Clear Divergence

       Living, walking, sleeping only in function of a group of religion or followers without having the opportunity to opine or criticize. This is a strong characteristic of Muslim religion, which has persisted since old times. However, Catholics have other and different kinds of life perspective. They increase the value of personality and democracy. Because of these and lots of other factors, Muslims and Catholics don’t mix up and fuse. The differences between Muslims e and Catholics that standout are:  that the Muslims have male oriented behavior and have the strong bonding among themselves.

 

    The first reason why Muslim differs from Catholicism is the male oriented behavior. Since old times, the Muslims have had the power and the authority over the women, who don’t make any movement of protestation, since is a matter of culture. An example that shows that is the polygamy. For instance, Mohamed Mahasen, is married to 20 women and as a consequence have 140 children. His wives are happy and treat each other as old friends. On the other hand, in Catholicism man and women are treated equally. In Catholic Church, couples are supposed to be married to each other until their entire lives. In addition, having more than one partner is inconceivable, since it is an act of disrespect and unfaith. For example, nowadays 60% of the Old Catholic couples are still married to the same first partner. Therefore, the number of wives that a man is supposed to marry is a notable difference between Catholics and Muslims.

 

    The second reason that differ Catholicism from Muslim is the strong bonding among the Muslim’s groups. The fanatic passion for the religion, trigger Muslims to live only in function of their religion, idolatrizing it. Because of this aspect, they are all united and never tearing away, because the unique person who they trust and believe is someone of their religion, since the culture, the principles and future expectations are the same. For example, in case of marriage, Muslims must only marry to Muslims and according to the statistics, 90% of these marriages are chosen by the groom’s and bride’s family, without any consult of their opinions. On the contrast, in Catholicism these fanatic passion isn’t so common and visible. Catholic Church believes that the personality, honesty and character, is not found in the religion, but in people’s heart. For instance, each catholic person has her/his opinion, choice, future principles, and finally is not swayed by a religion or a group of it. In conclusion, the strong necessity of the Muslims to live in a united group, is a difference between Catholics and Muslims.

 

    In conclusion, inside the clear divergence between Catholicism and Muslim, there are two aspects that show up, the fact of the number of wives that a man is supposed to marry, and the strong chain among Muslims groups.

stopping the unplanned city

A series of cars unable to move. Drivers honking their horn unrandomly.People arriving late at theirs appointments. According to the  traffic estatistics São Paulo will surelly stop in 2010. This is a consequence of lots of factors, but the main one is the bad and unthoght urban plannig when the ctiy was built. The handfull kilometers of subway done in the begginig of the 19 century, makes nowadays people buy private car , instead of taking taking this insuficient public transport. The traffic caos could parcially resolved by: building more highllways , estimlating people to ride bikes and finally improving  the system of public transportation.

The first step to shrink the traffic caos is to built highaways and tunels. This is a interesting solution because ittakes the driver to the wanted direction or point, avoiding cars to get just a street or avenue to connect to their destin. For instance, Giovanni Gronchi is a very known street and the main one in Morumbi, because in most times it is the only option that people have to get to someplace in Morumbi. Because of its only two lanes, CET, the Brazilian Department of Motor Vehicles, goes every day  at 7:00  AM and  PM to Giovani to analize the unmovement cars, since most people must take it to go to interior city or to get the Tietê Marginal.

An unforgetable night

    It was July, 2005, and I was in Bournemouth, south of England, spending a month to study the country language. I was on a big group, with 30 friends and a teacher.

 One day, my friens and I were in a disco, named Opera House, the most famous disco of the town. The night was incredible, the music was amazing and the company was awsome. We danced and swinged a lot the ecletic hits of black music, eletronic, psy, and even Brazilian ones, such as Ivete Sangalo and Banda Eva. We also tried the variety of drinks and mixes of a foreign country. We met different people from other cultures and also made new friends. We enjoyed each second and we didn’t want to go home, because everything and all the details were new. However, as we were staying in host family, the mothers had imposed that we should be at home at 2:00.

   When we went out, it was windy and raining a lot, and we needed to get a taxi. So, tried to look for some cabs, but we couldn’t find anyone. Our clothes were totally wet and we were kind of lost. Seeing our situation, a strange man came trough our direction. He seemed to be 30 years old and his accent seemed to be from the arabia. His face wasn’t unkown, because he was also  the disco. He wanted to know if we needed a taxi, and asked one for us, because he had the number of the taxi center.

   While we were there waiting , we stared to talk with the strange man. So, the taxi arrived and my friends and I entered in it. However, suddenlly, the muslin man oppened the doors car, asking if he could go with us, due to his house was in the way of ours. At this moment , we felt something strange, since he didn’t know where we lived. But he begged a lot, and we agreed. In the way home he wanted to know all about our lives, such as where do we live, and what do we do. I was so nervous and frightened, that I wanted to arrive the fastest in my house, because it was the nearest one of the disco. About 15 minuts had passsed, and arrived home.When I left the car, I saw that the odd man also had dropped out it. He began to follow and then I asked:

” What are you doing here?”.

“I want to stay with you!”. The strange man added. This tme, my heart went out of my mouth . He was totally crazy. Fortunatly, the cab was in front of my house, waiting this scene to finish.  I said to him that he should go home and to leave me alone, because if he didn’t I would call the police. Finally, he agreed , but he wnated to know where my school was, because he was going to wait me in front of the school gate the day after. Of course, I lied to him the name of my school. As result, he went away.

  So, my parents have always taught me not to talk with strangers ,that I have to be aware, avoid being innocent, because  part of the word is made of strange , psycopatic and bad people. I never cared a lot about this advices until this incident happen. Now I understand their worries, I see that we are vunerable beens and that something worse could have happened at that night.