Rant about favelas

Bruce and I went on a favela tour Saturday. Favelas are the shanty towns or slums that surround or make up part of the large cities of Brazil. My initial response to a tour of the slums was disgust. When I was in South Africa I never “toured” a township, not by design, I just never did. But I knew it was a possibility. In this case I struggled with the thought of making the poor a tourist attraction.

Of course the tourist aspect of the slums is made palatable by adding a humanitarian bent. The tour company we went with has a school in the small favela we toured. Eighty percent of the operating budget for that school is financed by Favela Tours. So we could feel good that our 65 real ticket (about $38.00) was doing some good. Apparently the tourist traffic is brisk. The last stop on the tour was at some roadside artists. They told us that a bus load of 75 Israelis have stopped early that day.

As we toured the two favelas (one small, Vila Canoas, around 3,000 people and one large, Rocinha, around 200,000 give or take 50,000) I thought a lot about some of my past readings. I’ve been trying to diversify my understanding of poverty and the world’s poor. Paul Farmer’s book, The Pathologies of Power, gave me a slight introduction to Liberation Theology and Eduardo Galeano’s 1970’s expose, The Open Veins of Latin America, gave me a very populist historical interpretation of the causes of Latin America’s poverty.

My first real brush with Liberation Theology taught me the concept of “preferential treatment for the poor”, the idea that the poor should truly be the first in line for food, the first in line for health care, the first in line for education. A political foundation emanating from Christian theology though simply stated it is quite complicated to grasp and extremely divisive when when taken to it’s extreme.

After taking the tour I am no longer disgusted. I’m more saddened that we (the tourists enjoying the riches of Rio whether in a hostel or 5 star hotel) can go through the motions of viewing the favelas, acknowledge certain facts, buy a few items to spread the wealth (perhaps trickle down is more appropriate) and pay our fee which will help fund a school and then go home to our hostel or hotel, go to the beach and really nothing changes. The status quo continues.

Brazil has one of the most unequal distributions of wealth in the world. Driving through Sao Paulo I had a number of favelas pointed out to me. Some are very small, essentially an encampment of very temporary looking huts under freeway interchanges while some are large and dead center in the midst of the wealth of the city, condos towering above them.

It’s probably a bad analogy, but I can’t help but think of touring a favela as going to the zoo. I don’t like the concept of caging animals for our enjoyment and I don’t really like going to zoos, but that hasn’t stopped my hypocritical attendance of concerts at the zoo. The favelados (residents of the flavelas) are free to come and go, they are not caged. But they live in these conditions because they have nowhere else to go. And they are literally surrounded by places they could not live. There is no state presence in the favelas. The police do not go in. Leaving one favela there was a police presence of about 4 cars and a handful of policemen with guns showing. They were marking their territory at the border.

The favelas do have a rule of law of sorts. First, to locate yourself in a favela you need to connect with a community. Our guide Isabel lives in a favela. Isabel has been in Brazil for about two and a half years, is originally from Germany, speaks 5 languages, and works with Flavela Tours and the school that they fund. She explained that to rent a place in the favela is purely through word of mouth and connections. There is no craigslist, no rental section in the newspaper. Once in you become a member of the community. She lived in London before coming to Brazil. In London she never talked to her neighbors, didn’t even know their names. In the flavela that would be impossible.

Since there is no state presence, no structured police force (though the police do come in to occasionally track down a drug dealer) the community monitors and polices itself. According to Isabel there is no rape. If someone is known to have rapped they will be killed. Theft is very rare. If someone steals and is caught and it’s minor their arm will be broken. If the crime is more serious they will be killed. Tourists are generally safe because a cardinal rule is not to attract the police. Tourists will call the police. If a flavelado has a dispute within the favela they can first go to the residence association and if that doesn’t work they go to the real power, the drug dealers. In the large flavela we visited (around 200,000 people) we saw men with guns openly sitting in public. These were the drug dealers and they were doing the same thing the police had done at the border, marking their territory and making their presence known.

We were strictly forbidden from taking pictures along the main street of the large favela where the dealers walked openly with their guns. The drug dealers have been burned in the past by journalists who took their pictures and then published them. The police likely know who all the drug dealers are but the dealers don’t want their pictures out there. Many of the drug dealers are in their teens. The current boss of the large favela is in his 30’s, quite a ripe age for a dangerous profession.

