Trip in Rio de Janeiro
Trip Start
Jan 26, 2008
1
9
105
Trip End
Ongoing
Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Arriving in city centre
. My driver was going so fast, overtaking everything from buses to dogs but it was great, all the kids shouting Ļgringo, gringo!Ļ (=stranger), and once high up, we started the tour. I was so nicely surprise at how welcoming these people are, there is such a big misconception about favelas, people often link them with drung infested areas, but no, there are normal people, having normal jobs, but choosing to lie in these poor conditions but close to the city, ratherthan in a betterhouse in the suburbs. This means they can just get a bus or walk to work everyday. We visited an art galery, and a childcare centre, the favela has schools, loads of shops, internet cafes, dvd shops, a post office. There are people in charge of collecting the trash, they donīt pay for water nor electricity, they connect their cable TV on whatever pilon they can in the street. I saw a lot of pregnant women (women usually have 4 or 5 kids) and a bunch of kids even did a mini concert for us in the favela. The guide explained that we could walk from bottom to top without anything never happening to us, as citizens of Rocinha have an interest in not getting the police involved in anything, so they are not likely to rob ar attack you. There is some drug and arm trading going on, but it is them celling it to the rich outside, the biggest problem in the favela beeing alcohol. I so enjoyed this tour, it was really great.I am now putting some photos (at last).
