Marcar 10 is slang for “chill for a minute”.
Example: Vou marcar 10 aqui antes de chegar em casa.
I”m going to chill here for a minute before going home.
For the majority of the 3 years I spent living in the favela, that’s all I thought that Guilherme ever did.
On any given day, if Guilherme wasn’t loitering outside a makeshift jiu-jitsu gym with a mismatched gi, you could probably find him chilling on the side of the street.
I mean it’s the favela, you can find a lot of people chilling on the street. Even I used to take 10 on the side of the street with the dealers because it was hot, my house was loud, and it turns out the sunny spot with an ocean view outside of my friend’s house was a prime tactical position for a lookout.
So for 3 years I never thought twice about Guilherme being posted up.
It wasn’t until this year that I realized Guilherme WASN’T chilling, he was waiting for work.
Had I been hip to the construction industry, I might have noticed that Guilherme wasn’t just posted up anywhere. It was generally on a pile of sand or gravel or whatever else it is you need to build a house.
So he would sit there, and he would wait until someone ordered some cement. Then he would pack bags of gravel and ascend into the labyrinth.
And that’s exactly what Guilherme and Buda are doing today to make sure they have food for tomorrow.
