Texto de Nancy de Lustoza Barros e Hirsch na revista para a comunidade de expatriados de língua inglesa no Rio de Janeiro. Para ver a revista na íntegra, clique aqui.
Hands down, it works!
The research about the open air urinal for men in the centre of the city started focusing on the observation that after its use, the person has nowhere to wash hands. Bye, bye, hygiene! Meanwhile, the installation is a real success: beggars and suits alike will wait on an orderly queue in front of it. But it is still a controversial loo. Does it smell? Some say yes, others say no. And what about spillage? Well…
Free of charge, boasting to be devoid of odours due to a special valve directly connected to the city’s wastepipes, installed near the busy central station (Estação Central do Brasil), the invention has no door, no roof and the legs of the user are not covered either. The Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, inaugurated it on February 26th, and he is very enthusiastic about it. The main idea is to prevent people from relieving themselves on the streets, especially during Carnival: this year, since the parades started, 800 were arrested by the police. Mind you, the offenders, bless the beer, included 5% of women!
Built out of steel, it favours security against privacy. It is easy to clean and supposedly resistant to vandalism. One of Dudu’s secretary added that the urban cleanliness company, Comlurb, will be responsible for the loo’s upkeep twice a day.
Praiseworthy initiative, however, as pointed the journalist Ancelmo Gois, the user has nowhere to wash/clean his hands. Polemic, controversy! And what would Dr. Oswaldo Cruz say about that? A great hygienist who instituted mandatory vaccination against smallpox and yellow fever in Rio de Janeiro around the 1910s, he would observe that, by urging the men’s population to use this sanitary urinal as is, the bacteria incidence will increase. One problem solved, another one appears.
Many will defend the project, arguing that it was based on the success of the similar ones in Amsterdam… Let us see: a place in Europe, where temperatures vary from -1° C to 22° C during the year, meaning that chances of bacteria proliferating are less if a guy doesn’t clean his hands there, compared to Rio de Janeiro’s 24° C media - basic Maths will tell us that chances of diseases in Rio are a little bit bigger… Another aspect: if, without the urinal at hand, people thought twice - one can only hope - before peeing on the streets, now that it is there the number of leakers will increase, right? Well, maybe soon we will have stimulated ambulant vendors offering disposable sanitary paper towels or envelopes with sanitizer gel for a modicum price. It has to be less than one real and fifty cents which is the entrance fee to the buildings with restrooms around the central station. Someone soon will make a cash profit of the whole situation. Luckily our imaginative Mayor will have litter bins installed nearby.
It has been noted by the photos divulged, that the reserved cubicle doesn’t have a bull’s eye at the correct place to direct the gush as in the Dutch original - in fact, a fly! Maybe Dudu’s team should give it a serious consideration and install it.
Another pearl of ingenuity is to be found in this story.
The metallic loo is called UFA!, as in a sigh of relief. It makes people guess what was created first: the acronym or the full name of Unidade Fornecedora de Alívio, that is, Relief Provider Unit. If BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) is how the bus transportation system is called in Rio, we could use RPU instead of UFA!s, since the pronunciation could be heard as “arrepio” (shivers). Nah, never mind, it is a bad joke.
Have you already formed an opinion about the formidable loo? Here comes more information: a three months try-out is in the municipality agenda. If approved, other UFA!s will be installed in strategic points of the city. After that, the ladies will receive the same gift, adapted to their gender, of course. Since there are a few women that have no qualms about peeing on the street without a shield, they will certainly welcome the loo as offered, even without a sink around.
Foto: R7
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