I´ve come to a city with white cabs and black faces, red beans and tanned rice. The nights are the color of streetlights shining on smiling faces. Waiting and watching under a strong sun bleaches the days. The 35-cent coconuts grow in purchase from green to the paler shades of flesh and sweet water. The buildings look their age, with varying hues of paint peeling from buildings more proudly than the plain skin from much-handled onions. Beige-bricked shanties are too expensive for some, so rusted nails mix with sotted wood to form shacks. This was once a great city to colonial eyes, the capital of this rich colony. For the slaves who powered it, Salvador was a waypoint in hell. It now claims its riches from the spirit of those 70% of residents visibly descended from slavery. Slaves couldn´t copyright samba, forro, or capoeira, but they apparently bequeathed an inimitable soul to the city.
This spirit, this soul doesn´t win enough visitors to feed or house all the children or, for that matter, all the adults. So, too, wales the spirit of need. Kids beg, at first in the normal tone of a question, and, upon refusal, dramatically switch to the distended syllables of a plea. Hustlers at the same time kind and forceful push blessing bracelets and protective jewelry; buying one and loudly displaying it is the only protection from the other venders. Couples partner in the collection of cans thrown on the street. Hear the fall of the can on the street, locate, crush, bend over, pick up, place in bag. Just tonight, the poor husband was left to an angry and tired wife. She sat and pointed out cans for him to collect. Just when he´d finish a round and come back, she would point out one that he missed, just as a mother might note the spot in the bathtub missed in her son´s scrubbing. Trinkets are everywhere and are shaken at the passerby to garner attention. Many look, but few seem to buy. Rent-to-own stores whisper usurious but hopeful promises of newness. The usual bustle of grocery markets rings loudly in their absence. And, of course, there are the furtive gestures and loud, striking words of property crime--´´assalto,´´ ´´dineirho,´´ ´´camera.´´
It is this reputation for property crime that compelled my guidebook, my hostel manager, and several actual guides (who, spotting me from a mile away, offered all sorts of advice that they mistakenly hoped would not be free) to discourage gringos from taking the walk that I did this morning. I went to the Cidade Baixa (the low city) and walked about 5 miles to a famous church. I, of course, knew that the walk was discouraged, but a good walk leads itself, and I simply follow. After all, the worst that could happen was that someone would take the $15 in my pocket. If he (I´ve not heard of female muggers) were particularly sharp, they might grab the $10 from my right sock. It´s nothing personal, so I don´t much fear the emotion dimensions of robbery.
Whatever small risk in money was worth it. I ate a wonderful lunch in a spot that sees ´muito pouco´ (very few) gringos. I drank a coconut with the lovely family that sold it to me from the inside of a bare-walled building unfurnished but for the coconuts, the cooler, a few chairs, one table, and the blanket and makeshift child´s bed on the floor. The father Davy asked me whether it´s possible for Brazilians to make it and work legally in the U.S. His wife Alinni hacked the coconuts open for other customers. Their son, Matheus ran around with the curiousity of any 15 month-old. Their cousin RosaMary invited me to a particularly cool festival tomorrow (though I doubt I´ll go) and asserted, while asking her cousin to buy her another beer, that she was wonderful company.
After these nice people encounters, I had another 3 miles to go. I perceived, true or not, lots of stares, but nothing malicious. There were a couple points, though, when there were few people around and I felt a bit of fear. But, I made it safely to my church. Inside, the left wall was decorated with the picture titled ´´The Death of the Just´´ in which the dying man was surrounded by angels and loved ones. Opposite this was ´´The Death of the Sinner,´´ which prominently featured some horned creatures. And, at the head of the church, Jesus hung in all his pale glory, as white as I am. Turns out that on the far side of fear lies a white Jesus. For Christians, that may be poignant, but to my literal eyes, it was funny. The scene stripped any doubt about the emergence of black syncretic religions.
