Goodbye Rio

I'm leaving Rio de Janeiro tomorrow morning, and like any good blogger I feel it is my duty to make this non-event into somewhat of a dramatic milestone. I spend so much time writing about random things that I basically just make up out of thin air that when something actually happens I nearly wet myself.

First let me get the obligatory part out of the way: I can't believe it's already over. I know people always say that but it's true. I feel like there were 10 years' worth of adventure, pain, excitement, fear, friendship, tiredness, and culture shock packed into these last 4 months. It's true what they say - Rio is more than a city, it's a state of mind. It's like one long psychadelic trip that no one can understand unless they experience it for themselves.

I feel like now I should write something that I learned, and make this post into a Top Ten list of something or other. But the truth is I'm not sure. I think that the main idea I'm left with is a sense of the deep ambiguity of life.

Rio in many ways is a living and breathing, physical representation of this.

The trafickers are funded by the rich, who pressure the police to crack down, but the police are funded by the trafickers, who also sponsor politicians, who make token gestures to please the poor, who protect the trafickers, who also rob from the rich. And that's just the surface. Dig a little deeper and things start actually getting complicated.

This is a Catholic city in the world's largest Catholic country, which means it closely abides by the dictates of the Pope, right? Ummm, not so much. You will hardly find a more sexually liberal place anywhere. Add in a large dose of African spiritist religions, good old-fashioned superstition, and some evangelical fervor and you get Rio (and Brazil for that matter) today: a menagerie of borrowed influences and themes all interwoven together in a beautiful yet totally undefinable series of belief systems.

On the economic front, you have one of the biggest nexuses of probably the wealthiest country in the world in terms of natural resources, with the biggest rainforest, and vast reserves of every type of mineral as well as petroleum off the coast. And yet one-third of the population, 50 million people, live in destitution, without the income to satisy even their most basic biological necessities. Rio, a city with so much wealth it is practically bursting at the seams, has hundreds of favelas tucked into every knook and cranny, and one of the largest homeless populations of any major city.

Like I said, it's ambiguous.

The funny thing is, and this is where I wax philosophical for those of you less inclined, I have this suspicion that everything in life is like that. I get the feeling that if you get any topic, any belief or idea that you can think of, and just examine it closely enough, it eventually and inevitably turns from black-and-white to shades of grey.

I guess that's the lesson that I'm taking away from Rio: whenever I'm so sure of something that I cannot see the other side, it's time to take myself less seriously and have a closer look. Don't ask me how a city can teach you that because I have no clue. I just work here.

What Class Are You? (in Brazil)

In the U.S. we don't like to talk about class. We don't like to say that we are in the "upper class" or that that person in the trailer park is "lower class." We prefer to pretend that these layers don't exist, or if we're forced to say, we speak as if everyone is part of a vast and uniform middle-class stretching from sea to shining sea.

If we're feeling particularly daring, we might throw around such terms as "lower-middle class" or "upper-middle class," but this starts to get into the dangerous territory of bringing the socioeconomic hierarchy into focus. That's crazy talk.

A couple weeks ago in my Consumer Behavior class, we started talking about how to define the different classes of Brazilian society, in this case so we could target them more effectively with ads. Despite the many disadvantages of having one of the most unequal societies in the world (like rampant crime, political turmoil, social instability, etc.), there is at least one good thing: it's really easy to define and discuss socioeconomic classes.

And what's more, Brazilians don't have any problem discussing class and its many implications. They speak freely of being part of "Classes A and B" or "D and E." It's like a big social report card, and everyone's got their grade.

The quiz below is officially approved by the Brazilian Association of Advertisers (ABA) and the National Association of Market Research Companies (ANEP), with the participation of the Brazilian Association of Market Research Institutes (ABIPEME).

I would love to hear how you guys rate in the comments, so I can decide who my friends are accordingly.

1. For each of the items below, add up your points based on how many your family owns:


2. Now add this number of points based on the education level of the head of household:


3. Your total number of points places you in a class based on the table below:

Goodbye Rocinha

I was kicked out of Rocinha this week. I've been considering for awhile how much of what happened I should post on this very public blog, and I've decided that I'm going to tell most of the story.

I'm not exactly proud of everything that happened, but I think that I will post it for two reasons: to put to rest the rumor mill that has already started, and for posterity.

It started with my friend Derick visiting me here in Rio for a week. It was an absolutely jam-packed week full of so many things I can't even begin to list, including a live open-air concert performed by Derick together with a local Brazilian artist.

