Another slice of the city

When thinking of coming to Rio, I wanted to volunteer some of my time at an organization, so I chose Dois Irmões, or Two Brother, an NGO that my Portuguese professor from San Diego State University is involved with, and named after the twin mountains that face the favela where the organization is located. I visited the space last Thursday and taught an English class this past Saturday to adults, whose reasons for wanting to learn English range from wanting to understand music and movies in the language to dreaming of becoming a tour guide in Rio de Janeiro, and also in their community of Rocinha.

These are the murals from the outside of the building. It is impossible to get a straight on pictures because the passageways between the buildings are so narrow.

The principal mission of i2i is education: reinforcement in basic subjects for young students who face an increasingly degenerating public education system, language classes for children and adults to provide them with work and other opportunities in the city and world at large, non traditional education in subjects like jewelry making, hip hop dance, capoeira to give alternatives to adults and children who might chose other...pasttimes.

i2i is located in the favela of Rocinha. The favelas in Brazil began in the 1920s when the coffee boom was failing. Agricultural workers facing more and more severe poverty began moving into the cities. However, the lack of money and skills forced them into peripheral areas. In Rio this generally means the hillsides. Families began constructing haphazard housing made of clapboard and corrugated tin. However, they were allowed to stay because of squatting laws in the country: 20 people constitutes a burgeoning community with rights to build, and after 2 years the community has rights to the land. Because new families move in, the direction of building is vertical, which can make the structures very unstable. Landslides in favelas during the rainy season are common even if the materials to construct have evolved into concrete blocks and mortar. Generally, the highest level is a patio, to hang wash or grow basic food plants. And if new family members arrive, a new level is built atop and a new patio constructed.

The size and sophistication of the favelas in Brazil have been increasing steadily during the last 100 or so years. Generally, favela communities are not recognized by the government, have no access to water, electricity, sewage, not to mention cable and internet. A hallmark of the areas I have seen is a canal that runs through the area filled with garbage and dirty water (I'm not sure if it's sewage or just wash-water run-off), and haphazard electricity lines running from the "incorporated" areas or recognized areas to the favelas. An ironic aspect of the favelas in Rio is that the hillside views make these areas prime real estate, especially the site of Rocinha close to Ipanema beach with views overlooking the ocean. However, as of now the government has no access or right to invade these areas to push out the residents to build for the rich...not yet. There is little faith here in honesty of Brazilian government.

Rocinha is a bit different from other favelas in Rio. It is the only favela with its own busline, which indicates at least partial recognition by the city government. It has electricity, sewage, clean water, garbage pick-up, and cable and internet. It is also the largest favela in all of Latin America.

Favelas are known for their violence, drug-trafficking, rogue economies, extreme poverty, and overall lack of hope and opportunity. Being able to work in Rocinha, however briefly, has helped disintegrate that stereotype for me. Within this community are people who dream for themselves and their children, work and study for a better future, refuse the work of narcotrafficking, and legitimize their existence and that of their family and friends.

Se chama Rio

I've finally escaped from the beach paradise to arrive in another beach paradise, but this one comes with a nasty reputation. That said, my experience in this town has been nothing but amazing. We (my friend Katerina and I) live in a beautiful neighborhood called Larangeiras, where apparently professors and whatnot live from the various universities here. It's safe and quaint with lots of little bars and shops to pick up an espresso and a pastry. And we're about a 1/2 hour walk to the beach (not the famous ones, granted, but beach nonetheless). This is the VIEW! Amazing. From the Flamengo beach. These mountains surround the whole coast here. Breathtaking! However, by living in this part of the city, we don't get a realistic view of what Rio is like. The discrepancy between the rich and the poor is stark here, and by living in Larangeiras we're largely protected from the violence--lucky for us--but kept in an upper-middle class bubble, completely ignorant of the happenings that appear in the news everyday, the reality that a great majority of the people who live here face everyday. Just as ever major city has it's rougher areas, Rio has it's worst. The question remains, how to know Rio without imposing myself, without being a spectator to a situation where people die violently everyday, without being a tourist to someone else's misfortune. I haven't worked that one out yet.

