Favela Tour
Today I took my one tour in Rio, a tour of two of the city's favelas. Favelas are basically shantytowns, are visible everywhere, but you really shouldn't go wandering around them on your own. I'd heard about touring them from my hostel mate in BA, and before that from a work colleage who was doing some low-income consumer research in Brazil. If you've heard of the film City of God, that's set in a Rio favela.
First we went to Vila Canoas, a smaller favela of around 2,700 inhabitants, and part of a government program to install modern infrastructure like sewage systems, legal electricity (vs. "borrowing" from the grid), etc. We walked around the main path through the favela. As our guide told us, this one circular path makes it very easy to be trapped inside of the town, making it not attractive to the drug lords if there's a fight with police.
Inside Vila Canoas, we visited a school that was helped set up by the favela tour company. I noticed in one of the classrooms, the only pictures that were hanging were Christ the Redeemer and President Obama!
Then we went to Rocinha, a large favela of more than 100,000 inhabitants. This was a really interesting one! It was controlled by one of the three drug-dealing gangs in Rio, so we weren't allowed to take pictures featuring people's faces since you never know who they might be, and more importantly they don't know who you might be, and in certain areas you weren't allowed to take pictures at all. In fact, someone was taking pictures of our group! Our guide said it was probably the neighborhood association, which might be on its toes since just yesterday there was a gun fight over territory in Copacabana between the gang that controls Rocinha and a rival one. But in general, the gangs don't know if someone like the police is infiltrating the favela tour, and taking pictures of business taking place.
Beyond the insights into the different gangs of Rio and how they operate, what I found interesting in Rocinha is that this favela has its own social services! Like it has different motorcycle taxi companies that operate just in this favela, its own bus company, etc. There are actually banks and chain restaurants in it too. It's easy to see that many people who grow up in the favela find no reason to leave.
