Thursday, September 01, 2005
...The 3 Rules...
Only 10% of people in Brazil pay income tax...the other 90% don´t earn enough money. So may people flock to the industrial South-East seeking a better life. In addition to this, the land prices in Rio are incredibly expensive (we saw penthouses worth $5 million US). So many people can´t afford to buy or rent a place to live. The solution is to live on public land...if you don´t get moved on after 5 years the rights to the land are yours. To start with people use cardboard shelters, only building with brick after 4 years or so. These areas are called shanty towns or favellas.
Em & I went on a tour of a favella (we werent sure about this but it turned out to be really informative). The ones we saw were fairly established and had utilities (electricity and sewage). In the earlier stages raw sewage runs down the street and electicity poles catch on fire from overloading. They were also a bit safer. The favellas are run by the drug lords. Police there have nothing to do because noone will report anything to them. Occasionally the police make incursions but they are few. On one street we visited the guide told us he had to hide a group in the back of a bakery while the policy and a drug gang had a gun fight outside. We didn´t see this - mostly it´s normal people living normal lives, but in really poor conditions. The people we met were friendly and we visited a community project to help kids with schooling (partly funded by the tour).
...the 3 rules set down by the drug dealers for life in the favella. #1 Do not steal, #2 Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, #3 Don´t mess with drug dealers and they won´t mess with you. The penalty for breaking these rules are a shot through the hand (if you´re a kid you may deserve another chance) or execution. The people in favella hate the police (who treat them with contempt) but have a love / hate relationship with the drug lords - they do some things to make life better eg: installing water tanks in one of the favellas we went to.
Brazilians don´t really talk about favellas much and the people are discriminated against. Anyway, a really interesting and harrowing experience, and a stark contrast to downtown Rio.
# posted by Pete @ 9:35 AM 
