"Das Land", 200X100, Milton Camilo

Do Rio para Wuppertal

Eu vim para a Alemanha por uma só razão: a liberdade. Mas, eu não "deixei" o Rio para sempre. Mantenho a ligação ao meu país natal, visitando frequentemente, e me mantendo atualizado sobre política de lá.
Germany, Western Europe

Story by Milton Camilo. Translated by Joana Fedato
Published on July 5, 2020.

This story is also available in GB fr it



Eu vim para a Alemanha por uma só razão: a liberdade. A vida tem valor aqui; ela contadiferente do Brasil, onde só em 2017, 63.880 pessoas morreram por causa da criminalidade[1]. Na Alemanha, parece que há mais valor na vida. Aqui não se morre por causa dos sapatos que se usam; muito pelo contrário.  

Por exemplo, tem um morador de rua na rua do caminho do meu trabalho em Wuppertal (Alemanha), a quem eu sempre dou um pouco de dinheiro. Outro dia, não tinha dinheiro comigo, e disse: "Desculpe, hoje não tenho nada comigo". Um segundo depois, o homem correu atrás de mim e quis me dar todo o dinheiro que tinha recolhido nesse dia. Ele pensou que eu é que precisava de dinheiro nesse dia.  

Sou de um bairro da classe trabalhadora do Rio, e quando era criança, nunca imaginei sair do Brasil. Sou muito chegado à minha mãe, à minha casa e ao meu bairro. Porém, quando tinha cerca de 19 anos, frequentei uma Escola de Ballet. Isto confirmou para os meus vizinhos o que eles já suspeitavam: eu era homossexual (embora, na minha opinião, eu me apaixono pelas pessoas, independentemente do sexo). Nesta altura, eu vivia sozinho com a minha mãe numa casa. Uma manhã, alguém tentou invadir a casa. Ele disse que queria "a coisa mais valiosa da casa": ele queria me estuprar.

A minha mãe gritou. Ela viu os vizinhos assistindo passivamente e gritou os seus nomes, até que eles se sentiram culpados e vieram ajudar. O intruso fingiu estar apenas bêbado e começou a sair, mas quando os vizinhos saíram, ele se virou, olhou para mim e disse: "Eu volto para te buscar".

O meu mundo estava desmoronando. Eu tinha medo de caminhar para qualquer lado. Isto continuou durante vários meses, até que um dia, um personagem muito peculiar do nosso bairro gostou de mim. Quando lhe contei sobre o intruso, ele disse: "Não se preocupe, eu cuido disso". Eu não entendi. Alguns dias depois, ele veio com um carro e matou o meu agressor, durante o dia, na frente de todos. Ainda assim, senti que precisava fugir.

Durante esta fase, tomei conhecimento sobre "Ausdruckstanz"[2] na Alemanha. Participei de um workshop com dois dançarinos alemães. Eles me disseram que eu tinha um verdadeiro potencial, e que deveria ir à Alemanha para aprender mais sobre Ausdruckstanz. Dois anos mais tarde, quando tinha 27 anos, mudei-me para a Alemanha, para aprender dança contemporânea e experimentar uma "vida mais livre"[3]. Encontrei na Alemanha um lugar onde as vidas individuais são valorizadas, e onde me sinto seguro—um mundo longe da minha infância no Rio.

Mas, eu não "deixei" o Rio para sempre. Mantenho a ligação ao meu país natal, visitando frequentemente, e me mantendo atualizado sobre política de lá. Embora o progresso seja lento, tenho esperança de que o Brasil esteja melhorando. As pessoas estão fartas da corrupção e da injustiça do governo. Além disso, o Rio vive dentro de mim, na minha dança e na minha arte. Para mim, a dança e a arte são uma expressão de liberdade: um meio para as pessoas transcenderem a política e a opressão, seja no Brasil ou na Alemanha.  


Notas

[1] https://www.diepresse.com/5478130/mordrate-in-brasilien-erreicht-neue-hohen

[2] Dança expressiva

[3] Se você quer conhecer a minha arte e os meus projetos de dança, confira em: http://www.miltoncamilo.de/index.php


How does this story make you feel?

Follow-up

Do you have any questions after reading this story? Do you want to follow-up on what you've just read? Get in touch with our team to learn more! Send an email to
[email protected].

Talk about this Story

Please enable cookies to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Share your story

Every story we share is another perspective on a complex topic like migration, gender and sexuality or liberation. We believe that these personal stories are important to better understand what's going on in our globalised society - and to better understand each other. That's because we are convinced that the more we understand about each other, the easier it will be for us to really talk to one another, to get closer - and to maybe find solutions for the issues that affect us all. 