Later on that night, after a safe return to the confines of the tourist world, I went to the fourth night of the week-plus long festival of Sao Joao (St. John) of Bahia. The festival is a huge street party enveloping the whole of the downtown area with live music (four or five different stages), street food of all types, plenty of alcohol, families, young people, and the aged. It is a good time for all. People dance, preferably together, but alone as well. Whatever strange ignorance allows me to wander through dangerous parts of cities doesn´t translate into the ability to easily ask strangers to dance. I´d like to think part of it is just timidity because I don´t know these particular dances, but it´s really deeper than that. I have to will myself to the question in a way that I rarely have to do for other things. So, after much waiting and strategically targeting girls (making sure they´re not with a boyfriend, etc.), I ask. The first girl isn´t from the area and doesn´t know. A half hour passes and I get a drink. In line, I met some women from the area. One spent a couple minutes teaching me the basics and then encouraged me to ´´train´´ on the other girls nearby. I didn´t. I did manage to fall in with a group of older women and learn the basics of another step. But, mostly, I stood and watched, enjoying as best as I could a complacent gaze into the looming face of a silly but firm fear.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Going to a Go-Go...
The Rio program is over. It's a time for goodbyes--they're leaving and I'm staying (another month in Brazil before going to Bolivia). Physically, these are the goodbyes of warm embraces, awkward hugs, hearty handshakes, half-credible “keep in touch” utterances, and the "I didn't get a chance to see…before I left" refrains. Emotionally, these are the goodbyes that leave the left party stripped of his blanket in the middle of a autumn night--it's not cold enough to shiver, but it's too cold to sleep the whole night through. Electronically, these are the goodbyes that keep me checking e-mail and Facebook neurotically for some sign of that something in the cosmos acknowledges my existence. Unforgettably, these are the goodbyes that contain one goodbye that came far too soon.
There's an old phrase from my teenage years that goes "game recognize game." It basically means that people with particular affinities or characteristics can spot other similar folks with relative ease, without working at it. Most often, it's used with regards to some particular competence. For example, a writer might recognize the strength in someone else's words, a visiting cook in the host's own culinary magic, or a nurse in the web of comfort spun around a patient by a colleague. I like to use the phrase in another way as well, instead referring to the sympathetic ways two individuals play the broader game of life. The sensation is not a matter simply of acknowledging shared interests, but rather something baser and more basic, something instinctual. It's knowledge without thinking, acquaintance without introduction, admiration without experience. And it runs both ways.
In this latter sense of the term, recognition occurs only rarely. Most of our friendships or acquaintances involve acclimation to the other through the slow revelation of common ground made through repeated exposure to one another (such as is afforded by work or school). But, when recognition happens, lightning strikes a cloudless sky.
Well, recognition happened somewhere within the last two weeks. But it did so without the ability to consummate--the two souls never had a chance to dance anything more than bits and pieces of songs. The memory of the synchronized steps inspires and haunts. For there is someone to dance with, but she rests in a place where the bands don't play Samba.
There's an old phrase from my teenage years that goes "game recognize game." It basically means that people with particular affinities or characteristics can spot other similar folks with relative ease, without working at it. Most often, it's used with regards to some particular competence. For example, a writer might recognize the strength in someone else's words, a visiting cook in the host's own culinary magic, or a nurse in the web of comfort spun around a patient by a colleague. I like to use the phrase in another way as well, instead referring to the sympathetic ways two individuals play the broader game of life. The sensation is not a matter simply of acknowledging shared interests, but rather something baser and more basic, something instinctual. It's knowledge without thinking, acquaintance without introduction, admiration without experience. And it runs both ways.
In this latter sense of the term, recognition occurs only rarely. Most of our friendships or acquaintances involve acclimation to the other through the slow revelation of common ground made through repeated exposure to one another (such as is afforded by work or school). But, when recognition happens, lightning strikes a cloudless sky.
Well, recognition happened somewhere within the last two weeks. But it did so without the ability to consummate--the two souls never had a chance to dance anything more than bits and pieces of songs. The memory of the synchronized steps inspires and haunts. For there is someone to dance with, but she rests in a place where the bands don't play Samba.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Four favelas, three days, two bubbles, one night...
(Sorry for the delay in posting. As you'll see, I had a lot of material to put together).
I remember telling a friend that I would be going to Bolivia, which, depending on the count, is either the poorest or second poorest country in South America. He responded, quite hilariously, "Damn, Kev, you really love poverty." He's right (at least in certain ways…). And Brazil has been quite the paramour.
