Pictoral Interlude V - The View from Above
I tend to have a hard time settling back into the DC "real life" groove (blogging being part of that groove) after life altering trips...
Travel, regardless of the distance, always seems to do this to me - ie. offers tons of new perspectives, ideas, realities... which makes the return to daily life that much more surreal and trickier...
So, in the interim, while I am getting my blogging groove back, please feast your eyes on the view from the Brazilian skies:
posted by JJ @ 3:12 PM
18 comments
18 Comments:
Rio is a little dangerous at times, but it is a blast. I hope you enjoyed yourself.
Had an absolute blast in Rio... it's an intoxicating city...
I seriously think you'd make a good photographer if you ever were inclined to puruse it as a profession, JJ.
Am I right in thinking that's a shot of the city from the plane either as you're flying in or leaving
thanks for the compliment - but it was actually taken from the famous jesus over looking the city
What part of Rio did you stay in?
Was staying near the Botanical gardens... How well do you know Rio?
Ipanema. I have heard about it, but I have not been.
Oh like the girl from Ipanema? Have heard about the botantical gardens?
Yep just like the song.
My ex lives in and was born in Rio. So, I know something about Rio from her. She likes the gardens. I was also down there for a 3 months in 2005. I do not know why I never went to see them. Oh and before you ask, my Portuguese is awful -- god awful.
Portugese is beyond difficult... I thought that with my French & Italian, I'd do okay (I understand about 40% of Spanish) so I thought it'd be similar... man was I wrong....The jardins were nice... not sure I'd put them on my absolute must see list though... rather going to a forro or samba clubs - those places are amazing - and what's up with everyone being able to dance? (I was like the embarassing non rythmic Canadian stepping on peoples' feet)... I think that we should make a concerted national effort to instil more rythme into daily Canadian life...
Ha ha. I know exactly what you mean. My ex is a former dance instructor (samba and funk) and so that lack of rythem really hit home. My inability to dance well was constant source of amusement to her.
Changing subjects, I assume you had your fill of barbeque.
Did you go anywhere else when you were down there? Did you go to Buzios?
Well the trip itinerary was the following: flew to sao paolo - went straight to the beach for a week (a beautiful place - about 3 hours from sao paolo on the way to Rio) then on to Rio for a few days, then back to Sao paolo. Saw Sao paolo for all of 4 hours - had to catch my flight back to DC. So wished I could have stayed longer... but unfortunately there are all these annoying things like jobs and responsibilites that get in the way... where'd you go? what parts of Brazil did you see? and what were your favorites?
I did not travel much when I was there. I went to Teresopolis, and Petropolis. I also went Buzios. Petropolis is about an hour and half drive from Rio and the other two about 2 hours. When in Rio I stayed in a rough working class suburb called Duque de caxias. Do you know the red line? (The yellow line is the other major highway) It is one of the major highways heading north out of Rio. You take it to get to the airport. It is fairly notorious. It cuts through a favela and there are frequent shoot outs there with the police and gangs shooting across the highway. If you keep going north you will hit Duque de Caxias. It is half an hour outside of downtown.
Yeah, I know the red line - took it coming into Rio... it must have been v interesting to live there. The interesting thing about Rio (from my very very limited time there) is that it seems to be a city filled with good vibes and joie de vivre... unlike other places that I've lived (in Africa) with extremely high crime rates where people are so afraid that they don't leave their houses (compounds) after the sun goes down... I think that it's really interesting that the crime rate doesn't seem to have dampened Rio's spirits... or maybe i'm wrong?
>>>> Yeah, I know the red line - took it coming into Rio...
Do you remember the favela in question then? Just before the airport the road narrows and the road dips down and there is curve in the highway. That is the favela. Last year, politicians in Rio wanted to erect a 10 foot wall around the favela to a) prevent such shootouts and b) prevent residents from the favela from robbing people stuck in traffic. The courts struck down the proposal.
>>>> The interesting thing about Rio (from my very very limited time there) is that it seems to be a city filled with good vibes and joie de vivre... unlike other places that I've lived (in Africa) with extremely high crime rates where people are so afraid that they don't leave their houses (compounds) after the sun goes down... I think that it's really interesting that the crime rate doesn't seem to have dampened Rio's spirits... or maybe i'm wrong?
