The Holidays Arrive

This week has been a very busy one as the holidays are approaching. Family is very important to the favela and there are many family type events now going on. Every year I try to find two projects that I feel there is a great need to help. Many schools and NGO’s here get help but there are many who don’t. Leidy Martins of the Creche Municipal Castelinho da Rocinha (a daycare) had sent a list out to many people regarding the need for toys for kids aged 3-4 years old.

I received this list:

2 Superman dolls

1 Patati & Patata clown dolls
1 Airplane
2 Ironman dolls
2 Hulk dolls
2 Capitan America dolls
1 Helicopter
3 Batman dolls
2 Dinosaurs

All gifts bought and wrapped ready to go. 

Each gift I wanted to spend between 15-20 reais for each present. So it was good that I could buy 16 gifts. The great thing about this daycare is that it serves many children. There were others who also contributed to this effort which is good because then I can help other projects.

Thursday December 10^th was the party at the crèche. Usually when I donate anything I just pass on the things to the project directors but I had one of the women ask me to distribute the gifts. We arrived at the crèche at 10am as the workers were setting up the food tables. I brought the gifts wrapped and was directed to put them in a service room. I met many parents who I see everyday near where I live. Parents brought their children who most were between 2-4 years old. Jody came along to test his new camera.

Everybody started eating and enjoying the company of friends. After about 30 minutes we went inside the crèche to see the Escola de Musica da Rocinha give a performance with 8 students playing acoustic guitars. They even played about 6 songs including “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns & Roses.  After I was escorted to the “Green Room”. This is where the gifts were given out. I got to sit down and had help with one of the teachers in directing which children would receive the gifts. I would tell the teacher the toy then she would tell me the name of the child and then I would hand the gift to the boy. It was strange all the gifts I happened to buy were for boys. Big smiles all around in the room and the parents loved it too. After the gifts were given out Pai Noel (Santa Claus) came in the room where the children were able to pose with him with their toys. Many fotos were taken and thanks to the director, teachers and all the people who donated toys for the children created an awesome day in Rocinha! Below are some of the fotos from the party.

Escola de Musica da Rocinha playing for the party.

Foto: Jody King

 Foto: Jody King

Foto: Jody King

 Foto: Jody King

 Foto: Jody King

 Foto: Jody King

 Foto: Jody King

 Foto: Jody King

 Foto: Jody King

Foto: Jody King

 Foto: Jody King

 Foto: Jody King

Foto: Jody King

Cristiano

Cristiano, who I wrote about in a previous blog contacted me again needing help with the purchasing of cat carriers. So, I met him and bought 2 more carriers for his work helping the stray cats and dogs to get neutered or spayed.

I also wanted to get to know him better and the work he does. His work is focus on getting the cats and dogs fixed so they don’t multiply. He tends to more cats than dogs. He also tries to find homes for these animals. Here is some background on this wonderful man who love animals.

He has been doing this voluntary work since 2011. When he was working he used to spend most of his wages on taking care of the animals. He sold his bus pass so he could have more money and would go to work by foot. His work with the animals here has been a challenge because he was working during the hours when the vet clinic was open. So he was only able to bring animals on Saturdays. He eventually stopped working with the support of his parents so he could focus more on his love for helping the animals.

Now a NGO is helping him with food and medications. Today he is one of the founders of a political party for animals on Brazil called “Partners in the Protection of Animals”. He is responsible for the group in the state of Rio de Janeiro. He is the first born and raised resident of Rocinha to be the founder of a political party.

He says “Nothing of what I have been able to do today for them (the animals) has not been without sacrifice. If I did not take care of the animals in the favela, I would probably be making a lot of money but the life I lead is the life to be lived.”

I am really proud to be working with Cristiano. I hope our tours continue to get more popular as I want to be able to help more.

Special Guests visit Spin Rocinha

Opportunities come to those who persevere. I have always believed this regardless of obstacles that may be put in front of you. You need to move on and keep going! I am far from the perfect human being. But I try to learn from these things and move on. I have never had a problem with hard work. I enjoy my work too as long as it benefits the community where I live.

Alberto & Maykon

On Friday November 27^th Spin Rocinha received the owner of DJ Mag-Espanha to our school. Alberto Taboada heard of us about 3 years ago from Dj’s who had visited our school. He stopped by at 1:30pm so it was difficult to get some of the students to come for this visit. But we can always organize for Alberto's next visit. He came to Rio to see our school but was in Sao Paulo for the Sonar Festival. 