During his time here Derick did quite a bit of filming, documenting everything from differing perceptions of the favela to individual stories of residents to his own reactions to this vastly different place. He will be making this footage into a documentary over the next few weeks, and I've decided that instead of trying to recount everything that happened on his trip, I will let him tell the story himself, through this film. It might take awhile but when it is done I will post it here.

On Derick's last day here, I decided that there was some footage I just had to get with his high-end (and high-definition) video camera. It was footage, in fact, that I had been planning to take for some time, and had just been waiting for the right moment.

A student from the institute, Waldinei, had offered to drive me up the main street that climbs the hill of Rocinha, the Estrada da Gávea, to film what is definitely one of the busiest and most interesting streets in all of Rio; a bustling, chaotic mixture of people, animals, food, and commerce.

We left the Institute, which is located at the bottom of the hill, got his motorcycle, and started the drive up, me in back with my camera and his young daughter in front. It was the perfect drive: plenty of excitement going on all around us, no major traffic jams, and all-in-all a beautiful day to film the community. After ascending and descending the hill, Waldinei dropped me off at the bottom of the street that leads to my house, so I could drop by and grab something from the house.

Now I must admit I was feeling pretty self-confident at this point. I had just filmed an experience that has been one of the most defining of my time in Rocinha, and there was only one thing left that I hadn't captured on film: my own street.

I walked up the steep incline to the area where the traffickers usually sit, only to find it completely empty, a rare occurrence. In fact, the entire street was almost deserted, save for one trafficker, standing guard on the corner.

This man, who I would later find out is named Chucky, would turn my world inside out for the next hour. He was tall, mulatto (like most everyone in Rocinha), and thin. He was dressed in green shorts, a black combat utility jacket, and a baseball cap. He was also carrying a large semi-automatic rifle.

Before I go on, I want to explain what the heck I was doing talking to drug traffickers.

I had been trying almost since my arrival in Rocinha to document what life was like there. I had a number of motivations to do this. I remembered my own experience researching the institute and trying to decide if it would be a good fit for me. What I found at the time was an absolute black hole of information - no videos, no pictures, no descriptions - and for this reason it had been really difficult for me to get an idea of what it was like there. Luckily I had had extensive contact with Paul Sneed, the founder of the Two Brothers Institute, during my time with Club Brazil at SDSU, so I had at least a general outline of day-to-day life.

I couldn't help but think, however, that others would be discouraged in their research by the lack of transparency that Rocinha presents to outsiders, which often just reinforces the many stereotypes of the community as a quagmire of violence, drugs, and destitution. I thought that by documenting the substance of day-to-day life, I could shed some light on what it means to be a foreigner, a volunteer, in this mythical place called Rocinha. Sadly and ironically, what happened next merely confirmed some of the ugliest stereotypes of the place.

I asked Chucky if I could film the street in front of my house, which was around the corner from where we were at the time. My camera was in my backpack at the time, and I made it clear (or at least I attempted to make clear) that I didn't want to film him, only the street in front of my house.

About a second after I asked this question, I knew it was a mistake. I quickly realized that Chucky was completely cracked out of his mind: he couldn't look me in the eye, rambled in incoherent phrases, and fidgeted constantly. At first he seemed very confused, and then quickly became angry as I tried to apologize and disengage. It didn't help that I could hardly understand what he was saying, and had to constantly ask for him to repeat himself.

After a few minutes of this, Chucky told me to show him where I wanted to film, and led me down the street and around the corner to where my house was. By this point he was quite angry, constantly cocking his rifle and pointing it at my chest or face. He didn't believe me when I told him I was a volunteer for an NGO in Rocinha, and started telling me about his childhood, how he didn't have parents and slept in the streets.

By this time we were right in front of my house. Chucky then asked me where I lived, and I made the mistake of telling him that I didn't live in the neighborhood, that I was just passing through. In retrospect, I realize that identifying myself as a resident of the place would have gone a long way toward diffusing tensions. At the time, seeing the crazy look in his eyes and the carelessness with which he waived around his gun, I was sure that he would start machine-gunning the house or something.

It's hard to explain and even harder to understand, but I considered myself a lost cause at that point. With so many scenes from so many movies about situations just like this playing in my head, I knew that death was just a second away, that there would be no dramatic buildup, no tense standoff, no musical crescendo. There would be only a man performing an act he had performed many times before and would perform many times after, a meaningless event unfolding in a vacuum of consequences. I know that sounds awfully fatalistic, but hey, this is me we're talking about.

