Slow Walkers: Brazil

So like. How much of a slum is Rocinha

2012-02-23T04:46:00.003-08:00

One thing I really love about having been educated at university is that I can directly apply what I learned in class to the real world. It is truly fascinating, and rewarding. I have thought a lot about the stages of development in society, and it is really difficult to accurately describe where Brazil is at. I don't have many numbers in front of me, nor have done any astute research.

But it seems as though Brazil has reached a point that I would like to think can be paralleled to a certain point in US history. There was a time when only the privileged and elite were able to go to school, get educated, and have jobs that didn't require hard manual labor. Working in the fields, long hours in the sun, "sweat shop" work in unregulated factories. There were no programs to help those minority groups who were thought to be disadvantaged. There were no scholarships given to those who came from lower socioeconomic status groups. If you had a good family name and money, if you were white and male, you got an education.

Now it is very different. Of course there is always a long way to go, because that is what social progress is. It is never simmering in the status quo, happy to keep things the way they are. But if you compare what is happening now, how much help people get with their education, how many people even EXPECT to get this kind of help, the different kinds of backgrounds people get awarded scholarships for, the past (and altered) legislation of affirmative action; this is all evidence that society is progressing to include all people from all walks of life. And of course the more people you can educate and get working, the more prolific your country will be.

Right now I feel as though Brazil is reaching for a turning point. More and more people have money here, more people are getting educated, more people are working. Education is still, though, more for the privileged than anyone else. I don't hear about scholarships being offered to people from Rocinha, or any kind of priority given to those who may need more help. The government right now just wants them to get cleaned up, not to be such a blight, so hard on the eyes. But there are no social programs to engage people from lower classes in higher education. The opportunity, I believe, just does not exist yet.

There are other things that could be influencing this. For example, I talked to a man who works for the fleet of orange-clad street cleaners. He told me that this is actually one of the best jobs in Rio (this was later affirmed for me by a wealthier carioca friend of mine, studying bioligy at UFRJ). You have to have a high school education and you have to be able to drive, which both require time and money. It pays handsomely. The man I spoke with told me he can support his whole family, and his wife doesn't even have to work. She chooses to stay at home and raise their four children, all of them girls.

Because he works for the city, this is an example of a government provided job. It may be an example of a government program which disincentivizes people to want higher education. If government can provide such a well paid job, why bother going to university? Even more confusing, is that university is free, as it also paid for by the government. People are also offered scholarships, but only after they are accepted into the school. However, it is very difficult to get into college because the entry exam is extremely selective. Although I have heard it is getting easier.

I would like to know what kinds of people attend university, who is benefitting from it, and what people do after they have graduated. I already know the number one major or focus here is business and law, which seems very normal to me.

I would like to note also that cleaning up the city could be done best by the government. However, what are the implications of awarding so many benefits to those who work for the government, and do menial labor? What is the point of making it so hard to become someone who cleans up trash every day? Why is this such a prized job?

What makes a society better? Who has to be lose out so that the bulk of society can improve? What would it take for Rocinha to improve its living standards?

Overview of Rocinha

2012-02-17T14:48:00.005-08:00

In February I moved into Rocinha. I live in a duplex that has been turned into a house/rental space. The man I am renting from lives above me. His name is Jose, though he prefers to be called Jozinho (jough-zeen-you), which is like saying cute Jose. He is a little eccentric. He has rented out this spot for about 4 years to foreigners; more than 70 people have passed through. Most stay for less than 3 months. I like him and enjoy his company, though he is a bit nosy and asks too many questions. Generally he is a friendly older man, the type of demeanor you would encounter if you were a tourist in a big city and went to a nice restaurant. He would be your gregarious waiter with the slightly oddball sense of humor. So, it's all fine. He is not from Rio so his accent is sometimes hard to understand but I am getting used to it.

Apparently, though, the regulars at the neighborhood bar have warned me that he is robbing me blind. I am going to check on how cheap apartments are going for in other parts of Rocinha. I mean, this is a slum. I should be paying the cheapest rent in Rio. To me though, it seems cheap, and I have everything I need: kitchen, bathroom, bed, fridge.

