Ok..let me answer tou in parts
1.Yes, you are right.....Brazil is a rich country when we talk about earh resouces but still poor economically speaking. We all think that people who has ruled this country made this situation like that. I live in a town of São Paulo state but in SP city, violence exists because of the economical situation and other facts, and Rio is worse. There are many slam houses in those big cities. I mentioned such resouces because it is true, the number of precious stones we had, now... not so many but we still do, and the dimension of lands we have here to plant is huge. The problem is.. country people`s life is not easy. They have moved to big cities and the other fact is... A man who plants...sells things very cheap to the other who sells to a market man more expensive...who sells to another ...more more expensive and so on. So... the man who plants, sometimes buys things very very expensive. More than he sold. Another thing, they separate better products for exportation and let us the worst to eat. Sometimes at a high price!
2.There are some Muslims, coming from Turkey, Syria, Lebanon etc..which are immigrants like the Italians, Japanese, German, etc.. But is not a big number compared to the other ones I said.
3. Carnival in São Paulo was also good. To tell you the true, I prefer the one in Bahia. It is more familar...if you understand me lol.
Sorry I did not understand the word CROXD?