rocinho

santa teresa, rio de janeiro

200,000 people call it home and for two hours rocinho, rio de janeiro`s largest favela, called me its guest. we were participants in the latest wave of slum tourism, where locals guide westerners through the neighborhoods where they live. we obviously stand out, we obviously don`t belong, and the merits of this travel trend are highly debated. from my one experience today, and from previous experiences staying in other slums, i think i side on its defense.

marcelo picked us up at our hostel around 9 and drove us and about ten other hungover gringos to the rocinho entrance. from there, we hopped on the back of our personal motorcyclist to wind up to the top of the favela. we were provided a little background, a little overview of the tour, and advised not to take pictures until we had descended at least half the way. por que? because the masked man with the walkie-talkie and the guys sitting with automatic rifles are a little camera shy. ok, works for me.

we descended past maskie, and one gunman, through the top-half of the favela. we made a couple requisite stops to see an artists work, smell the baker`s creations, and see young kids drum on buckets and oil cans. all impressive, sure, but the real show was just being there. we snaked through the favela on a concrete path no wider than a meter which was never straight for more than fifteen meters. it wove past shops and homes and barbershops and bars and anything you could imagine. people walked by, or were chatting nearby, and though they never exactly welcomed us, you could say they were tacitly open to our presence. all of it was a sensoral, if sobering, feast.

as for the myths and legends, i cannot really confirm or deny any preconceptions based on a short, arranged trip. what is known is that the people live there because they have been priced out of the rio real estate market and maintain a codependent relationship with the cities economy. rio`s restaurants, shops, and basic services cannot be run without the denizens from the hills. at the same time, the lucrative drug trade is run out of the favelas, to profits that run in the billions of u.s. dollars por mês. this money goes into the hands of gangs, who redistribute some of it to reside in the goodwill of its residents. these residents include children, who usually grow up to lionize gangs and their members because it is the gangs, not the government, that they perceive to receive protection from. this is partially from their propagandist advertising and sloganing, but also because when the policia storm the favela, it is the gang that is behaving as the protector.

this is where maskie and our machine gun friends come in. the majority of hours, days, and weeks, they do nothing but sit like they did today: stoned, bored, and looking ominous. but when the police decide to make a raid, maskie gets on his walkie-talkie, other lookouts shoot firecrackers as a warning, the gunman get ready for rambo-time, and residents brace for needless violence. i don`t have exact (or even rough) figures, but my guess is that police and gang members die in numbers dwarfed by those of innocent bystanders from these raids.

maybe ....? no, that`s a stupid idea. well, since it is my blog, guess i`ll just put it out there: maybe the government could redistribute some of its wealth from the burgeoning agricultural sectors to develop the physical, social, and economic infrastructure of the favelas so that residents will no longer look to drug dealers as robinhood? maybe the government could use less aggressive tactics within these poorer neighborhoods to not further alienate (and kill) the massive segment of the countries population. perdoem-me: that`s just crazy talk.