Every so often in Brazil, people from the government decide that the price of a bus ticket has to go up. Like people of all ages anywhere else in the world, young Brazilians are never too happy about this. The difference is that they sometimes decide to express that unhappiness by fighting police in the streets and setting fire to buses. You can get a more in-depth primer on the Brazilian bus riots here. What follows is a report from the latest bus fare brouhaha, which took place on Monday, January 9th in a town called Teresina in the Brazilian state of Piauí.

I decided to join the protests taking place in Teresina (again) when the decision was made to increase bus fares from R$1.90 to R$2.10. The mayor attempted to excuse the rise by saying the tickets would be transferrable across different bus journeys. That’s bullshit, though, because even if you pay the first fare, you then have to pay half of the second fare on the next bus, too – that is, if you’re lucky enough to take the next bus within one hour. If you can’t, you have to pay the full price again.

When I got to Frei Serafim Avenue – known by demonstrators here as “Fire Serafim”, because it’s where the whole mess started to heat up last time – the situation was already tense.

The riot police were literally marching over demonstrators, who were peacefully blocking the street at the intersection with Pires de Castro Avenue. Things got violently and unnecessarily ugly, with protesters getting beaten up whilst showing no resistance, laying down and holding on to one another on the asphalt. They didn’t back down. They stayed there drawing courage from who knows where, eating pepper spray, snorting tear gas and eventually going home painted with rubber-bullet bruises.

As most of these protesters were getting beaten up, the scavenger-hunt teams from the other political parties delivered utopian speeches to the media at the next intersection. It took them some time to figure out their intellectual ideology was being practiced right down the street, and they eventually ran down to help. The anarcho-punks following the protest and some other people outraged by the slap-happy riot police were already throwing rocks at the officials when the rival politicians arrived.

Riot and military police had to back down when loads of people charged at them holding rocks.

It looked like it was going to be a nice day, and it really was (in Teresina, demonstrations usually start at 10AM and go on until 6PM). The anarchists/ independent/ non-partisan protesters are the majority in #contraOaumento (the name of this movement, which basically means #NoBusFareHike) and while I was around they were shouting at the United Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party of Brazil to fuck off. The political flag-loving gang was not very pleased with that, but they gave their interviews to local TV channels and followed their routine on trucks with loudspeakers, trying to gain attention for their movement and pretending to be the leaders of something that is obviously impossible to control. This river also had a third bank: Loads – looooaaaads – of policemen. Riot police, RONE (a special police unit), military police and even some undercover narcs proliferating among the protesters (you could tell they were undercover narcs because their disguises were so appalling – all wearing the same T-shirt and holding a little spy pen in their hands, glaring at people). But despite the police’s numbers were they able to stop demonstrators from blocking all of Frei Serafim Avenue’s intersections.

Just before dusk, while the protesters danced and punks moshed, some dark smoke appeared in the sky. Someone had set a bus on fire. Everyone ran towards the smoke, and that’s when the second part of the madness started.

(Photo by Gigi Leal)

The guys and gals from the political parties ran off when they saw the toasting vehicle, but the protesters didn’t leave with them – they stayed at Frei, even though it was past 6PM at this point.

The riot police were deployed to strike at a moment’s notice. “No one’s afraid of the pigs any more,” I heard some crazy, masked, black-clad anarcho-punk dude shouting. Earlier, I saw the same guy writing “2.10 is LARCENY” on the wall.

He was at least right about the ‘no fear’ part. The resistance that the demonstrators showed the riot police during the afternoon conflict had turned the military police into uniformed chickens and bags of cement. Also, the burning bus gave everyone a real thrill. From that point on, it would take a lot of beating and rubber bullets to get those young Teresinenses out of the streets, though the riot police were more than willing to help out in that respect. Check out their ammunition.

People tore down signs explaining why the buses had to suddenly become R$0.20 more expensive per-ride and threw them into the middle of Frei. Things were set on fire, and the chaos started to take shape.

It was then that a group brought down this ridiculous Christmas tree that is known as the “Big Ghost”. Essentially, it is (or was) just a giant white sheet on the outside with a hard metal structure on the inside. After the Big Ghost went down the area had a power outage because the “tree” was connected to high voltage power lines. Look, we have a video to prove that people in Brazil really do hate it when their bus rides get more expensive:

The police, who were totally up for kicking demonstrators’ asses, took advantage of the blackout situation and beat people up as much as they could. It was a complete battle, with rubber bullets flying everywhere and stun grenades being thrown even in front of a children’s hospital where some demonstrators were hiding. Protesters were hunted down like animals through the dark streets. This time, the anarchists had no choice but to run.

It was with unnecessary blood and police brutality that the fourth day of protests began and ended at Frei Serafim Avenue. Demonstrators said, “There’s more for tomorrow,” which proved to be true. When we checked in yesterday, they were back on the streets stopping the city’s traffic and getting ready for the sun to go down.