I have spent a fair portion of three of the last seven days in favelas. These neighborhoods loom as caricature, almost as "the ghetto" does in our U.S. context: It's a place you generally don't go unless you have to; they are wretched places of misery and violence; bad people, or trapped people, live there; buildings are unfinished, unsound, and ugly. One can almost imagine a young child being persuaded to act right by a threat of getting dropped off in the middle of the favela and being left to find his way home--it's like a deadly and magical forest, the haunts of ghouls and beasts.
This caricature obscures the very real daily life of millions of people who come and go and live and die and lust and love and cry and laugh. Life may be as ordinary and as predictable as the dualities I used in the last sentence. People persist.
Nonetheless, I am interested to see what becomes normal, acceptable, and unremarkable. It is the clash between normalities that reveals particular ways of life to be produced and mutable, not natural or inevitable. Things can go other ways.
So, what sense have I of what is normal in the favelas? Not much. Parts of three days isn't a whole lot of time to get a sense of anything. But, I'll relay my impressions and perhaps reveal something in so doing.
Two of the three visits were daytime visits. We had destinations and guides and scheduled stops. The first daytime visit was to an organization called Acao Comunitaria (literally, Community Action). This serves as a neighborhood center for youths and adults. Young girls learn ballet. Older boys break dance. Teenagers while away time on computers. Adult women design clothes and learn the skills needed to sell them. Kids can head to the small library to do research. Kids of all ages learn capoeira (the Brazilian dance/martial art). Folks know one another. It's a friendly place.
Acao Comunitaria is a bit of an island in the favela. The front entrance gate is locked and opened only when someone known is coming in or going out. The police, who will randomly raid the favelas with guns blazing (it's war…), do not conduct raids there. The drug corporations do not interfere with their activities. More "reputable" corporations and foundations sponsor it. The computers came courtesy of Canada, the classroom a gift from Coke. The government chips in some. In the view of all, the organization is well-respected. The staff, the volunteers, and the participants all love it. The scene is filled with teasing and easy laughter. Here, a Child is tended.
But, if it is an island, it is only a short swim from the mainland. Money is tough. As always seems to be the case for grassroots sorts of non-profits, funding is never stable or secure. The staff is constantly writing grants. In lean years, certain programs have to be cut and fewer folks served. More dramatically, many of the kids who've at some point been part of Acao Comunitaria have died in the drug-related violence. When this happens, the center closes for a day or two for mourning and recuperation. It then opens it doors again and the tide rises and currents sweep out to sea those who fish for hope or happiness.
The second daytime visit was led by a kindly and talkative man who worked for a company imaginatively called "Favela Tours." This company was founded in 1992 by an Argentinian who had come to Rio and lived in the favelas for some time. The company builds relationships with certain favelas to make it safe for guided tours. Part of the proceeds from the tours helps to support a local community center, similar in substance to, but much, much smaller than, Acao Comunitaria. Our group of 18 hopped into two separate vans. The kindly man used a microphone and fed us all sorts of information that would be interesting to a "socially conscious" tourist. We heard of the education system, the migration to the cities, the mandatory voting provisions, the attempts at affirmative action, urban growth control, expanding infrastructure to favelas, the history of the drug corporations, the projects of the new mayor, and the gap between rich and poor.
We went first to one of the smaller favelas in Rio. Villa Canoas has been touted as a "model" of favela development. It started when workers at the local golf course grew tired of commuting so far every day and decided to live closer to work. They picked a plot of land that happened to be right across the street from nice homes with plant-covered walls too high to see over (I don't know how they managed to hold onto that land…it wasn't "bought" through proper channels). A street--not even a very big one--is all that separates the people who work at the golf club and live in the favela from the people who belong to the golf club and wish the favela weren't there (you know, property values). No drugs are sold in this favela because the drug corporations have not allowed it. They want buyers to go to a different, more-fortified favela nearby. The only violence here is petty crime.