As we drove and walked through the main streets of the favela we passed internet cafes, clothing stores, appliance stores, meat shops, fruit and vegetable stands, everything you would need to survive. There was a McDonald’s in this flavela until 10 years ago when a change in command between the drug dealers created a 10 day war. The McDonald’s was not damaged but 10 days of bullets and fighting between the three gangs and the police left McDonald’s without the will to stay. Now there is a Bob’s Burgers which is a well known Brazilian chain. There are three banks in this favela. A common story is that the banks have never been robbed except once. Supposedly one was robbed but not by who you’d expect. It was robbed by the police.

The history is that the first favelas were formed in Rio over a hundred years ago when soldiers returned from internal battles and had been promised land for their troubles. The land they were directed towards were the steep, unwanted hillsides around the city. Over the century disparate groups of people migrating from different parts of the country for varying types of work (construction one decade, manufacturing another, etc.) created their own distinct favelas. According to Isabel there are now over 700 different favelas around Rio. The military dictatorships took an eradication policy towards the favelas claiming to be prepared to build housing for them. When the housing never materialized the favelas continued to grow, sometimes on the very sites where the government had planned to build new housing or right back where the favela had been destroyed.

After the military dictatorship ended in the 80’s a different tactic was taken with the favelas. Historically the government had abdicated jurisdiction to the community. There were no land titles and no addresses. Where there were streets that the central government had built before the favela formed there was some recognized markers (ie a paved road and addresses). The large favela we toured has a famous road right through the center. It is part of what was the major Rio car race in the 30’s. Today the windy curves are extremely difficult for the large city buses to manage and apparently they were for those race cars 80 years ago as well.

Today there are moto taxis that race around the favelas. These motorcycles provide the services of taxis. They are cheap, can driver where cars cannot and can get around stuck buses. I noticed that many of them turn off their motors when descending down the hills. I assume that is to conserve on gas.

Most of the favelas had no paved roads, no running water and no electricity. About 10 years ago a project called Barrio Favela earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars to bring some infrastructure to the favelas. Now over 90% of the residents have running water, an hygenic sewage system, electricity, paved roads and steps and some schools. Most of the favelas have few main roads where cars drive and the majority of the communities are accessed by narrow alley ways and steps, sometimes so narrow one could barely move a refrigerator through. Barrio Favela ended and Isabel noted many times that the government needs to start a new project.

One of the goals of the tour is to show that the vast majority of the residents of the favelas are good citizens living and working in their community. Many clean houses, are nannies or janitors. They do the base jobs that keep the economy running. They live there by virtue of the fact they cannot afford anywhere else. A small minority are criminals and even though the favelas are left to the vices of the drug dealers the law of the street generally keeps the favelas in order.

I am glad to have learned what I did about the favelas. I am still uncertain if touring poverty is a meaningful way of understanding the plight of a huge percentage of the world’s population. Likely because of the work I’m looking to do and the place I’m at in my life it seems disingenuous to see the direness of a situation and leave it in place. As if the act of viewing should somehow either appease or change the situation. The system has obviously left a large portion of the world unfairly treated. I don’t hold any one country responsible. We are all responsible as we all benefit from their poverty. We have for many years and apparently will for many years to come. Perhaps this is why the words “preferential treatment for the poor” rang true to me. If it isn’t preferential treatment that the first world has experienced, unfettered for centuries now, what is it?

Rio de Janeiro

What can I say about Rio de Janeiro? I flew in on Thursday and arrived at the hostel before noon. It was a little early and the room wasn’t ready yet so I left my bags and searched out an internet cafe to finish some email work. On the way back to the hotel I passed a Japanese restaurant and was pleased to have a great sushi lunch. This was my first introduction to the high prices of Rio.

Back at The Mango Tree Hostel I got into the room a little after 1 pm. The Mango Tree is a step up from a traditional hostel but not quite a hotel. There are dorm rooms with shared baths and single rooms with private baths. We had the private room which had both a double and a single bed. The hostel also has a TV/living room and a common eating/bar area. Even though it is not a party hostel, as many can be, the bar can be a little noisy in the evening which is undoubtedly one reason the owners have instituted a number of rules, like quiet after 10 pm.