The real tourist attraction for both foreigners and Cariocas (people who are from Rio) alike is the Cristo Redentor, who sits atop a mountain and takes care of the city.The view from atop was really amazing, but the sky was hazy and a bit smoggy. I have a million pictures from atop the mountain but I held back when posting. There was so much to see: the curves of the neighborhoods around the mountains, the houses stacked up on the hills, all the various beaches that swing around the landscape, highways filled with millions of cars and people, the unnavigable maze of streets...Even the monkeys enjoy the view! Not sure how he got up this high, but vestiges of the rain forest climb up the hills as well. You can take a old cable-car train up the mountain and to see the lushness still existing in this huge metropolis is strange.Samba is a craze here. We went to a club called Democratus, an old dance hall that still has big samba parties. The space was enormous and beautiful. It's hard to see but 10 or so musicians lined up on stage sitting in chairs with little tables with bottles of water and played and sang their hearts out. The place got more and more packed until you could barely even dance. I can't really do it even if I have the whole dancefloor to myself. You have to move your feet faster than mine can, so I just faked it. No one noticed, I don't think!

Uncle Steve, this is for you. Some of the graffiti we see passing under the viaduct to get to the other side of the neighborhood. There's not as much respect for the art here as there was in Salvador. You can see that people paint over it, or around it, at times. But the work is cool. Realistically, the only thing I can read is from the one above: PAZ = PEACE.

Of course, another famous site here is the Copacabana beach, where we did a little sunbathing, ate super cheap seafood, and talked down a vendor into selling his Cristo Redentor sarong for R$10 instead of R$25. I've become quite the negotiator after all this time.

Someone had built this miniature replica of Rio out of sand, and even strung little cable cars that take you to the top of the mountain Pão de Açucar (Sweetbread--don't know), which is the left mountain in the background. We haven't done that yet, but I'll post those pictures when we do.

And the delicious tropical delight of fresh chilled coconut milk. Delicious!

Even paradise gets boring...

So, I´m back. Bittersweet. A carefree life of beach, surf, sand streets where you can either walk around in flipflops or just barefoot, no crime (except for the thief who stole my jeans off the laundry line), no violence...no reality. I´m actually looking forward to a dose of favela. I have no idea what has been going on in the world for the last two weeks, or if the world beyond the horizon of the Atlantic even exists anymore. Can someone please fill me in?This is our apartment that we rented for R$350, about $250 for the month, or for the 2 weeks that we stayed there. Two rooms: living room, dining room, part-kitchen, part-bedroom...

...and this is the formal bedroom, with our new model "floor closet". Very fancy.

This is the first meal Angélica and I prepared in our new home: beef, rice, salad, and patacones con salsa...

...which I couldn´t eat because I got a mild case of food poisoning.

And these are the chickens who woke us up every morning. Between their cock-a-doodle-doing (I´m not sure what that is in Portuguese), and samba musicians who practiced early, the loud neighbors with their reggae music, and the screaming children who lived next to us, it´s surprising we got any sleep at all. But that meant we got up early to head to the beach!

There are a ton of wild beach dogs who roam around the island. If you sit still long enough they´ll adopt you for a few hours and follow you around a bit. Here´s one who adopted us on the 4th beach, deserted and gorgeous, and then left us for others. Traitor!

But all good things come to an end. Our final despedida at the port with our malandro Morro friends Cação and Fernando.

Boa viagem e volte sempre!!

Antes de desaparecer outra vez...

I´m on a roll!! Two posts in two days. I wanted to give you all a final update before I disappear for the last time (this year anyway) to my paradise island. Again, Morro de São Paulo. I found an easier way to get here if you find that you miss me. It still involves coming to Brazil, though. Check out my tan! Am I starting to look more brasileira?? This is my Brasilian light bikini. Not as revealing as some...I´ve seen a lot of buttcheeks since I´ve been here...and not all of them pretty.

Believe it or not, but I can actually get some work done here...

...at least until the sun goes down and then it´s nap time until it´s party-on-the-beach time!

This was on our tour of torture.

It rained the whole day and we were on a speed boat, which means when the little innocent droplets of rain pitter-pattered down on us at 80 m.p.h. it felt like sharp knives and needles digging into our skin. Pleasant. "You´ve arrived at the natural pools of hell." Thanks.