We were planning to stop at the company-sponsored community center, but another tour group was there. So, we went up the hill a bit, got out, and bought a refreshing beverage from a local bar-tender. Then, we wound our way through the interior of the favela. At their widest, the streets in this favela accommodate two adults side-by-side. A surprising courtyard held an old slide and just enough room to draw in chalk boxes for a skipping game. There's always enough room for dog crap. There's no discernable plan to the layout. This is a place that is not meant for outsiders, instead founded on a knowledge that immediately marks a person as a neighbor or as a stranger. Everyone greeted our guide with smiles--the little girls threw in some kisses for good measure. Space is tight. Buildings grow up, designed and built by the hands of residents who work in the construction industry. Some of the stucco exteriors were adorned with shards of glass and tile reclaimed from the local trash dump and arranged into comely mosaics. As the tour guide pointed out, himself engaged in the battle against caricature, the residents lack neither intelligence or skill.
We saw some things that led some of my classmates to wonder what is so bad about favela life. Some homes had satellite dishes. One man was smoking weed while sitting in front of a 30-inch flat-screen TV in a nicely furnished interior. One woman who had walked by had gone to college. It apparently shocked some people that poverty can have its luxuries, that it is not wrought wholly of deprivation.
Though they didn't mention their surprise until well after the guide had left us back in Copacabana, the guide gave us some information that explains the variation when I piece it together. Buying a nice TV is a much less costly proposition than buying a good education. And, the difference between living in a favela and living in non-favela housing is a significant. So, people may not have enough money to move out, but some may be able to save enough make their favela home nice. Thus, there is a realm of consumables that are available to favela residents. Other consumables, those that tend to be more empowering (education) or safer (non-favela neighborhoods), are largely out of reach. Just because favela life can be decent does not mean that people wouldn't move out if given the opportunity. Nor, I suspect, does it mean that my classmates would be willing to live there.
We eventually ended up at the company-sponsored community center. A sympathetic Italian-descended family had given money to build and run the center. Other local businesses now help out. The center was nice. We bought some handicrafts. One of my classmates played soccer with some of the kids. There were computers. Having wrapped up our tour of the "nice" favela, we were to head off to Rocinha, the biggest favela in Rio.
Rocinha houses anywhere between 60,000 and 100,000 people. It is a city within a city, governed by rules that are partly shaped by resident organizations and partly by the drug corporations who control the favela. During the rainy season, flash floods and hill slides cause destruction and some death. On this day, police had started a major operation in the favela. Helicopters were flying above. The entrance was barricaded, so we could not go in as had been hoped for and planned (the company does not give refunds if it is unable to take a group into Rocinha…the consumer assumes the risk of a police operation because it happens so often). We watched from afar, on a walkway constructed to allow residents to cross over the busy street. The walkway, fashioned from metal lattice scaffolding, swayed with the weight of its human burden. Yes, the people who later said that favela life wasn't so bad were here. I don't know if they were paying attention.
Now, finally to the part that will be the most frightening. Mothers and grandparents and aunts may wish to stop reading here…………………
So, I was out at a three-stoy club last Friday night with about 40 other Americans from the program. The ground-floor restaurant-style area was crowned by two floors of music. On the second floor was a live band playing "pagode," a type of Brazilian music. On the third floor was a DJ spinning mostly American music, r&b, hip hop, techno, and the like. The Americans grew tired of the live band and went upstairs for the familiar. I stayed on the second floor. Within five minutes, I was in a half-English, half-Portuguese conversation with a group of six young Brazilian guys in their early twenties. After some nice conversation and laughs, they invited me out to a party on Saturday night. This sort of party is called "Baile Funk" (pronounced buy-lee fun-kee) and it was to take place in the birthplace of Brazilian funk music--the favelas of Rio.
Well, I was a little mistrustful at first, as I didn't know why these guys were being so friendly. But, after hanging out for a while, I figured I could trust them. I left the club with an address and a phone number to call the next day to work out all the details.
Now, favelas are places to which non-residents rarely go. In fact, the only non-residents who go regularly into the favelas are wealthy folks who want to buy drugs, the police who seek to raid them, and do-gooders who work there. Gringos (which here just means non-Brazilians) don't go there. So, knowing that I could go where no gringo has gone before (I know that's probably not totally true, but let me have my drama…), I resolved to go. I called up my buddy Will, who was born in Brazil, raised in the U.S., and speaks Portuguese . We recruited two other cool, low-key folks from our program so that we could fill a cab. The few others we did invite didn't want to go--the one or two people who would have gone weren't enough to fill a second cab. Word slowly spread through the program what we were doing, and almost everyone thought it crazy. That just made us more excited. So, after paying a visit to the American party of the night and leaving a rough sense of our destination with a trusted friend who was staying behind, we left.
