Rocinha, my first visit to a favela

On Friday (July 1), Brenna and I went to Rocinha to visit our first NGO, Instituo dois Irmãos (i2i). It was my first time in a favela and at first sight; it was a little intimidating and frightening.

After 40 minutes on the bus to Gavea from Niterói and then a sketchy van ride later, we arrived to an entrance of Rocinha. Rocinha, is one of the biggest favelas (slums) in Latin America. With a population from anywhere between 100,000-200,000, Rocinha is a city in of itself!

As Brenna and I waited on the corner for our contact from i2i to pick us up, a fight broke out. A motorbike driver looked over at me and said “briga, briga!” (fight, fight) and I was so confused. I had no idea what he was talking about. A minute later, a crowd gathers and these two boys are fighting in the street. One was Moreno and shirtless, the other white, wearing a gray shirt. The Moreno one was kicking the sh*t out of the white one. As the white one tried to escape, the Moreno one followed and aggressively punched, kicked and beat up the white one. The crowd blocked my view of the whole fight—and I was also scared out of my ass and trying to stay away from the crowd and the fight. The fight moved to the middle of the street, behind a bus. As I watched the Moreno pummel the other kid, my body went numb. I thought to myself, oh lord, what am I going in for? Shortly afterwards, Rogério, came and led us to the NGO office.

On the way to the NGO, I noticed that people mostly wore havaiana flip-flops. I saw a Black grandmother with blue eyes holding the hands of her grandchildren who both were playing games on their cell phones. The kids were no older than 8 years old. There were bakeries, fruit stands, grocery stores and clothing shops on what I assume is the main street. The streets were asphalted. As we walked up the block, I saw mattresses and refrigerators (there must’ve been 10 of them) lined up on the walls. I could see inside the houses, which were mostly made of concrete. We walked across this open sewer where we saw sewer water flowing underneath. It smelled like old garbage and pee. We left the main street and entered into the small residential streets where people lived. I have never been on a street so narrow. A boy on a bicycle was headed towards us and he could barely squeeze through this street on his youth-sized bike. I could see into every house we passed by. The one house that remains vivid in my memory is this one that was completely pink on the inside. There was an elderly woman sweeping in the doorstep and I remember smiling at her and peering into her house. All four walls were pink; she had a couch, a TV, white floors and some family photos on the shelves. If we were not in Rocinha, I would never have thought that we were in a slum. The inside of her house looked like any other Brazilian household. Her house was neat, furnished and clean. I thought about this article I read a couple months ago about how the urban poor in Brazil differs drastically from the rural poor. A new definition of poverty must be applied when referring to the urban poor. There is more access to water, electricity and food. The growing population of poor is mostly living in cities where they live in favelas because of lower rent. Real estate is very expensive in Rio de Janeiro and favelas have become the solution for lower-income families who work in Rio and live on the outskirts.

We arrive at i2i and met with Daniel, our supervisor. He gives us a tour of the NGO. He tells us that the NGO office is going to be reformed in the coming weeks. The main office is has a small reception area, with bookcases filled with books. There are flags painted all around the top of the walls that represent all the international volunteers who have participated in i2i. There must have been more than 10 different countries represented. I thought it was a genius idea!

He shows us the classroom we would be using for our program and it is a spacious room with high ceilings and many windows. There is a mural of a beautiful tree painted by a volunteer in the back wall of the classroom.

After the tour, we watch a children’s English class in session. It was a very dynamic and engaging class. The class was divided into two groups. The teacher would say a letter of the alphabet and 1 or 2 students would run up to the piece of paper taped on the wall and write a word starting with that letter. The kids were going crazy, trying to remember how to spell words in English. When the teacher said the letter T…I was trying to help out this one boy and I asked him in Portuguese “O que é chá em ingles?” but all he heard was “O que é chá?” and he got all excited and ran to write KESHA on the piece of paper. He didn’t understand that I meant tea. So silly!

The visit to Rocinha was great. I loved the environment of i2i—it feels like there is a real sense of community involvement. I am excited to start our classes and work with the kids!