Little boxes, on the hillside....

... Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,

Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

That's the first part of a song by Malvinas Reynolds (for the rest, there are plenty of websites to go to). I asked my Mum about the little boxes when I was little, and she explained that it was about the people in the suburban housing developments, that all looked just the same. 

The lyrics are brilliant. They don't refer just to houses all looking just the same, but also to societies churning out people who go to the universities to all turn out just the same. 

But, for me in my childhood the image of little boxes all just the same didn't quite fit. I saw housing developments with houses that all looked similar, but were all slightly different, not the same. And, they weren't green, pink, blue and yellow (that would have been pretty), no, they were all beige and grey and off-white. 

But here in Brazil there are housing developments that fit my childhood image from the song. They are little boxes (quite small), they are all the same (not even different window framing or layout), and beside the green one there's a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one... And orange and purple too! 

If you don't know the song you should look for it on You Tube or somewhere like that, it's quite a statement. And yes, I know that some people (maybe you went to University) won't agree with the lyrics. 

Cheers.