The cab ride took us through some rough areas--the border streets of favelas--but dropped us off on a well-lighted strip of restaurants and shops. Nothing scary. My Brazilian buddies from the club met us there and walked with us up the hill (remember, favelas are often built on the hillsides). We met up with some more of their friends in a big apartment complex. Then, we walked to the far end of the apartment complex and encountered a high wall with a white door in it. We went through and walked into a noticeably different world.
The buildings were light brownish bricks covered in places by stucco. Tagging marks were everywhere. Motor scooters whizzed by, honking horns to order the pedestrians out of the way (there's no pedestrian right of way here). People were kickin' it on the sidewalks outside of the many small bars and fried fish joints. Street vendors were hawking salty pastries, beer, liquor, and cakes, with nearly every inch of each side of the street occupied. I didn't see my first gun for at least five minutes. I wouldn't see my last gun until hopping in the cab at about 4:30 a.m.
Walking up the hill a little ways, we arrived at the party spot. One "dance floor" was a courtyard, probably used during the day for blacktop soccer matches. The other "dance floor" was just up the hill where the road turns in switchback style. Here, I saw a wall of speakers, at least 15 feet high and 30 feet wide. The speakers were hooked up to the nearest light pole. This was not the first thing that would make me think that here I was to see something like the early days of Hip Hop.
The girls were gorgeous, but strictly off limits. My Brazilian friends and guides told us that guys do not dance with girls they do not know. This reserve is needed to avoid beef with potential boyfriends.
People had fun in different ways. Some drank beer and whatever liquor was being poured. Clouds of weed smoke hung in the air. Some people had droplet bottles and were putting a few drips of god-knows-what into Red Bull (Oma and Grandpa, Red Bull is just a non-alcoholic energy drink that can be bought from any grocery or convenience store). For my part, I didn't do anything more experimental than try mixing some Red Bull into my beer. Save your taste buds the adventure.
All this drinking makes a person have to pee. The guys went into a little shack and pee'd on walls, which had a two-inch "trough" at the bottom. I didn't give much thought to what the girls did.
So, the night went on, the music picked up, the throngs poured in. A woman hanging her laundry out watched from a rooftop just a bit up the hill. There were at least 300 more feet of favela-laden hillside above us--we entered only the bottom portion. The longer the night went on--meaning the more intoxicating substances folks had consumed--the more guns came out. I saw assault rifles, machine guns, single-barreled shotguns, double-barreled shotguns, chrome plated pistols, and ordinary black pistols. We must have left too early to see the rocket launchers.
At first, we'd see only the occasional dude walking around with a gun in hand. By the end of the night, small columns of armed men would parade around rhythmically in semi-formed lines with their guns raised in the air or hung off their shoulders. The size of your gun appeared to be connected to your status. One of my Brazilian friends saw one of his friends there. The new dude came over and let my friend hold his pistol. My friend proudly put it in pocket and tucked his shirt just right so that onlookers could see the gun tucked into his waist. Gun ownership is illegal in Brazil. But these folks obviously have a firm belief in their right to bear arms.
Here, massive armament made some sense, as it did for the Cold War containment strategy. The great minds figured out that if everyone has enough firepower to blow everyone else up (at least in terms of nuclear war), nobody will use it. So it went here. I felt perfectly safe the entire night. In fact, I perceived fewer strange stares in the favela than I do riding the metro or walking along the beach.
Now on to the dancing. I didn't do much of it, but many of the guys don't. Baile funk is mostly about the girls dancing provocatively. The music is drum heavy. The thump aids the sense of trance.
Entranced and enchanted, I had a wonderful night. Part of it was the fun atmosphere. Part of it was the sense that we did something that few others do. This was exotic to me, but to my Brazilian friends, to the people who live here, this was a normal Saturday night.