Where did you live in Africa?
It depends were you live in Rio. If you in Ipanema, or Leblon, your sense of personal safety is going to be much better than if you live in Duque de Caxias. That said, regardless of where someone is in Rio, crime, or the threat of it, affects people’s behavior. As you know, because of the threat of being car jacked people rarely stop at red lights after dark. On the flip side of things, a code of conduct has developed amongst many muggers. They appreciate the cost of getting a driver’s license etc and so will dump emptied wallets and purses in the mail box. Such niceness would not be possible if the post office had not set up a program to facilitate it. The fact that they bothered speaks volumes about just how common such muggings are. Crime has turned Rios many dozens of malls into beehives of activity involving the whole family. Malls in some parts of North America have failed because the environment they offered is too sanitized, in Rio that is the attraction. Rio’s malls are in many respects self contained communities; they have everything from daycares, to stores and movie theaters. Brazilian law helps facilitate such feelings of safety by placing the onus on the mall to keep its customers safe. For example, under Brazil law, you can sue the mall, if your car is broken into in a mall’s parking lot. The same is true if you are mugged.
Rio is also in many ways a city on the edge. There are always plenty of riot cops in full gear in the downtown core (In and around Rua Branco) and the army is always out during Carnival checking people’s papers. I once counted 23 riot police on a Monday afternoon on Setembro street just milling about. Incidentally, I did not see any kind of protest downtown. However, I did see some in Duque de Caxias and one did get ugly. Tear gas was let off and rubber bullets were flying. Finally there are the nightly checkpoints. The Red Line is famous for them. They are a nightly occurrence and they are almost always set up in the same fashion. One cop car is parked across the highway limiting traffic to one line. There is another cop car behind pointing down the highway. Leaning on the hood of the second car is a guy armed with some kind of machinegun, sometimes heavy but mostly light. He is pointing the gun down the highway. You are directed to stop just at the spot where he is pointing. The police look in the car and either pull you over or wave you through. Many people turn on their lights to prove they are not black. Brazil is not as post racial as it likes to think.
I was not the victim of any violence. The cops shook me down for 50 bucks and I was tailed on a bus, but that was the worst of it. The locals I associated with were not as lucky after I left. A person I stayed with was murdered 3 months after I left. He went to pick up some groceries some 5 minutes walk from where I stayed, got in argument and was shot 6 times in the head. It is common knowledge as to who the murderer is, but no eyewitness, and there was many, have come forward. The investigation is thus stalled. Another person I knew well, literally got his head kicked in by the cops. He stupidly mugged someone at the Lagoon and was caught by the police. Someone took a picture using a cell phone camera of a cop kicking him in the head. The picture made the papers. Soon after I left the cops went on a rampage in Baixada and murdered 29 people in one day of bloodshed. I used to do some of my shopping near the site of the carnage.
Holy shit, Koby...
...it's going to take me a bit to process your last comment... have a bunch of questions though...
fire away
I should mention two other things quickly.
1) Whereas in Canada the schools sometimes close because of snow, in Rio schools shut down from day to time because the Red Command has threatened to shoot them up. To prove they mean business, they shoot up one or two. This is one tactic the gangs use to bring the government to the negotiating table. Sometimes it takes other forms. Last month, for instance, they boarded a city bus and set it alight with the passengers still on board. 8 were killed.
2) The favelas are de facto sovereign entities. Even locals seek permission before they enter and the boundaries between them and the rest of the city resemble at times boarder crossings. The police only venture in when they are well armed. In both Rio and Sao Paulo, police sometimes venture in inside an armored personal carrier, a caveiraos, painted black with skull painted on the front. Needless to say, community policing still has a ways to go before it fully catches on in Brazil.
Again, holy shit...
...any thoughts on solutions? Is it more or less based on huge income disparities?
... I lived in Namibia - the house I was living in was broken into 3 times - I heard the robbers outside and hid - luckily they didn't come into my part of the house... the issue with crime in Namibia - way more in South Africa than Namibia, actually, is that a lot of the crime also has a revenge aspect to it - so muggings etc can be really brutal - there is a lot of baggage in Namibia and South Africa because of the history of apartheid... so along with extreme poverty there is all of this built up resentment - and people tend to let it out when they are committing a crime...
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