, let it be to do your will and don't let me do harm to anyone and not myself, but if it's for me to die, may I go into your arms, from here.    

     And I slept. 

     Each day was a new surprise, my first seven days I learned, where to find food in the “garbage, which was still possible to consume. 

     As it was in Florianópolis, and there is a municipal market there, right in the center of the city, and people throw the very ripe fruit that they haven't sold during the day in a box outside, the homeless go there to pick up these leftovers and eat.

     Another thing to learn was taking a shower with a pet bottle, that is, filling a two-liter bottle of water in a public square and using any bathroom to wash the smelly parts.

     Another thing to be learned was to mangrove, that is, to make a fair exchange, any job for food, or for its cash value, and thus earn a living.

     The next thing to be learned was how to have fun at the expense of offenses that narcissistic, arrogant and arrogant people came to do, with us because we are homeless people and take the letter and take in irony hypocritical people, who do not come to buy nothing, not even to help anyone, just to make silly comments like:

     If you were from God you wouldn't be there.

     Mediocre assholes who don't buy a job if they want, don't help anyone, don't offer a job if they want bread, but come and fill their patience with silly comments.

     Along with that, scaling possible safer sleeping places, places, where to go, where not to go, people to live with and with whom not at all, in this second item, religious fanatics, are out of the cards , because they think they are perfect and owners of the truth and they become a real danger to the lives of those who live on the streets.

     Fanatic of any kind is good company, but fanatic by a certain belief is the worst of all enemies when you are in an open air, without defense, and what words can lead innocent and harmless people to be attacked, due to concepts philosophies of narrow-minded people.

     When you don't have a police record, as I didn't have and there was no malice in my heart, the best place to sleep is one that has a security camera outside, because then we have our lives filmed on the streets and that's positive, because we'll be able to prove our innocence if other residents of the million-star condominium do something, and the police come looking for the perpetrator. 

     Blankets and clothing are obtained by ordering from families' homes or from Catholic churches that they have for donation.

     As there is no place to wash clothes, and you sleep on the floor and spend a lot of time in the same clothes, as you have nowhere to store clothes and nowhere to hide, homeless people do not smell pleasant. 

     Clothes are disposable, you use them until you have no way out and if you ask for another one, this one will never have more than the clothes on your body. 

     When you get sick, health centers or hospitals hardly ever provide help, as the person has no fixed address to give and no address, no support. 

     Hunger, cold, pain, loneliness, fear are constants in everyday life, apart from that, everything is an eternal variable.

     A homeless person who wants to stay alive never faces aggressive or marginal people “from the area”, nor does he comment on what he sees and hears, he said, he died. 

     Homeless people cannot have any kind of prejudice, because if they do, they are doomed to death, with refinements of cruelty. 

     The criminals present in it tend to show their strength, and their hatred, with more vehemence in people full of prejudices and who may offer them danger, due to their unpleasant posture contrary to this.

     It's one thing for you to say no, to a certain situation or crime, it's another for you to hit a certain quality of people that is favorable to them and not unfavorable.

     Mafias or factions, as you prefer to call them, adore bad people, capable of exquisite cruelty, and they support and help people of that type to show what they are capable of. 

     So when someone comes up against it, on the streets, (or even outside of them), in a prejudiced way and gets a lot on top of people like that, usually they approach such an individual and turn him into what he hates the most, with the intention of enjoying the downfall of a bigot.

     Girls and boys, who don't know what they want, who they are and are “on the fence”, also leave it quickly on the streets, as the mafias will provoke until the person leans to one side and knows who the person really is.

     The one who likes to boast also quickly falls off his horse, if the comrade wants to show that he is dangerous, capable of anything, as a means of warding off dangerous people, but he is not, he quickly ends up being placed in a situation where he will have to prove the how dangerous it is. 

     And if he doesn't do what he says he can do, or if he doesn't help others who are really capable of doing a certain thing that he said he can do, he moves from that to another life very quickly.

     Drug addicts who are unable to control their addiction, are frowned upon on the streets and end up being pushed aside by others. 

     People in these conditions either, or are taken to places where other users use crack, to die by their own hands. Or they are killed by the drug trade itself for not paying their huge debts. Because normally these traffic also to support their addiction, but instead of delivering the "airplanes" for the payer to consume on the way, they are killed.

     Criminals such as rapists are called upon by the prostitution mafia to perform sexual services against enemies from opposing factions who wish to humiliate before killing, or even provoke leaders of other factions, hurting relatives for a clash.

     It is common to find all kinds of thugs on the streets, as it is common to find whole families taken to the streets by misery, trying to lead a normal life, just without a home. 

     So for those who arrive, immediately, you have to get used to perceiving the environment and discovering who is who, and where you fit.