The “Peaceful Favelas” Are Attracting More Tourists in Rio – Are Favela Tours Like A Human Zoo??

Increased Tourism In Rio’s “Pacified” Favelas: Encouraged by The Brazilian Government, But Is it Ultimately Fair to Inhabitants?

The traditional conception of a favela is being subverted in Rio. Every day, dozens of tourists are led through some of Rio’s most dangerous slums to witness the conditions of the favela.

I got this picture off of the website for "Rio Tour," one of the many favela tour agencies i found on google

In the wake of U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Rio de Janeiro, which included a tour through the notorious City of God slum, questions have been raised regarding the fate of Brazil’s hill-draped favelas. Brazilian and foreign officials have expressed concern related to the crime-infested favelas, especially in light of the upcoming Brazil-hosted 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

In an effort to calm international and domestic anxiety, municipal and federal forces are acting together to combat drug lords and rid favelas of potentially spoiling transgressors who could have a devastating impact on the country’s image. However, law enforcement agencies are not the only factions trying to bring about severely needed change. Favela tourism is also playing a role, with tourists acting alongside government officials to revise global attitudes toward these impoverished communities.

"Michael Jackson's Space" - Now a popular tourist attraction, this is the spot where Michael Jackson made a music video in the Rio favela "Morro Santa Maria"

Favela tour guide Vitor Lira Adão, 30, says that he was already bringing tourists on tours through the favelas before they were “pacified.” He is one of the monitors of Rio Top Tour, a project created a year ago by the state government in order to incentivize favela-dwellers to bring in tourism.

“Foreigners have always been curious, even though they are aware of how dangerous it used to be,” says Vitor, who says that he never had serious problems while giving tours, except for one time when he quickly had to hide from gunfire…

Read More, Via Folha…

And here is the video from that recent Folha article:

…And Below is another video of a Brazilian Favela tour from Current TV.

In this video, Current TV producer Dre Urhahn follows a group of tourists on a favela tour to examine whether they exploiting the communities or helping them…

And lastly,

Here’s a decent article that touches upon the discomforting nature of the concept of a tour through a human-filled ghetto: Globalization or Zoo-Like Exploitation? Slum Tours on the Rise

So, what’s Portuguese Blogger’s take on all of this? Well, gringos obviously have a natural curiosity for what third world poverty looks like in a country so fun and “cultural” as brazil, they also clearly get an adrenaline rush from the possibility of witnessing violence. So, all in all i’d say that these favela inhabitants could make a good business out of this, just as long as the potential for the tour to be dangerous still lingers, in order to preserve that element of brag-worthy excitement. But it is slightly bothersome to me that the government wants to turn the favelas into some sort of “reality” Disneyland, it does seem disturbingly like a zoo, but i guess we’ll see what happens by 2016…

Also, watch this music video….

obama's visit to the favela

What do you think?

A Look At BOPE – Rio’s Elite Special Forces Police Unit & The Film “Tropa De Elite” – “Elite Squad”

A Look At BOPE – Rio’s Elite Special Forces Police Unit

Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais better known by its acronym BOPE, is an elite special forces unit of the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Due to the nature of crime in favelas (slums), BOPE units have extensive experience in urban warfare and utilizes equipment deemed more powerful than traditional civilian law enforcement. Here is a look at the real BOPE…

If you are interested in understanding more about BOPE, or if you are just interested in watching a great Brazilian film, I highly reccommend…

Tropa De Elite, 1997

…(the film in English is called “elite squad“). Tropa de Elite is one of the best movies I have ever seen. The script is engaging, the characters are real, and the film truly shows the ugly reality of Brazilian slum life, and of police corruption in Brazil, which only perpetuates the never ending-cycle of drug trafficking and gritty violence that overwhelms the city.

Here’s the trailer in Portuguese…

And the English version…

Tropa De Elite 2, 2010

tropa de elite 2

They also just recently made a sequel, Tropa De Elite 2, which is just as worth watching. Here is the trailer:

Yes, you may have noticed that BOPE’s emblem in the movie trailer is a skull, sword and two guns… But this was not made up for the movie. This is real. Bizarre? I think so.

