RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A party held by residents of the Jardim Coqueiral community in the Cajueiro Seco neighborhood of Jaboatão dos Guararapes, state of Pernambuco, celebrated a very unusual birthday. Featuring a three-story cake, sweets, and soda, the group “celebrated the anniversary” of a massive pothole in the street Rua Nova Esperança. According to them, it’s been twenty years without a solution.
In the video, one of the residents recounts the pothole’s “experiences”: “My friends, we’re here to celebrate twenty years of this pothole’s history. It accompanied us since we were kids, saw Brazil becoming a five-time [FIFA World Cup] champion and was here when Brazil had its first woman as president. It saw Michael Jackson die,” he says, while listing the mayors elected in the municipality.
The action was organized as a form of protest, and the video was sent to TV Globo‘s WhatsApp. “We wanted to denounce the situation. We decided to do something that drew everyone’s attention, and each one offered an idea,” says Jefferson Lopes, 24, also stating that “Happy Birthday” was sung on Sunday, August 25th.
Jefferson has lived on Rua Nova Esperança since he was born and explains that a broken drain on the street further aggravates the situation on the road, which has water at shin level. As this is an open-air pothole, the number of mice showing up at the site has also increased, he said.
Residents explain that during these twenty years, the Companhia Pernambucana de Saneamento (Pernambuco Sanitation Company – COMPESA) has been there three times, but has never solved the problem.
“We brought the community together and decided to sing happy birthday. We threw a party for neglect. The aim was to spread the word on social media to see if they would fix it,” says Jefferson.
COMPESA announced, through a note, that it does not operate the sewage collection network on the street, but that “there is a leak in the water supply network that has already been diagnosed by the company’s technicians.” According to the company, the repair is “of a complex nature” and steps are already being taken, with plans to carry out the repair by Wednesday, August 29th.