Favelas of Rio

The newspaper ran an article at the beginning of our trip that the 62 richest people in the world now have the same assets as the poorest HALF of the world.  This was one of the goals of our trip, I think I periodically need a reality check of what life really looks like for the majority of people in the world.  We were given a wonderful inside perspective into life in a Brazilian favela thanks to Jody with Favela Adventures.  Some would define a favela as a slum, Jody would say it is a community where the lower income folks have literally carved homes into the hillsides to take care of their families and each other.

Jody is interesting, he is a British guy who ran away to find sunshine and quickly upon arriving in Rio 3 years ago he learned he loves favelas.  He now lives in Rocinha, and is a tour guide to pay the bills and a community activist to help lift up the neighborhood.  Rocinha is the biggest favela of the 600 that exist in Rio, where nearly one third of the population or 2 million people live.  In the last 5 years they have been getting more government support here, it is now a bit of a hodge podge of ingenuity and infrastructure.  They have a nice paved road from the bottom to the top and a billion stairs to connect everything else, it is a maze of alleys and stairwells.  They have daily trash service and weekly fresh water delivery to fill their storage tanks.  But the construction, the water lines, sewer lines, electric service and internet has all been built by the people over decades.  You will see the insane electrical lines weaving from the light pole in our photo gallery.  They don’t own the land, but they do own their houses.

They use bright colors and graffiti art to bring joy to their neighborhood giving it the appearance of stacks of Legos at times.  But for me the joy was most evident on their faces.  Upon entering Jody told us don’t worry about theft here, feel welcome.  Thieves live here, yes, but they rob in the wealthy and tourist neighborhoods.  Not here, here this is family, everyone cares for each other, someone is always watching and it is incredibly safe.  And within 3 minutes of arrival Liam was adopted into the family.  On the first corner we met there was a grandma sitting there.  She hangs out on that corner most of the time.  In the favela only houses on the one official street have street addresses, so each address will receive mail for maybe a hundred households.  At this corner she took this opportunity and she sorts the mail for her alley and hands it out as people pass, and they pay her some money in return.  She loved Liam at the start and spent a good 5 minutes staring into his face, caressing his face and pinching his cheeks.  It was as if she was checking to see if he was real.  Then she shifted to caressing his hands, it was so cute.  Later on Liam met a Grandpa that also took a liking to him.  He made sure Liam knew that the two adorable girls up on the terrace overlooking us were available.  They responded with taking selfies with Liam in the background.  Jody is watching for them to pop up on Facebook.  Liam could have moved into welcome arms in Rocinha for sure!

We checked out a few community development initiatives; the church which hosts Jody’s growing English language school for young adults, Zezinho’s DJ school, and a small amphitheater where a group of guys teach capoeira to the kids.  Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art where martial arts, dance, music, and singing all blend into one.  It originated when slaves developed this fighting style to defend themselves from their owners, and then evolved as they would get caught fighting they would pretend they were dancing to stay out of trouble.  They gave us an impromptu show of a capoeira circle with a little Samba lesson at the end.  They were great! And once they saw Shia’s gymnastic skills they lit up with the joy of having someone to play around with.  Their joy was infectious and so many of these exuberant faces of enjoying the simple pleasures of life in the favela was exactly the soul food I love.  To remember that there is no link between joy and wealth.  Happiness is a choice and they choose well in Rocinha.

But not all is merry and bright.  Each favela has a gang that runs the show in the community.  Rocinha seems to have some trust in theirs.  They deal drugs, a lot of them.  But apparently the community doesn’t have a drug consumption problem, they are sold to the wealthy outside of the favela.  In a perfect world they wouldn’t have a gang at all, but as gangs go Rocinha ranks theirs high with regard to community respect, restricting membership from kids, not pushing drugs in the community, restraining from indiscriminate violence, and providing services and infrastructure for the community.  Another problem is that with the Olympics coming up we hear about the water quality in the ocean.  And yes, not all the favela sewer lines lead to treatment plants, some dump straight into the sea.  Hopefully the government will soon step up to that challenge.