Rosinha

The other day I went to check out The Two Brothers Foundation in Favela Rosinha. It was my first real experience of a shanty town. I met the guy outside the Copacabana Palace at noon and we caught a van along the coast. We alighted just outside the entrance. The town in which Rosinha is situated is a pretty middle class well to do area and walking in was a shock; it was literally like walking into a third world country within a country. A self contained society, which works and functions with predominantly different rules and regulations to the rest of the country.

No one actually knows how many people inhabit the favela but some say it is close to 400,000. This number will not and can not be confirmed. These people officially don't exist in Brazil.

I was led down various winding alleyways and eventually into a small office. A door on my left opened to reveal a very sweet little classroom. Clearly meant for children with its small chairs and basic colourful number and alphabet charts all over the walls. It reminded me of visiting my old girlfriend Louise at her primary school. I was then shown upstairs and into another larger classroom for teens and adults. Above this was another floor, which had flooded from the morning's tropical rainstorm. Finally, I took it upon myself to climb the last staircase up onto the roof. WOW. I was absolutely amazed with what I saw there. Miles of clumsily constructed brick box houses, in some cases crudely painted in an attempt to brighten the raw orange brick colour up. I stood there staring for about 20 minutes in complete awe. It was very hard to believe that people are living like this, juxtaposed with the people living in luxury apartments only ten minutes along the coast. I laid down to ponder and fell asleep.

I must have been out for two hours, when my body clock prompted my revival. It was 15:05 and the lesson I had planned on observing should have started. I rushed down stairs and met the 'teacher'. Obviously, the kids were already working on Brazilian time as they hadn't yet turned up. Marina is a trained nurse over here from the US to travel and work; she is of part Afro decent and could quite easily pass as Brazilian; as could most mixed race people. She had been living in Rosinha for the past few months teaching voluntarily. She seemed nice enough.

A few moments later, the first of her two child students arrived. A small pretty-faced girl of about 8 or 9 years; her name I cannot remember (yet). I followed teacher and student into the class. It was obvious after five minute that Marina had had no formal teacher training; although, in her credit she was making a good effort and any volunteer gets my respect. I was impressed by her grasp of Portuguese but slightly concerned by the amount she used it. 10 minutes later, a slightly pudgy 8 year old named Douglas turned up and politely shook my hand. He had a huge cheeky grin on his face, which revealed a big gap in his first front teeth. The lesson continued and I felt sure I could make a difference here.

After the lesson had finished, the kids scrambled off home through the maze of alleys and Marina joined Washington and me for a brief chat. She explained that she was leaving to travel northern Brazil. Washington put the pressure on me 'We really need you Niko,' he exclaimed, 'in two weeks we will be without an English teacher.' I paused for thought, before agreeing to look at my current schedule and check when I'd be available. He was very happy at this and promised to send me the timetable. We all shook hands and he gave me a warm genuine smile of gratitude before I departed.

As I left alone venturing through a favela for the first time, I felt no fear or danger. I made my way in reverse of the way I'd come and back down the main road. The organisation is located right next the the favela's aptly named 'bocca' or mouth; this is the point where most of the drug trafficking goes on. Metaphorically, how the favela speaks to the city. I locked eyes with a guy sitting down speaking on his mobile phone as I crossed the small internal road, I then glanced down to his waist and noticed he was propped up on a massive AR15 assault riffle! It was at this moment when I remembered where I was. There were 3 or four others, all about my age, each sporting automatic weapons and casually chatting over beers. Wisely, I didn't hold the gaze any longer and walked by as calm as if I were shopping in the supermarket. Further down the road, there were kids with bumbags full of money selling merchandise - unarmed but heavily protected. I carried on down the street, which ran adjacent to the sewage stream; this, I was told earlier, only provided sanitation to half the population; I wasn't told how the other half managed. A little further was a road block of boulders, there were teenagers manning this and only authorised vehicles could pass. Even more shocking was what is saw next: I left the favela and literally 50 yards from the armed beer drinkers in the favela stood and heavily armed policeman. His gun was fucking massive and looked like the railgun Rasmas uses in Alien. He stood with a grimace on his face, calmly watching over the entrance. The funny thing is, both sides are blatantly aware of each other's presence but don't cross the line in some agreed truce. The police are paid well and therefore play a part in the problem instead of preventing it as they were first employed to do. I crossed the road unnoticed and waited for my bus home.