Come in, this is our home

While investigating the state of health and urban cleanliness in the small town of São João del-Rei (Minas Gerais, Brazil), the author walks the streets of the city from the poetic perspective of the flâneur. In the report on health, ＂You know what? I think we need to control the house from the inside,＂ readers gradually discover the reality faced by the various actors involved in the functioning of Brazilian public health: users, doctors, health agents, auditors, and public authorities present their versions of the facts. In ＂Dirty House,＂ a report on urban cleaning, the author follows the entire trajectory of garbage-from collection to disposal in the landfill-in order to understand why the historic city faces so many problems in relation to urban cleaning. The reports are permeated by the author’s poetic impressions, who adopts stylistic resources from New Journalism in this book. In addition to journalistic investigations, the book presents a particular view of the city’s daily practices.