A tourist at the Rocinha (2010)
Autor: Alexandre Fonseca | Publicado: 2012-11-21T14:38:00Z

(O ritmo de posts é um por ano, nada mal. Obrigado Daniela pela foto, espero que não haja problema nesta utilização abusiva do teu copyright)





You sit on the back of the bike. The
motoboy pulls you in a flash. You wake up and you're already at the top
of the favela. After a crazy ride through trucks, vehicles, other
motorbikes, holes on the ground and people moving around in their normal daily
life you thank God and the driver and will probably want to kiss the floor for
the safety it now provides. The motorcycle ride which starts at the lowest
point of the favela takes only a few minutes to get you to the top. The motoboys
service is also a normal mean of transportation for the habitants of the
favela. The different colours in the jackets of the drivers show their
diverse functions.&nbsp;




The scenery at the top is horribly
pretty. The mix of colours of the buildings – red, green, pink, yellow and, of
course, the orange of the brick walls is astonishing.&nbsp; The São Conrado neighbourhood just after,
near the sea and the beach, offers yet another awful contrast, although both neighbourdhods co-exist
peacefully.&nbsp;




A guide in the narrow and garbage
filled streets (if street is an appropriate name to small and growling narrower
paths) is certainly useful. Coming down by foot is the goal and the best
opportunity to know the lives of the persons living in this two-hundred
thousand community, which began by chance.


During the decade of 20 of the last century, immigrants coming from the north-east of Brazil, mostly of rural origin,
could not get a house in the best neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro, where they
actually worked. Therefore they started to build houses made of wood at the Rocinha. This
migration grew without any order or direction and now most of them live without
proper sanitary system and deplorable health conditions. Electricity is
provided by a private company but stolen by some, especially those living at
the top where company workers can't so easily access and verify the wiring.
Going down the paths and involuntarily peeking through each house it is not
hard to notes the many HD screens, high-tech PCs and video game consoles which
“inhabit” its interior – once again contrast is one of the key-words here. 


As one barely even starts his tour
it's not easy to escape a feeling of invasion of the “their” space. A tourist
is not welcomed here, although tourism is one of the engines which moves the
social projects being developed, such as a kindergarten which provides kids
with another way, a way through which they can educate themselves and escape the
traps of destiny, or an art studio where young artist show their amazing
paintings, most of them with one theme in common – their life and experience at
the Rocinha.


Of course, these are just two small
examples of the positive things being done in the community and what a tourist
involuntarily sees and what he can't see maybe much much scarier. Shootings are
not rare and occur, at least, every other semester between the police and the
local gang which controls the favela or between rival gangs. The moment
where your guide informs you about the shootings you can't help to wonder, as
your heart stops : “What if a shooting started now?”. 


The community must be very
respectful to the leaders of these gangs but it is also very organized. Mail
post, churches, several shops, diners, bakeries and bars exist and are
available to the locals and to the outsiders. One of those famous outsiders was
the singer Lenny Kravitz who visited the Rocinha some years ago and refused havaing any reporters following him. 


A noble attitude which should remind
everyone who comes to the Rocinha that what happens there is not a show, it is
not something to feel sorry for or be afraid of. What happens there is real
life, those are real people who had the misfortune of being born in one of the
largest favelas of&nbsp; Latin America.
They are not monsters, they are not thieves or drug dealers. Most of them are
normal people who just want a normal life. 


Looking, this time up, to the morros
(large rocks on the top of the hills which “fortify” the Rocinha) and the
colourful buildings embodying a joy which is not really there, is not without a
sense of helplessness that one leaves, albeit all the projects and efforts of
the NGOs involved in solving this problem. A sense that there is so much to be
done and that what is done is almost hopeless.&nbsp;
Nevertheless, there is an old Portuguese saying which is always important
to remember when everything seems to fall apart - Hope is always the last thing
to die.


No one can just be there as a
tourist, not even as a professional or a humanitarian. I was there as a Person.
I was there only a few hours but felt like I had been there my whole life. I
imagined growing in those dark alleys, I imagined being afraid, I imagined
being led to a world where drugs, violence and guns would mean routine and
where toughness would be essential to survive. I imagined growing without a future,
growing without education or basic essential health. That's the power of
imagination – living another life in your thoughts. Imagine growing without
that power? Imagined that? That's life at the Rocinha.&nbsp;