The BOPE Uniform

BOPE's actual official symbol

‘City of God, Guns & Gangs’ Episode From Current TV, Depicts Brazilian Favela

The Brazilian Favela – the media infatuation du jour, reporters just can’t get enough of it….

“Vanguard” is a no-limits documentary series by Current TV whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. This time they’ve gone to the Brazilian favela….

In this sneak peek at an upcoming episode of Vanguard, correspondent Mariana van Zeller follows a preacher into a Rio de Janeiro favela, where he performs powerful rituals — exorcisms — in the midst of drug addicts…

In this clip, Vanguard correspondent Mariana van Zeller investigates Brazil’s bold new initiative to transform Rio de Janeiro’s dangerous favelas before the country hosts the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.

Brazilian Music: “Alagados” by Os Paralamas do Sucesso, Translated Into English!

“Alagados” by Os Paralamas do Sucesso, Translated to English

This is one of my favorite Brazilian songs, and the music video, (a music videos is called a “clipe” in Brazilian Portuguese) is just as joyous as the song itself, while at the same time shows and talks about the reality of living in the favela. (For some reason I couldn’t embed the full video from youtube into this post, only a partial version. To watch the whole thing, click here.) The band Os Paralamas do Sucesso (also known simply as Paralamas – click here of more info on them) is a Brazilian rock band, formed in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1970’s. Here is the song “Alagados” with the English translation below:

todo dia o sol da manhã – every day, the sun of the morning
vem e lhes desafia – comes to challenge them
traz do sonho pro mundo – brings them from their dreams to the world
quem já não o queria – who already didn’t want it
palafitas, trapiches, farrapos – palafitas are stilts for houses, trapiches are rags or torn cloth and farrapos are pretty much just tattered structures (these are all words describing what he sees in the favela)
filhos da mesma agonia – children with the same struggles
e a cidade que tem braços abertos – and the city, which has open arms
num cartão postal – on a postcard
com os punhos fechados na vida real – with fists clenched in real life
lhe nega oportunidades – denies them opportunities
mostra a face dura do mal – shows the hard face of evil

alagados, trenchtown, favela da maré – flodded, trenchtown, the slum of maré (maré  is the name of one of Rio’s favelas)
a esperança não vem do mar – hope does not come from the ocean
nem das antenas de TV – or from tv antennas
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what

todo dia o sol da manhã – every day the sun of the morning
vem e lhes desafia – comes to challenge them
traz do sonho pro mundo – brings them from their dreams to the world
quem já não o queria – who already didn’t want it
palafitas, trapiches, farrapos – palafitas are stilts for houses, trapiches are rags or torn cloth and farrapos are pretty much just tattered structures (these are all words describing what he sees in the favela)
filhos da mesma agonia – children with the same struggles
e a cidade que tem braços abertos – and the city, which has open arms
num cartão postal – on a postcard
com os punhos fechados na vida real – with fists clenched in real life
lhe nega oportunidades – denies them opportunities
mostra a face dura do mal – shows the hard face of evil

alagados, trenchtown, favela da maré – flooded, trenchtown, the slum of maré (maré  is the name of one of Rio’s favelas)
a esperança não vem do mar – hope does not come from the ocean
nem das antenas de TV – or from tv antennas
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what

alagados, trenchtown, favela da maré – flooded, trenchtown, the slum of maré (maré  is the name of one of Rio’s favelas)
a esperança não vem do mar – hope does not come from the ocean
nem das antenas de TV – or from tv antennas
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what

alagados, trenchtown, favela da maré – flooded, trenchtown, the slum of maré (maré  is the name of one of Rio’s favelas)
a esperança não vem do mar – hope does not come from the ocean
nem das antenas de TV – or from tv antennas
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what

alagados, trenchtown, favela da maré – flooded, trenchtown, the slum of maré (maré  is the name of one of Rio’s favelas)
a esperança não vem do mar – hope does not come from the ocean
nem das antenas de TV – or from tv antennas
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
mas a arte de viver da fé – but the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith
só não se sabe fé em quê – just not knowing faith in what
a arte de viver da fé – the art of living gives faith

this is the favela da maré, with it's palafitas, trapiches and farrapos 🙂

Let me know if you have any questions about the translation of this song, or if you would like to see any other songs translated, just comment below. Thanks!

