Word: malandros
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...What makes the cult of the santos malandros stand out, however, is its moral ambiguity. Santiago Rondon, a "spiritual consultant" in La Pastora, one of the capital's oldest neighborhoods, describes the tradition as a windshield wiper swinging between good and not so good. "It goes this way and it goes that way," says Rondon. "One day the santos malandros help a desperate mother keep her child off drugs; the next day they help you score some cocaine. It's the duality of life, but that's the way real life functions." And there's always the danger, acknowledged...
...than a criminal. In El Guarataro, a shantytown in southeastern Caracas, those who knew him remember the time he raided a meat delivery truck and shared the bounty among his neighbors. "I was an errand boy," recalls Carlos Flores, 50. "He would steal, but he never killed. Today's malandro is mean - he will kill you for a pair of shoes. Ismael wasn't that way. He even helped my mother carry her grocery bags up the steep hill...
...strange. But when you have to walk up the steep, serpentine roads that are the only access to most of the poor hillside barrios that ring the city, after dark, hopping over open sewers, passing houses that have no running water or paved floors, the company of a dead malandro might seem comforting. It certainly beats pleading for your life with a living...
...prime, during the early 1990s, Romario was quick, slippery and deadly. He could make an inch of space seem like a mile, and he worked angles like Pythagoras. But, in true malandro spirit, the creativity he showed in and around the penalty box may have also been at work in his math when it came to counting goals. The Vasco da Gama striker has padded his tally with goals scored in youth matches, amateur games and friendlies (although there's no reason to believe reports that his 999 goals include those scored on his Playstation...
...turn out to see him search for that elusive Gol Mil. Expect an epic celebration when he does; if there is one thing Romario does even better than score goals, it's party - and this party town will be happy to provide the platform. After all, everyone loves a malandro...