Favelas have been around for a very long time. Favelas in Brazil existed in the late 1800s. Soldiers who fought in the Canudos Campaign in Bahia came to Rio de Janeiro asking to be paid their salaries promised by the government. They settled there instead on the side of a tall sloping hill, living just outside government owned property. I believe the story is that the property was then owned by the Catholic Church. Favelas grew during the housing crises here in Brazil in the 1920s, 1940s, and 1970s. These are periods where the most prominent favelas now began. They were destinations for people who worked in Rio but couldn't afford to live there, full of immigrants from all over Brazil. Today, they are destinations for Cariocas who can't afford the lifestyle in Rio, which is very expensive, and immigrants as well. Jose and his wife are both immigrants from the North in the Sierra.

Rocinha. It is on the side of a mountain, and is generally a place full of immigrants (Brazilian immigrants), classic favela. It was a place where people stayed because they felt they had no other choice, but its lawlessness invited criminals and drugs. Living illegally in a community which wrote its laws and rules in blood, that is to say, punishment for breaking the "law" was violence. Drug lords controlled these areas, and there was much trafficking of drugs and people.

This still holds true today. However, Rocinha is one of the safest favelas in Brazil. The gang leadership has been dismantled, and there is constant surveillance by the state via SWAT and police forces. Many people living in Rocinha who are trying to make an honest living appreciate the presence of the police, though there are those who are skeptical and believe they are being controlled by the "outside", and that no one really cares about them. Obviously, people who made money on drug trafficking are now without money and are angry. However, these people are moving on to other areas.

It is normal for me to see men walking around in extravagant uniforms, huge guns in their hands. But these are policemen. I never see anyone normal walking around with anything more dangerous than a large beer.

There is a lot of poverty here, of course. But there is also everything any community would ever need. The houses are permanent, after a great effort by the community and projects outside Rocinha who developed the shanty-town style houses which could be washed away in the monsoon season to cement block houses. Banks, paid internet and cable television, sushi bars, ice cream shops, great grocery stores, schools, an expensive and huge gym, the equivalent of a home and office depot, you get the idea. This idea of having to pay for services, and that the city now comes through and picks up trash from the street, is something new for Rocinha in the last decade. It is, I think, a process of including them into the city, for better or for worse. There would be no way to eliminate this place. It is huge, though at one time this was an option. Now the government is, in a way forcing people to assimilate, which the economic absorption is doing wonders for the quality of life and raising the living standards. There is a middle class here now,
which did not exist before.

I am very obnoxiously gringa here. There is no way I would ever convince anyone I was brazilian. It's my features, maybe, but there are also very few white people here. And then there are my eyes, I have been asked if I wear color contacts. Most people think I am German, no one every guesses American. I don't think many Americans come through here. Sometimes it is painful for me to feel so different, but I have been learning to accept it, and to realize it's ok. Being a foreigner anywhere can be a little ...well. Alienating. But here it is more intense, I believe, because Rocinha is just not used to tourism. It never existed before like, 5 years ago. So most people think its stupid. However, unfortunately, it is quite simply just a normal part of city life. Tourism is, for the good and bad, normalcy for a healthy city.

I have started my volunteer work with 2bros. So far, I am just giving classes to children. In March, I will give classes to adults. I have a lot of other things I want to accomplish, though. But that is for later when I am confident in my portuguese.

Slowly adapting.

2012-02-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

So, the title of this blog is something I thought was funny at first. I swear to you, Brazilians move at their own goddamned pace you know? Slow, so slow. And the first month I was here, before I was working and commuting 4 hours every day, living up tall hills, and before the rain had stopped, it annoyed the hell out of me. But walking around Rio is this strange mix of complete exhaustion and peace of mind. Because it's beautiful, the people smile, the sun smothers and yet carelessly caresses your entire body. But you are so tired. Your mind slips into that dreamy place reserved only for 14 year-old girls, vacant eyes rolling into the back of electric blue painted eyelids.

And what's even funnier to me, still, is the impossibility of privacy. You're all in it together all the time man. It's this swamp of bodies, no matter where you are, where you turn, there is no street to run down and do something embarrassing in. There is no place that no one will see you. Even the little streets, the dark corners, the alleyways. I believe it's not only that the weather is beautiful, and you want to see it as much as the pretty girls and the often slightly fey handsome men, but brasileiros (bra-zi-lay-roos) are above anything social beings.