Predictably, the second I was done saying that I wasn't from 'round here, a few of my friends popped their head out of the window and started talking to me. Well then the shit really hit the fan. Chucky started yelling that I was a liar (which was true) and that he was going to kill me (which I believed was also true). He took me by the arm and half pushed me, half dragged me back toward the traffickers' "headquarters," an indoor soccer court on the corner with a second story where they liked to hang out. I think that he really thought he had me, that he had caught me red-handed in a lie and I was really going to get it.

We got to the main base, and I actually immediately felt much better. The rest of the traffickers were smoking weed, and were super mellow and friendly. They apologized to me for Chucky's behavior, and told me that he was crazy/stupid/a crack addict (and you give this guy a gun?). They asked me where I was from and I told them, knowing that they were in their right mind (actually, in an especially receptive mind). They asked me what was in my backpack and I told them I had a camera - they asked to see what I had filmed and I showed them that I had only filmed the Estrada da Gávea. After watching only a few seconds of the footage they said I was fine.

Chucky was still throwing a fit during all this, claiming that I was a liar and generally causing a ruckus. The chefe (the head guy) called him over from the second story and chewed him out, telling him to chill out. Everyone besides Chucky was completely at ease and really made me feel much better, even apologizing to me for the trouble and telling me I could leave. Chucky tried to follow me even after being rebuked by his colleagues, probably because I had pretty much humiliated him in front of everyone.

I went back to the house where everyone was in an uproar, got what I came for, and left as quickly as possible, not really wanting to argue over the details of what had just happened. In reality, I didn't have time to think things through, as I had only a few hours to finish some last minute errands, pack my things, get Derick to the airport, and get myself to the bus terminal for a trip to Cabo Frio (a beach town a few hours away) that we had planned for some time. I could see just in the few hours I remained in Rocinha that a lot of people were angry with me, that what I had done and the ensuing events had unearthed a lot of fears, tensions, and resentments that had been brewing for a long time.

The meeting that was called as soon as we got back was a summary affair, as we discovered upon our arrival that a decision had already been made despite the fact that no one up to that point really even knew what had happened (I say "we" because Mateo, my roommate and best friend in Brazil, had also had a little dustup with the traficantes the night before at a local funk party). It was clear to me that the different versions of and elaborations on the story had already been making the rounds, to the extent that even my explanations of why I had done what I had done, even some of the essential details that would have allayed many fears, fell for the most part on deaf ears.

The leadership of the institute came to the decision that Mateo and I should leave the institute and leave Rocinha. They said that this decision was in no way a reflection on our work at the institute, but was instead a precaution due to the fact that, in my case, Chucky could come for me at any time and for any reason, a possibility made more likely by the fact that I had humiliated him in front of his compatriots, more unpredictable by his drug habits, and more dangerous by his perpetually armed state.

The institute told me that the decision was made with only my safety in mind, but I have to say, when you are forced to leave the place you live, the place you work, all the people and places and things that have been your home for an amazing 3 months of your life without even saying goodbye, it doesn't really matter what the reason is. All the consolations in the world can't change the way that feels.

We ascended the hill to our house immediately after the meeting was finished, packed our things, and left Rocinha that very same night, 3 months to the day after I had entered.

It's been a couple weeks now, and things have gotten back to normal. Me and Mateo found a place to live in the neighboring favela, Vidigal, just a few days after we left, through our friend Antoine. It is a very solidly constructed house in a distant corner of the favela where there are no traficantes, since our house overlooks Avenida Neimeyer, the main highway along the coast in this part of the city.

The atmosphere of Vidigal is completely different than that of Rocinha. While Rocinha is a bustling, chaotic, densely-packed city that never sleeps, Vidigal feels more like a small town. The streets seem perpetually deserted, there are only a few stores open for business on the main thoroughfare, and people seem to generally maintain a slower pace of life. It's quite nice, actually.

There are only a couple weeks of school left, and then Mateo and I will be heading to the northeast of Brazil, the so-called "cultural heart" of the country. Hopefully we will find some reliable internet there to make some posts. We currently don't have internet at the house which is why I haven't been around, and probably won't be posting as often as I tie up loose ends here in Rio and get ready to depart on my trip.

Hope all of you are well, miss you all, drop me a line sometime.

Tiago

New Place in Vidigal