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July 19, 2007

A few nights ago, I heard a gunshot outside my window for the first time since I arrived 10 days ago. “Outside my window” is relative, because I live in a highly patrolled and guarded apartment complex, one protected by three to five security guards at different points along the street.

But I heard the distant and all-together recognizable bang of a gun from far away, followed by a cacophony that lasted for over a minute. I was drinking tea and reading Harry Potter inside my apartment, and somebody a few minutes away by car was being shot at and, as the audible evidence indicated, firing back. The dichotomy was not lost on me.

There's a large favela visible from my fourth-floor window. Like most of Rio's favelas, this one is hidden up in the city's mountains, its houses built right on top of older ones that have since decayed and fallen apart. The buildings are painted with bright colors – you can almost always recognize a favela by simply looking up from sea level and spotting a mass of brightly colored buildings almost suffocating one another in the fight for space atop a narrow mountain.

That two-minute experience defined a lot of what life is like in Rio. From my window, I can see and hear life in the favelas – but that's as close as I'll get while I'm at home. There are two distinct worlds in Rio de Janeiro: there's the world of the favelas, a world peppered with gunshots and tragically full of drug and police violence, and there's the world outside of them, filled with beaches, caiparinhas and lavish shopping centers. Because of the city's physical and demographic layout – favelas on top, wealth on the bottom – cariocas have a saying: “Por cima, por abaixo.” The higher up you live, the poorer you are.

Rio's two worlds exist side by side in this city of over 14 million people, and the collision of the two is almost always volatile and, more tragically, deadly. Technically, favelas are not under the jurisdiction of the city; maps of Rio de Janeiro do not show the streets and markings of favelas. Instead, a large black mass entitled “favela” marks their locations on city maps. Drug lords or important local figures often run the favelas, depending on the structure and the hierarchy of each specific one. In many, the local police will not enter.

Since I've been here, O Globo has given daily reports on O Complexo de Alemão (The German Complex), a large favela on Ilha do Governador (Governor's Island) that I pass by every day on my way to work. There's been a two-month “war” between the local police and O Alemão, one causing over 60 casualties – including 19 in one day. The resident combatants constructed a barrier to entry so that police could not pass through, prompting massive police intervention. Moreover, police recently found out that O Alemão receives training from ex-military, including an illustrated instructional pamphlet on how to shoot police helicopters out of the sky. Anti-helicopter rifles are common to some favelas, making parts of the city “no-fly-over” zones for fear of retaliation from favela residents.

I told my parents these things on the phone a few nights ago, and my mother's response was “Never, ever go in one of those!” I regretfully had to tell her I would be working in many of them, volunteering for an organization that provides a six-to-eight month curriculum to adolescents from the favelas in Ilha do Governador. I intend to do other volunteer work in Cidade de Deus (the favela that inspired the film of the same name) and Rocinha – the biggest favela in South America .

Despite the violence – catalyzed mostly by efforts within the favelas to control Rio's drug distribution points and police attempts to curtail drug sales and circulation – favelas remain intimate, protective havens for the majority of their residents. Shortly after I arrived here, my friend sent me an article about how some tourists and ex-patriots are moving into Rio's favelas to live, attracted by the close-knit communities to be found inside. Perhaps it is unity stemming from tacit exclusion from the rest of Rio, but favela residents are charmingly warm and protective of one another. The ones I've met in my work at A Vencer have been nothing but welcoming, asking me questions about my life and offering me whatever snacks they purchase during class breaks.

It is a lie to say such work is devoid of danger, but it is also a lie to say Rio is brimming with uncontrollable violence and that confrontation with deadly violence is inevitable during one's stay here. For some reason, only the bad news about Rio finds its way into the American press. At its barest, it is a charming, vibrant and stunning city, its inhabitants garrulous and tranquilos (the oft-repeated adjective used to describe cariocas) and its natural beauty unmatched by most cities in the world. That it suffers such terrible violence and poverty is tragic, but most cariocas are quick to tell you that Rio “é como todas as outras cidades grandes do mundo.” It is a stretch – few cities I've known feature hours-long deadly shootouts with the police every so often – but cariocas understand quite well that the bad of Rio comes with the good.