This is my general idea of Rio. On the very edge, the tip of how I feel about this place. It's funny, exhausting but beautiful at once.

Personal post.

2012-01-26T07:21:00.001-08:00

So, this post is my first and since I have yet to volunteer or start my internship, it will be strictly personal. So, a grain of salt, if you will.

I arrived here on January 1st, 2012. At the end of this month I will be TEFL certified, or armed to practice English all over the world. Now that I am here in Rio de Janeiro, I love it, and want to stay as long as possible.

My host family. I live in Humaita (oo-my-'tah), in the Botafogo area. It is peaceful, and a great place to live. My living situation is strange. I live with a woman who seems to be in her late 40s, I call her grandma, her daughter who I call mom and is 25, and her 5 year-old daughter named Julia. There are always other people in the house, however. Friends, sometimes the brother of my mother.

I believe in humility. And I'm very careful about contact with other cultures, because I like to get to know them, empathize or sympathize. So when I get to know strangers from other cultures its more than meeting someone new. It's dealing with the unknown, it's also confronting yourself and possibly some of your biggest fear and flaws, depending on who you are.

So I didn't want to try and analyze my new family. I just wanted to get to know them. But now I have passed judgement, and I am looking forward to leaving. Sometimes things are just shady, and difficult to understand, and even impossible to accept. You know, that's life. But I'll just give it to you straight: grandma smokes cigarettes all day and dry heaves in the bathroom for hours at night. Mom sleeps all day, gets high late afternoon, and drinks beer all night long with her friends. I see her daughter before I leave for school early in the morning, restless and lying awake next to her mother in the bed, coughing so much that her little body looks like it will collapse, as she has since the day I met her. Sometimes I come home in the early afternoon to change and she'll still be in her barbie nightgown, her wild hair standing on end, and she'll come up to me and squeal, hold my hand. I am "elizabetch" here, and she'll repeat and hold my hand. I love little girls I have a soft spot for kids in general. But this girl I just feel sorry for.

The other day she came in my room and we played a little bit, I told her I wanted to go to sleep so she curled up next to me and sang little songs for an hour. And then she kissed me, cheek, cheek, and then on the lips. And needless to say, I am really sick right now. I lost my voice and my throat is like dry stone. But I figured it was only time until I got sick in this house.

More about my family.

Grandma, who has accent that sounds like her mouth is full of marbles, I can only get about 60% of what she says, has decided to relive her youth. All the ladies of the house have cornrows, mom has long hair extensions that drop to her waist. But now grandma got some. And then she started painting her lips bright pink every day. And then her nails red. And then a pink blackberry magically appeared, and the hemline of her already revealing clothing began an incline of a steady pace.

We have a huge flat screen now. Apparently a "gift". And yet sometimes we go a day without any toilet paper.

Multiple parties held at our flat. I usually hang out for a little but can't hold very good conversation, because of the language barrier and something of a type of person barrier. Plus I wake up at 6am to get to school. So off I go to pretend to sleep. I wake up in the morning to take a shower, return to my room in a towel, to find a man in his underwear standing in the middle of my room. He is obviously wasted. He comes up to me and asks, "posso passar?" Can I come in. Ha. Please.

He presses me against his beer odor body and kisses my face. And then comes the No, and he saying he doesn't understand. But don't worry nothing more happens. I change right there and push him the hell out of my room. He knocks then for the next hour at my door. I go to school. Normal day ensues. Life is fine. And I don't hold it against my family that a drunk man who was to wasted to leave from the night before was standing in my room. I do hold it against them that shit goes down, while Julia lives in that house.

It's just sad. It's like a college party is going on in the house, and then the little girl comes in, and you can see it on everybody's face. Like, shit. None of us are ready for this kind of responsibility.

Later I find out it's my mother's uncle who pays for the place, and he has no idea that she has signed up with TEFL, who pay her a hefty sum to house foreign girls like me.

It's whatever. They are people I never have to see again. I spend only my sleeping time at home now. I have plenty to do and friends to see during the day and stay out late at night. But coming home to a sweating older lady, puking into the sink and then mumbling to herself in the bathroom mirror, twirling her hair and wearing nothing but a distorted smile, you start to lose concept of reality. And I feel a bit depressed. But everything is ok.