The Stories Behind the Tweets, hosted by William Parra, seeks to open a window to the world, to get to the bottom of stories larger than 140 characters. This week we start out in the streets of Havana, just to get the flavor of the city that opened its arms to Spanish refugees a hundred years ago, and then swiftly travel to London, where we meet four of the many young people who are leaving Spain in droves today. College graduates, researchers, young people who were educated to get a good job now believe they have a better chance to get ahead almost anywhere else except in their home country. Then it’s on to Cape Verde, where the descendants of African slaves and European colonizers are now building a new culture, whose high point is Carnaval on the island of San Vicente. We are treated to magic, fantasy, surprise as we see how elaborate costumes and floats are prepared, and we get a glimpse of the Mandingas, who both open and close the festival every year. Or last stop is the desolate area known as ‘Crackland’ in Sao Paulo, where journalists with cameras aren’t welcome and any cabbie is a target for a crack cocaine addict looking for his next fix. We speak to several people who tell us they have lived in the area for years and are not sure why they lost everything—homes, jobs, families. ‘I think maybe it was the Devil who did it,” says a street dweller. The one bright spot is a project organized by a non governmental organization called Open Arms, which offers people a place to live who are trying to get their lives together and make a new start. teleSUR