Do you want to share your story? Then have a look here for more info.

Share Your Story

Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter

Stay up to date with new stories on Correspondents of the World by subscribing to our monthly newsletter:

* indicates required

Follow us on Social Media

Milton Camilo

Milton Camilo

Photo Credits: Suilian Richon

Hey, I am Milton Camillo. I am a 50-year-old Afro-Brazilian dancer and artist from Rio who emigrated to Germany more than 20 years ago. I am currently living in Wuppertal and focusing on my paintings. Within them, you can often find a certain sense of melancholy, a grasp of what is described by the Portuguese word “Saudade”. With my paintings, I am breaking up the normalized structures that have been taken for granted by the grown-ups in comparison to children, where everything is still fluid and possible. In that sense, they can definitely be understood politically.

Other Stories in Português do Brasil




Show all

Get involved

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

Share Your Story

Community Worldwide

Correspondents of the World is not just this website, but also a great community of people from all over the world. While face-to-face meetings are difficult at the moment, our Facebook Community Group is THE place to be to meet other people invested in Correspondents of the World. We are currently running a series of online-tea talks to get to know each other better.

Join Our Community

EXPLORE TOPIC Migration

Global Issues Through Local Eyes

We are Correspondents of the World, an online platform where people from all over the world share their personal stories in relation to global development. We try to collect stories from people of all ages and genders, people with different social and religious backgrounds and people with all kinds of political opinions in order to get a fuller picture of what is going on behind the big news.

Our Correspondents

At Correspondents of the World we invite everyone to share their own story. This means we don't have professional writers or skilled interviewers. We believe that this approach offers a whole new perspective on topics we normally only read about in the news - if at all. If you would like to share your story, you can find more info here.

Share Your Story

Our Editors

We acknowledge that the stories we collect will necessarily be biased. But so is news. Believing in the power of the narrative, our growing team of awesome editors helps correspondents to make sure that their story is strictly about their personal experience - and let that speak for itself.

Become an Editor

Vision

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

View Our Full Vision & Mission Statement

Topics

We believe in quality over quantity. To give ourselves a focus, we started out to collect personal stories that relate to our correspondents' experiences with six different global topics. However, these topics were selected to increase the likelihood that the stories of different correspondents will cover the same issues and therefore illuminate these issues from different perspectives - and not to exclude any stories. If you have a personal story relating to a global issue that's not covered by our topics, please still reach out to us! We definitely have some blind spots and are happy to revise our focus and introduce new topics at any point in time. 

Environment

Discussions about the environment often center on grim, impersonal figures. Among the numbers and warnings, it is easy to forget that all of these statistics actually also affect us - in very different ways. We believe that in order to understand the immensity of environmental topics and global climate change, we need the personal stories of our correspondents.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender is the assumption of a "normal". Unmet expectations of what is normal are a world-wide cause for violence. We hope that the stories of our correspondents will help us to better understand the effects of global developments related to gender and sexuality, and to reveal outdated concepts that have been reinforced for centuries.

Migration

Our correspondents write about migration because it is a deeply personal topic that is often dehumanized. People quickly become foreigners, refugees - a "they". But: we have always been migrating, and we always will. For millions of different reasons. By sharing personal stories about migration, we hope to re-humanize this global topic.

Liberation

We want to support the demand for justice by spotlighting the personal stories of people who seek liberation in all its different forms. Our correspondents share their individual experiences in creating equality. We hope that for some this will be an encouragement to continue their own struggle against inequality and oppression - and for some an encouragement to get involved.

Education

Education is the newest addition to our themes. We believe that education, not only formal but also informal, is one of the core aspects of just and equal society as well as social change. Our correspondents share their experiences and confrontations about educational inequalities, accessibility issues and influence of societal norms and structures. 

Corona Virus

2020 is a year different from others before - not least because of the Corona pandemic. The worldwide spread of a highly contagious virus is something that affects all of us in very different ways. To get a better picture of how the pandemic's plethora of explicit and implicit consequences influences our everyday life, we share lockdown stories from correspondents all over the world.

Growing Fast

Although we started just over a year ago, Correspondents of the World has a quickly growing community of correspondents - and a dedicated team of editors, translators and country managers.

94

Correspondents

112

Stories

56

Countries

433

Translations

Contact

Correspondents of the World is as much a community as an online platform. Please feel free to contact us for whatever reason!

Message Us

Message on WhatsApp

Call Us

Joost: +31 6 30273938