One week of the most unbearable torture waits. No clouds, no wind, just the Sun in its infinite glory burning us, and the Carnival polluting São Paulo’s already polluted streets. People pee in the streets, people poop in the streets, and as far as our eyes can see, there will be nothing but glitter, food packages and cans of soda or beer.

Two reasons to keep me locked inside my house during the weekend, something to which I’m deeply grateful, for it gives me the opportunity to write a new post for a job that generates no remuneration at all.

Another advantage is to go to the drugstore at 6 am. In theory, I could have enjoyed the empty streets on my way to the drugstore to buy painkillers for my menstrual cramps and chocolate with peanuts, but it seems that all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood had the same idea. What I saw of people walking with their dogs and going to the market or the bakery... Maybe even the delivery motorcycles aren’t delivering food.

On my streets, we have so many motorcycles passing all day long that I feel like living inside an auto school. Today, there are still a lot of them, but nothing compared to a Saturday with regular temperature.

And the worst part of this heat wave is not the sun keeping us locked up, but the night time. We can’t sleep with our windows open because of the violence, the price of an air conditioner is immensely expensive, and the energy bill that would come with the comfort would be as crazy as the price of the air conditioner itself.

The way I found to try to get some sleep was to take my pillow, my thin blanket and lie down on the floor in the hope of getting some rest. At least here in São Paulo, most houses have a “cold kind of floor” made with tiles. I don’t know if it’s cheaper, I just know that it is the type of floor I see inside the houses and establishments I visit - can’t speak for the rest of the country’s floors since I barely left this city in my entire life.

According to Grok (why use Google when Elon Musk’s AI is more effective?), this heat wave will last until March 5 or 6, a time when my will to live will have come to a minimum (there isn't sparkling water enough to help us all).

Anne Rios – Brazilian girl writing about Brazilian things

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