A fourth and last field report from the VU’s Master students, once again reposted from the Vamos Bien website. Martina Morbidini conducts research on informal waste collectors in Brazil, ‘catadores’ in Portuguese.
By Martina Morbidini Belo Horizonte is an egg, they say. It’s a huge city, yet everyone seems to know each other and happen to meet in the strangest situations, so that living here seems more like living in a huge village instead of in a city. As I arrived here, friendship ties left two years ago at an embryonic stage flourished as if it was ‘normal’. I found my current house by greeting a familiar face on the street, with the two of us not really 
knowing who the other was and why we knew each other. This city is full of beautiful, casual encounters.
So I ask myself why, in a city of 2.5 million people, ‘everyone’ seems to meet known people all the time, instead of giving the impression of being lost and surrounded by strangers all the time.
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