I remember telling a friend that I would be going to Bolivia, which, depending on the count, is either the poorest or second poorest country in South America. He responded, quite hilariously, "Damn, Kev, you really love poverty." He's right (at least in certain ways…). And Brazil has been quite the paramour.
I have spent a fair portion of three of the last seven days in favelas. These neighborhoods loom as caricature, almost as "the ghetto" does in our U.S. context: It's a place you generally don't go unless you have to; they are wretched places of misery and violence; bad people, or trapped people, live there; buildings are unfinished, unsound, and ugly. One can almost imagine a young child being persuaded to act right by a threat of getting dropped off in the middle of the favela and being left to find his way home--it's like a deadly and magical forest, the haunts of ghouls and beasts.
This caricature obscures the very real daily life of millions of people who come and go and live and die and lust and love and cry and laugh. Life may be as ordinary and as predictable as the dualities I used in the last sentence. People persist.
Nonetheless, I am interested to see what becomes normal, acceptable, and unremarkable. It is the clash between normalities that reveals particular ways of life to be produced and mutable, not natural or inevitable. Things can go other ways.
So, what sense have I of what is normal in the favelas? Not much. Parts of three days isn't a whole lot of time to get a sense of anything. But, I'll relay my impressions and perhaps reveal something in so doing.
Two of the three visits were daytime visits. We had destinations and guides and scheduled stops. The first daytime visit was to an organization called Acao Comunitaria (literally, Community Action). This serves as a neighborhood center for youths and adults. Young girls learn ballet. Older boys break dance. Teenagers while away time on computers. Adult women design clothes and learn the skills needed to sell them. Kids can head to the small library to do research. Kids of all ages learn capoeira (the Brazilian dance/martial art). Folks know one another. It's a friendly place.
Acao Comunitaria is a bit of an island in the favela. The front entrance gate is locked and opened only when someone known is coming in or going out. The police, who will randomly raid the favelas with guns blazing (it's war…), do not conduct raids there. The drug corporations do not interfere with their activities. More "reputable" corporations and foundations sponsor it. The computers came courtesy of Canada, the classroom a gift from Coke. The government chips in some. In the view of all, the organization is well-respected. The staff, the volunteers, and the participants all love it. The scene is filled with teasing and easy laughter. Here, a Child is tended.
But, if it is an island, it is only a short swim from the mainland. Money is tough. As always seems to be the case for grassroots sorts of non-profits, funding is never stable or secure. The staff is constantly writing grants. In lean years, certain programs have to be cut and fewer folks served. More dramatically, many of the kids who've at some point been part of Acao Comunitaria have died in the drug-related violence. When this happens, the center closes for a day or two for mourning and recuperation. It then opens it doors again and the tide rises and currents sweep out to sea those who fish for hope or happiness.
The second daytime visit was led by a kindly and talkative man who worked for a company imaginatively called "Favela Tours." This company was founded in 1992 by an Argentinian who had come to Rio and lived in the favelas for some time. The company builds relationships with certain favelas to make it safe for guided tours. Part of the proceeds from the tours helps to support a local community center, similar in substance to, but much, much smaller than, Acao Comunitaria. Our group of 18 hopped into two separate vans. The kindly man used a microphone and fed us all sorts of information that would be interesting to a "socially conscious" tourist. We heard of the education system, the migration to the cities, the mandatory voting provisions, the attempts at affirmative action, urban growth control, expanding infrastructure to favelas, the history of the drug corporations, the projects of the new mayor, and the gap between rich and poor.
We went first to one of the smaller favelas in Rio. Villa Canoas has been touted as a "model" of favela development. It started when workers at the local golf course grew tired of commuting so far every day and decided to live closer to work. They picked a plot of land that happened to be right across the street from nice homes with plant-covered walls too high to see over (I don't know how they managed to hold onto that land…it wasn't "bought" through proper channels). A street--not even a very big one--is all that separates the people who work at the golf club and live in the favela from the people who belong to the golf club and wish the favela weren't there (you know, property values). No drugs are sold in this favela because the drug corporations have not allowed it. They want buyers to go to a different, more-fortified favela nearby. The only violence here is petty crime.