The hostel is only two blocks from the beach and in the center of Ipanema. I quickly headed to the beach. I got a good four hours in on the beach on Thursday. The beach is amazingly beautiful, and I don’t just mean the sand and the waves. The people definitely take pride in their small suits and what the suits cover. There is nothing left to the imagination. Thursday the beach was fairly crowded but people were mostly massed in large clumps (hundreds of people per clump) and more widely spaced between the clumps. The massing of the people seems to coincide with the end of the streets as they dump people on the beach. Further back from the surf is a line of tents where the services for the beach are stationed. There are occasional showers further back as well. Shade umbrellas and beach chairs are readily available for rent (about $6.00 for the day) and very necessary unless you are blessed with naturally dark skin.

Friday there were more people on the beach and I got in a good five hours before Bruce arrived in the evening. Saturday it rained so we didn’t go to the beach. Sunday Bruce and I spent a short one and a half hours at the beach and it was absolutely packed. There were no widely spaced areas. Close to the surf it was solid skin, umbrellas and chairs.

The surf at Ipanema is very strong. The slope into the water is quite steep so there are large waves very close to the beach. I don’t know if it is a natural phenomena, but there is about a two to three foot drop off in the sand down to the surf area. All the umbrellas and chairs are above this ledge. The rip tide as the water rushes back from the ledge is quite strong and creates a very deep pull. Within a matter of seconds the depth of the water can change from four feet to four inches. It can create some dramatic play in the water which adds greatly to the people watching. I actually took newspapers and magazines to read but I didn’t get much reading done.

Ipanema has a very comfortable combination of casual glitz. It is completely acceptable to walk around town in a speedo though the box cuts are a little more attractive. Even late into the evening people can be seen in their bathing suits but at that time they have become the exception rather than the rule. There is a wide range of restaurants from small kiosks to large buffets and casual cafeterias to nuevo hip high design. I wouldn’t call any of it inexpensive. I especially liked the juice places serving dozens of different fresh juices including my favorite, acai.

Our last day in Rio Bruce and I met up with Hillary (another teacher at the school who I actually met in Vancouver before both she and Bruce moved to Sao Paulo) and Gabi her Carioca (what native folk from Rio are called) friend. We ate at the Copacabana Palace Hotel where Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire filmed a movie in the 30’s. It is old style sheik and classy. We ate inside the restaurant that is poolside. They were serving a grand buffet as it was Sunday. We opted to forgo the $100 per person buffet and simply ate off the menu.

The night before Bruce and I had sampled the night life. We started at Gabi’s 30th birthday. It was on the terrace of a high rise residential building near Copacabana Rio. There were about 30-40 people and other than Gabi’s mother I think Bruce and I were the oldest there. They had been partying for a while and the revelry continued well into the wee hours. Bruce and I stayed about an hour and then made our way back to Ipanema. As the taxi was driving through Copacabana I noticed the Boy Bar complex. So we stopped the taxi and checked out the scene. It was only 11:15 pm and there were only a few people in the bar, so Bruce and I went around the corner and had a meal in busy piano bar. We couldn’t figure out for the longest time if the music was live (there were percussions and strings at times). Finally we spotted the performer inconspicuously situated in a corner behind tables playing his electronic keyboard.

After midnight we ventured back to the video bar and watched classic 80’s music videos as the bar filled up. The nightlife doesn’t really get started to well after midnight. Around 1 pm we headed back to Ipanema. Bruce went to bed and I checked out a few more bars in our neighborhood. Finally around 2 pm the bars were really packed.

Flying out of Rio was a treat. I had the window seat and we took off to the north and circled around east out over the ocean finally heading south. The view from the plane was phenomenal. It really gives perspective to the geography and layout of the city. It is also easy to locate the various beaches. Flying along the Brazilian coast it looks as though the whole coast line in this region has long stretches of sandy beaches.

The flights into and out of Sao Paolo are equally impressive, but for different reasons. It is really hard to grasp the size of a city with 20 million inhabitants. But from the air it becomes evident. There are numerous regions of the city with Manhattan like conglomerations of highrise buildings. I flew in and out of Sao Paulo three times and was never able to identify a center. The city stretches for scores of miles with 20-30 story buildings dotting the landscape. On the outskirts, near the major international airport I saw large subdivisions under development, houses with pools, tennis courts and large lots.

Back in Sao Paulo Bruce and I prepared for Monday. He had to go back to work and I had to catch my flight to Buenos Aires.