Rhod and Anna's World Adventure

Today we have been to visit a favela. These are more commonly known at home as shanty towns and in Rio and all over South America there are lots. The one we visited is called Rochinha and is, apparently, the largest in South America with a population of 200,000 people.

Brave you might think of us to hop on a bus and enter a Favela when the local Police don´t even go that often. No, we didn´t do that. We´re not stupid. (Ok, maybe buying drinks for a ´student´whose ´birthday´it is does qualify us as stupid.) We obviously went on a guided tour and thankfully it was a massive improvement on the last guided tour we attended!

I thought we´d left the extreme sports in New Zealand. I was wrong. Our guide Luiz parked the bus at the bottom of the favela and told us that we were going to get a motorbike taxi up to the top. I have never been on the back of a motorbike and visions of Sunday afternoons watching (against my will) Valentino Rossi etc hairing round corners with their knees scraping the tarmac came flooding back to me. Pathetic, I know. The 8 of us were suddenly faced with a line of taxi drivers all beckoning us over to them. Which one do I choose? None looked particularly safe so I just chose the fattest bloke in the hope that we wouldn´t go up the hill too fast! Unlike the riders who had full leathers, helmets and gloves, I was relying on my jeans, a t-shirt and my hair to protect me. The fat bloke theory didn´t work. We raced up the hills twisting and turning whilst trying to avoid holes, lorries and the other bikes in the road. The added bonus was that it was raining so on every corner we took I was preparing myself for the pain that would be my leg clamped under 140 kilos of metal! The journey lasted about 10 minutes and I was relieved to eventually get off with all my limbs intact at the top.

We started our tour at the top of the Favela which is set on a hillside. The guide pointed out the ammenities of the Favela such as the post office and the medical centre where there are 2 doctors to support the 200,000 people! He also pointed out the graffiti of the ruling drug gang for that Favela. He explained that we would be allowed to take a picture of anything we wanted in the Favela but if he asked us to put our cameras away it was important that we did so immediately. From talking to other people in the hostel who had already done the tour this had happened to them when one of the drug dealers walked past them with his face masked and openly carrying a machine gun. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, we didn´t see anything of the like and at no point did we have to put our cameras away.

We walked from the top down to the bottom. In many places the path we followed was no wider than a doorway and as it had been raining the drains had overflowed and dirty water was running down it. We stopped for refreshments in a local bakery and we also stopped to purchase home made goods such as bracelets and paintings from the local kids. The guide explained that this was all part of the tour. He asked us to not give any money to anyone who was begging as they want to encourage the kids to earn the money through making and selling stuff. It´s very cheap and they obviously work hard on what they do.

I may have left the teaching profession 5 months ago but when I heard we were to visit a local day care centre and creche I couldn´t help but feel excited. It was easy to tell where it was as you could hear the noise from a mile away! It was like having permanent wet play as there was no space for a playground. We got to go in and play with the kids aged between 3 and 6 who were so sweet. I couldn´t believe that they weren´t sitting in a Literacy hour learning about split digraphs and homophones though! How will they cope in life?! They were actually allowed to play and they had better social skills than most adults! It was heart-warming to see these kids with nothing enjoying life so much. It´s nice to know that most of the money we paid to go on the tour goes towards providing necessary equipment for this centre.

It was an enlightening trip and it´s hard to believe that behind the glitz and glamour of Copacabana lies thousands of people living in such poverty just 10 minutes away.

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