We were planning to stop at the company-sponsored community center, but another tour group was there. So, we went up the hill a bit, got out, and bought a refreshing beverage from a local bar-tender. Then, we wound our way through the interior of the favela. At their widest, the streets in this favela accommodate two adults side-by-side. A surprising courtyard held an old slide and just enough room to draw in chalk boxes for a skipping game. There's always enough room for dog crap. There's no discernable plan to the layout. This is a place that is not meant for outsiders, instead founded on a knowledge that immediately marks a person as a neighbor or as a stranger. Everyone greeted our guide with smiles--the little girls threw in some kisses for good measure. Space is tight. Buildings grow up, designed and built by the hands of residents who work in the construction industry. Some of the stucco exteriors were adorned with shards of glass and tile reclaimed from the local trash dump and arranged into comely mosaics. As the tour guide pointed out, himself engaged in the battle against caricature, the residents lack neither intelligence or skill.
We saw some things that led some of my classmates to wonder what is so bad about favela life. Some homes had satellite dishes. One man was smoking weed while sitting in front of a 30-inch flat-screen TV in a nicely furnished interior. One woman who had walked by had gone to college. It apparently shocked some people that poverty can have its luxuries, that it is not wrought wholly of deprivation.
Though they didn't mention their surprise until well after the guide had left us back in Copacabana, the guide gave us some information that explains the variation when I piece it together. Buying a nice TV is a much less costly proposition than buying a good education. And, the difference between living in a favela and living in non-favela housing is a significant. So, people may not have enough money to move out, but some may be able to save enough make their favela home nice. Thus, there is a realm of consumables that are available to favela residents. Other consumables, those that tend to be more empowering (education) or safer (non-favela neighborhoods), are largely out of reach. Just because favela life can be decent does not mean that people wouldn't move out if given the opportunity. Nor, I suspect, does it mean that my classmates would be willing to live there.
We eventually ended up at the company-sponsored community center. A sympathetic Italian-descended family had given money to build and run the center. Other local businesses now help out. The center was nice. We bought some handicrafts. One of my classmates played soccer with some of the kids. There were computers. Having wrapped up our tour of the "nice" favela, we were to head off to Rocinha, the biggest favela in Rio.
Rocinha houses anywhere between 60,000 and 100,000 people. It is a city within a city, governed by rules that are partly shaped by resident organizations and partly by the drug corporations who control the favela. During the rainy season, flash floods and hill slides cause destruction and some death. On this day, police had started a major operation in the favela. Helicopters were flying above. The entrance was barricaded, so we could not go in as had been hoped for and planned (the company does not give refunds if it is unable to take a group into Rocinha…the consumer assumes the risk of a police operation because it happens so often). We watched from afar, on a walkway constructed to allow residents to cross over the busy street. The walkway, fashioned from metal lattice scaffolding, swayed with the weight of its human burden. Yes, the people who later said that favela life wasn't so bad were here. I don't know if they were paying attention.
Now, finally to the part that will be the most frightening. Mothers and grandparents and aunts may wish to stop reading here…………………
So, I was out at a three-stoy club last Friday night with about 40 other Americans from the program. The ground-floor restaurant-style area was crowned by two floors of music. On the second floor was a live band playing "pagode," a type of Brazilian music. On the third floor was a DJ spinning mostly American music, r&b, hip hop, techno, and the like. The Americans grew tired of the live band and went upstairs for the familiar. I stayed on the second floor. Within five minutes, I was in a half-English, half-Portuguese conversation with a group of six young Brazilian guys in their early twenties. After some nice conversation and laughs, they invited me out to a party on Saturday night. This sort of party is called "Baile Funk" (pronounced buy-lee fun-kee) and it was to take place in the birthplace of Brazilian funk music--the favelas of Rio.
Well, I was a little mistrustful at first, as I didn't know why these guys were being so friendly. But, after hanging out for a while, I figured I could trust them. I left the club with an address and a phone number to call the next day to work out all the details.
