On Not Being a Tourist

If you've seen City of God, then you've seen Rio - but you haven't, because a foreigner will watch that and perhaps draw scary conclusions about drug lords and gang wars in Rio, but a Carioca will watch that and tell you that you're unlikely to find that on even your most adventurous of tourist explorations. City of God takes place in a favela, and favelas are not something advertised on postcards.

Like most big cities, Rio is an expensive place to live but offers a number of job opportunities, particularly low-wage, service jobs which are generally filled by less-educated people, precisely those who are unable to afford housing in said city. The 'solution' to this is the favela, the slums, which are precariously-built towns built into the mountainsides, often without government authorization or regulation. The grow haphazardly, architecturally amazing in that so many people are crowded into such minimal, steep space.

Again, in most big cities these low-income areas are where drug-dealing and crime most often occurs - Rio is no exception. The favelas have historically been outside the realm of government and instead under the control of drug lords. Of course, while this isn't the ideal situation, violence only occurs when two drug lords are fighting for the control of a particular space, or when the police come into the favela and have a shootout with a gang.

The place where I'm working does a lot of work and research in favelas, since these are the areas of Rio where their work is most needed and has the most impact. In particular, they work with a group of young people from various favelas to create campaigns against violence, AIDS, etc.

Today, I had the chance to accompany V. to Santa Marta, one such favela. She had a meeting with some of the young people (the youngest there was 16, the oldest was 25) regarding an event they have this weekend to raise awareness about AIDS and violence against women. Moreover, a journalist, Natalia, and a photographer, Jonas, from Extra came along to interview V. and the others.

Santa Marta is a favela in Botafogo, a fairly nice part of Rio and home of the C&A at which I purchased my first bikini and Raj purchased his first pair of speedos. The entrance to Santa Marta is a few blocks from the Metro, pressed up against the mountainside. The closeness of the mountain was surprising when we were at the bottom, and is manifested in the way the favela is structured - after entering, we almost immediately began to climb a steep set of stairs, with buildings crammed in on either side. Everything felt extremely narrow and cramped, and there were bundles of electrical wires hanging over the steps, going off in every direction to supply people with power.

The climb to the top felt long, particularly because it's been extremely humid lately and I've been sick since Monday night. I talked a bit with Jonas on the way up, and he was very friendly and encouraging about my Portuguese (and also apparently has a relative in San Francisco, who I have never met).

The place where we met was the community hub, a small, three-room building that was built by P. when they did their community supports project a few years ago. It was nice to see something that I had read about, as it gave the project a sense of reality that it had not had.

It was also nice that I happened to go on the same day as the interview, as it gave me the opportunity to listen in on a conversation which I kind of understood (since I am familiar with the work the youth do, and the format of an interview is fairly predictable). For all of you who read Extra, look for the article in the paper this Sunday.