Rocinha

I really haven't seen too much of the tourist's version of Rio de Janeiro yet.

After arriving at the Rio Novo rodoviaria (bus station) last Sunday afternoon, I made my way to my hotel in Copacabana, spending the evening in my room. (I was still exhausted from the night before, and need to recharge by doing a whole lot of nothing.)

The next day, I was in Rocinha.

Rocinha is the largest favela (urban-slum/shanty-town) in Brazil, and the plan was to be here for twelve days volunteering with kids at one of the local crèches. To say that I was somewhat trepidatious about living and working in a favela would be somewhat of an understatement. All I had to go on was what I read on the Internet before arriving in Brazil, plus what I'd heard about the movie, City of God. I was prepared for crime-ridden free-for-alls, and expecting to working in the day-care by day before high-tailing it back to the volunteer house and locking myself up for the night.

What I've experienced, so far, has been almost the exact opposite of the paranoid worst-case scenarios I had in my head.

Before I go any further, I have to say that I was lucky as Hell to meet Christian, an Australian volunteer who has worked at the crèche for the last seven weeks. Since Chris also speaks decent Portuguese (after spending three months picking it up whilst in Brazil), he's been able to make friends within the favela, and find out about a lot of the cool things to do within Rocinha that a non-Portuguese-speaking gringo would never know about. Spending the last week with him and Nigella (another volunteer here) definitely made my integration into favela life both painless and much more rich than it otherwise would have been. If it hadn't been for them, I likely would have spent nights locked in the volunteer house, if just from having nothing to do.

Some of the cool things I've done: I listened to the Rocinha samba drum band practise on Tuesday night, then went back on Wednesday night to learn how to bang on the drums myself. Along with Nigella, I spent about an hour or so teaching some basic English to Wellington, one of the guys from Beer Pizza, a local pizza joint located on the main Rocinha throughway. I've ridden multiple times on moto-taxis -- motorcycles that will take you anywhere along the vehicular roads within the favela for a flat-rate of R$2 (about C$1.20). On Friday night, I went from a hip-hop street party, to drinks at Beer Pizza, finishing off at Brazilian funk party until after 5am the next morning.

Rocinha is much more developed than I'd imagined. The structures here are all concrete or brick. There's running water, electricity and a rudimentary sewage system. There are numerous shops, dining establishments, bars and even a few banks. There's a decent internet cafe here that charges R$1.50 an hour. There's an odd dichotomy in that people here almost all own TVs, computers, sound-systems and the like. Most of the inhabitants here work outside Rocinha, in Ipanema, Copacabana or elsewhere in Rio. I guess when the living costs are so cheap (no government regulation means no taxes), they have to spend their money somewhere.

The people I've met here are some of the friendliest people you'll meet, even when dealing with somebody of my extremely limited Portuguese. There will always be a 'Ola!', 'Bom dia' or 'Boa tarde' while passing in the alleyways. I've gotten discounts on food and beer (which were already pretty dirt cheap to begin with). I've never felt threatened, even while walking alone, back to the volunteer house at midnight or later.

That being said, Rocinha is a favela. While there are larger roads around the base and a main throughway running up the mountain, the main living areas are no more than a maze of alleyways, negotiable only by foot, and often so narrow as to not be able to squeeze two people abreast. Trash is thrown out onto the alleyways, to be washed downhill during rainy periods. Dogs, cats and chickens run around, leaving animal shit everywhere.

The most direct access to the base of Rocinha from the volunteer house is through 'Crack Alley', so named by us because of the crack addicts that stand at the entrance. Like the one glassy-eyed transvestite that I think turns tricks to get the money for crack.

And then there are the drug dealers and the guys with guns -- I'm talking about AK-47s and M-16s. The gangs and security guys for the drug lords brandish their weapons blatantly (though that seems obvious -- it's not like you can hide an M-16 in your pants), either standing on the street, or riding on the backs of motorcycles. There is no police presence within Rocinha and everything runs at the whims of the gangs and drug lords. Oddly enough, that actually contributes to the seeming safety here as the only punishment for a crime against the code of the favela is to get shot.

I've lived here for seven days now, and I have five more to go. I'm already getting the feeling that I'll miss it when I leave.