Now, favelas are places to which non-residents rarely go. In fact, the only non-residents who go regularly into the favelas are wealthy folks who want to buy drugs, the police who seek to raid them, and do-gooders who work there. Gringos (which here just means non-Brazilians) don't go there. So, knowing that I could go where no gringo has gone before (I know that's probably not totally true, but let me have my drama…), I resolved to go. I called up my buddy Will, who was born in Brazil, raised in the U.S., and speaks Portuguese . We recruited two other cool, low-key folks from our program so that we could fill a cab. The few others we did invite didn't want to go--the one or two people who would have gone weren't enough to fill a second cab. Word slowly spread through the program what we were doing, and almost everyone thought it crazy. That just made us more excited. So, after paying a visit to the American party of the night and leaving a rough sense of our destination with a trusted friend who was staying behind, we left.
The cab ride took us through some rough areas--the border streets of favelas--but dropped us off on a well-lighted strip of restaurants and shops. Nothing scary. My Brazilian buddies from the club met us there and walked with us up the hill (remember, favelas are often built on the hillsides). We met up with some more of their friends in a big apartment complex. Then, we walked to the far end of the apartment complex and encountered a high wall with a white door in it. We went through and walked into a noticeably different world.
The buildings were light brownish bricks covered in places by stucco. Tagging marks were everywhere. Motor scooters whizzed by, honking horns to order the pedestrians out of the way (there's no pedestrian right of way here). People were kickin' it on the sidewalks outside of the many small bars and fried fish joints. Street vendors were hawking salty pastries, beer, liquor, and cakes, with nearly every inch of each side of the street occupied. I didn't see my first gun for at least five minutes. I wouldn't see my last gun until hopping in the cab at about 4:30 a.m.
Walking up the hill a little ways, we arrived at the party spot. One "dance floor" was a courtyard, probably used during the day for blacktop soccer matches. The other "dance floor" was just up the hill where the road turns in switchback style. Here, I saw a wall of speakers, at least 15 feet high and 30 feet wide. The speakers were hooked up to the nearest light pole. This was not the first thing that would make me think that here I was to see something like the early days of Hip Hop.
The girls were gorgeous, but strictly off limits. My Brazilian friends and guides told us that guys do not dance with girls they do not know. This reserve is needed to avoid beef with potential boyfriends.
People had fun in different ways. Some drank beer and whatever liquor was being poured. Clouds of weed smoke hung in the air. Some people had droplet bottles and were putting a few drips of god-knows-what into Red Bull (Oma and Grandpa, Red Bull is just a non-alcoholic energy drink that can be bought from any grocery or convenience store). For my part, I didn't do anything more experimental than try mixing some Red Bull into my beer. Save your taste buds the adventure.
All this drinking makes a person have to pee. The guys went into a little shack and pee'd on walls, which had a two-inch "trough" at the bottom. I didn't give much thought to what the girls did.
So, the night went on, the music picked up, the throngs poured in. A woman hanging her laundry out watched from a rooftop just a bit up the hill. There were at least 300 more feet of favela-laden hillside above us--we entered only the bottom portion. The longer the night went on--meaning the more intoxicating substances folks had consumed--the more guns came out. I saw assault rifles, machine guns, single-barreled shotguns, double-barreled shotguns, chrome plated pistols, and ordinary black pistols. We must have left too early to see the rocket launchers.
At first, we'd see only the occasional dude walking around with a gun in hand. By the end of the night, small columns of armed men would parade around rhythmically in semi-formed lines with their guns raised in the air or hung off their shoulders. The size of your gun appeared to be connected to your status. One of my Brazilian friends saw one of his friends there. The new dude came over and let my friend hold his pistol. My friend proudly put it in pocket and tucked his shirt just right so that onlookers could see the gun tucked into his waist. Gun ownership is illegal in Brazil. But these folks obviously have a firm belief in their right to bear arms.
Here, massive armament made some sense, as it did for the Cold War containment strategy. The great minds figured out that if everyone has enough firepower to blow everyone else up (at least in terms of nuclear war), nobody will use it. So it went here. I felt perfectly safe the entire night. In fact, I perceived fewer strange stares in the favela than I do riding the metro or walking along the beach.
Now on to the dancing. I didn't do much of it, but many of the guys don't. Baile funk is mostly about the girls dancing provocatively. The music is drum heavy. The thump aids the sense of trance.
Entranced and enchanted, I had a wonderful night. Part of it was the fun atmosphere. Part of it was the sense that we did something that few others do. This was exotic to me, but to my Brazilian friends, to the people who live here, this was a normal Saturday night.
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