-Portuguese Blogger

Society News: Rising of the Brazilian Middle Class: Pedicures Lead Woman From Rio Slum To Home Ownership

Here’s a really interesting story written by CSM about how giving pedicures lead one hard-working Brazilian woman from the Brazilian slum (favela) to owning her own home. It’s the story of how one woman in Brazil used her high school education as a way out of poverty. Already, universal education has boosted half the Brazilian population into the middle class.

Meire, a Brazilian pedicurist, has lifted herself out of a Rio de Janiero slum and bought a house. She qualified for the mortgage using ‘social capital’ – that is, with help from her friends.

 

Rio de Janeiro

A paper cap corralling her long, curly hair and a white paper mask muffling the lilt of her salon gossip, Meire adjusts a neon ring of light and peers businesslike at the calloused foot of a client lying on a white leatherette recliner. Pedicures are serious business in this mecca of sun worship and sandals.As lowly a job as it may seem to bathe, poke, pluck, and massage other people’s feet, this job is golden. It has boosted Meire up the socioeconomic ladder and out of the slums: By serving the middle and upper classes in her cubicle at Ipanema’s Spa do Pé (Foot Spa), she has herself entered Brazil‘s burgeoning middle class.

“I love what I do,” she often says, as she straightens up from hunching over a client’s newly buffed feet. And that’s despite a three-hour round-trip bus commute to work five days a week – and frequent house-call detours she makes for extra cash.

Meire, who asked that the Monitor not use her real name for security reasons, is living the middle-class dream that is spreading across the globe. Her income – the equivalent of $1,000 a month – has enabled her to get a mortgage on a small house on a tree-lined street 15 minutes from her parents’ home in the giant Jacarezinho favela, or slum. Brazil’s middle class, swelling with people like her who have achieved higher levels of education than their parents, is now estimated to include half the nation’s population of 191 million. The burgeoning consumer appetite, say economists, buffered the country from the world recession that began in 2008: Unlike the United States and much of Europe, Brazil’s economy is booming, with 7.5 percent gross domestic product growth in 2010.

Thanks to a constitutional provision for universal education enacted in 1987, Meire got a high school diploma. She worked at a General Electric light bulb factory for six years after high school. But when incandescent bulbs lost market share, the factory closed. Meire’s diploma saved her: It qualified her to take an 18-month specialized salon course.

“Brazilians are consuming more because they’re working more, and they’re working more because they went to school,” says economist Marcelo Neri, who last year produced the Getúlio Vargas Foundation study “The New Middle Class in Brazil: The Bright Side of the Poor.” Mr. Neri adds that enrollment in technical schools such as the one where Meire got her training grew 75 percent from 2004 to 2010.

The favela where Meire grew up is famous for a section where drug addicts openly use crack, undisturbed. And security is hardly provided by police: She recalls how she and a companion awoke in a favela apartment four years ago surrounded by police who threw a packet of cocaine on their bed in a mistaken-identity extortion bid…

Read More: (Via CSM)

Dropping the Plural in Brazilian Portuguese

Informal speech in Brazil may avoid the plural altogether by using “a gente” – for we, and “todo mundo” – the entire world/everyone,  for they. Both forms use 3rd person singular.

It is also becoming common in colloquial or slang Portuguese to hear people dropping the final –s on plural nouns as it happens in French. For example: as casas – the houses, becomes “as casa.” This way of speaking is not at all considered to be good grammar, however it is becoming more and more common, especially I have found, in Rio de Janeiro. In very poor areas, favelas, you will hardly hear any pluralized nouns, only the prefixes “as” or “os” give away that the word is supposed to be plural.