But the next day we found the perfect place, called O Sitio: The Place!!

The view was amazing. We had to hike up and around the town, wind our way through overgrown roots and up and down dirt stairs to find out way to this hidden place. It´s the only place on this side of the port and on this stretch of beach where you can see the sunset the best where it´s not blocked by the Farol, the lighthouse.

Here´s the port where all the ships come into Morro. It´s itty-bitty. That´s why the place is still paradise. There´s no cars allowed on the island either. Ahh. No noise. No airplanes. No construction. The materials to build new houses and whatnot are brought in my small boat, then carried by wheelbarrow or mule to the location.

Our toast to our last night in Morro--that time!!! We´ll be back for more "honeymoon shots".

BELEZA!!

Backtracking to the interior

Things are a bit out of order here because I was so excited about my paradise island. However, as part of our many cultural experiences here, we went to the interior, around the bay, Bahia de Todos os Santos. You can see on the map where Salvador is, and then we drove up and around the bay to a place called Cachoeira and Santa Amaro.

The interior areas around the bay suffer from lack of development because Salvador´s size and promise of opportunity draw all the young people out of these towns. The people who remains tend to be older and poorer or families with children who will almost inevitably leave, who maintain a more traditional way of life. Cachoeira is still beautiful.
São João is a Bahian holiday, celebrated namely in the Northeast, that causes more of an uproar than Christmas. The interior towns are where most of the people go to celebrate (I didn´t--you all know where I was!)

São João decorations.

This is the view from the quaint restaurant where we ate a fantastic lunch.

...speaking of lunch, we also went to a very traditional market in I think Santo Amado. EVERYTHING is available for sale here. This may look gross (yes, it´s disgusting) but I´d rather eat the meat from these animals than some of the processed crap we get back in the States, animals which were fed processed food, probably mixed with their own feces, pumped up with growth horomes and then with antibiotics to keep them from falling ill from eating their own feces, living in sub-par conditions, and suffering from the growth horomes, then slaughtered, refrigerated for god knows how many days, processed, packaged, shipped all over the country to sit in our grocery stores for another god knows how many days, dyed and treated with more chemicals to fool us into thinking the meat is...fresh?? I´ll choose grass-fed cows allowed to grow up on a pasture at their own rate, slaughtered in the morning, hung on a hook an hour later, bought and cooked and served up in steaming plate of feijoada. Yummy.

(ok, still gross)

No, this is not poop from the previous animals. This is fresh tobacco pressed together with local honey. We smoked a cigar of it...sweet!

The seafood was super fresh, still moving and crawling in the bowls. And the little boy couldn´t help but pose (his mom pulled him away a few seconds later).

And these are the chickens slated for sacrifice...no, I´m not kidding.

Gostei. It was definitely a cultural experience.

My own slice of paradise

Dear friends and family,

I regret to inform you that I will never be leaving Brazil; I have arrived in perfection. If you have any urgent news, please come to Morro de São Paulo in Bahia, Brazil. It´s quite easy, actually. A quick 10-hour flight from Miami or NYC to São Paulo, then a short flight to Salvador. Take a cab or bus from the airport to the ferry in downtown Salvador, a 40-minute ferry to Valência. I can call Roque the taxi driver to pick you up from there to take you to the second small boat to get to Morro. Once you arrive, you´ll never want to leave, so just buy a one-way ticket and we can spend the rest of our lives together in paradise.

With much love and no remorse,
Anna

This is the zipline from the top of the hill that leads down to the primeira praia (1st beach--there are four!). I haven´t yet done it, but I´m going back next weekend so I´ll have more pictures for you.

I was still innocent here, not knowing that I would say goodbye to all I´ve known before to stay forever in Morro. I still look pretty relaxed though, huh?

Seven of us decided to stay an extra day, and we make a good group. This is one the segunda praia, where you can get a cheap beer and sandwich, some açai, buy a necklace or two (I bought two), and pretend the rest of the world doesn´t exist.
As gatinhas out at a seafood restaurant: Angélica, Lucero, and me.

I´ve found a new friend, one of the many stray dogs that are just looking for a little company, I guess. Maybe he was interested in my reading, too.Oi, Brasil! Estou apaixionada!