Alberto contacted me on short notice and we were able to have him come for a visit and interview myself and one of our students Dj Maykon about our project. He took fotos and got a chance to see Dj Maykon in action. He wants to see how he can help promote our school and help us in any other way he can.

He was impressed with our top of the line equipment and commitment to bringing the best instruction and resources for our students. He plans to return and we will be better prepared to receive his visit next time.
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Luca & Lucas

In September of 2015, I received an email from this guy Luca Iacomino a former Dj, from Spain who is a sales and marketing rep for Ableton, a software music production system. He had interest to check out our dj school Spin Rocinha. He had received my contact from Martin Backes who is from Germany and visited our school sometime back. I also had met some friends in common that Luca knew like Dj's El e Ela who visited out school back in 2011. Luca is a rep for Latin America, Middle East, Africa and Europe who travels at least 3 times a month for his work.

Luca wanted to impress on us that Ableton wants to be a socially responsible company. Their focus is on music education and getting more people involved with music production worldwide.

We had set up a day to meet in September but their schedule was limited so I was unable to show them our studio. So, Luca had made plans to return for a Sonar Festival in Sao Paulo. He had the opportunity to come to Rio for a few days so he wanted a chance to finally see our school. So he contacted Lucas and the meeting was set. I met him and Lucas in front of the Leblon shopping then we took a van to Rocinha.

Lucas is also a professional sound engineer and has worked on tv, films, music scores and other projects needing a sound professional. He also works in post production and editing. Lucas plans to offer classes for any of students who have interest to learn sound production.  You can contact Luca through his website here. Or email: lucas@dobeco.com.br

With Maykon we were able to install some of the Ableton software on computers and Maykon now has a key so he has it on his computer now and has started to experiment with it. This is a great opportunity for our students to start getting involved in the production side of Dj'ing. Spin Rocinha wants to thank the kindness of Ableton and their representatives like Luca and Lucas for offering this opportunity to the future dj's and music creators of Rocinha!

For Love of the Animals!

Since I found my cats in January of 2010, I have always bought my cat food and other extras here at Rocinha Pet Shop. They have always treated me well with good service and at times given me discounts. Their prices are also excellent in comparing with the other shops in Rocinha. This is where Cristiano and I met today!

Cristiano can now help more cats and dogs to get castrated with these carriers.

Receipt of the purchase of two carriers to help Cristiano with his work.

In my blog I like to focus on what’s going on in Rocinha. Often I meet special people doing amazing things. It not always easy to get people to tell their stories and that’s ok. But there are somewhere their stories need to be told.

Some months ago, I saw this story on Facebook about a cat who was living on the streets and was brought to the vet for care. The cat was in bad shape. I contacted the lady who wrote about her connection to this cat. The story moved me and I decided I would help. The cat went through treatment, but unfortunately did not survive. The whole thing upset me about this cat.

In Rocinha we have many animals, mostly dogs and cats living on the streets. These animals are not neutered or castrated. So they reproduce and create more. Unfortunately there are owners who refuse to castrate their animals because they think it’s cruel. But seeing homeless animals suffering is not cruel?

I don’t understand this mentality. How can one think this way? Would these same people allow their daughters to get pregnant many times and just throw the babies away? Of course not. Why do people treat animals this way? They are living beings that deserve respect too!

So with this cat “Davi”, who I wrote about some months back, it made me want to do something to help the animals in Rocinha, but I wasn’t sure how. I am far from being rich but I do have contacts with people who are always willing to help. In Rocinha, an extra 100-200 reais a month to help the animals can go a long way.

Through this experience with “Davi”, I saw that there were people trying to help the animals here. There was a webpage on Facebook called “Lar do Animais da Rocinha”. I inquired about the work they do a closely followed the page for about 4 months to see exactly what they do.

Finally I made contact with “Cristiano” and asked to be his friend on facebook as I noticed his love and caring for the animals of Rocinha.  He contacted me last night about needing help buying carriers for some cats he wanted to bring to the vet. We set up a meeting for today at 2:30pm. We met and I bought him 2 carriers so he can bring these cats to get fixed. 

Cristiano da Silva is 31 years old and lives on Rua 2, which is one of the most dangerous here in Rocinha with constant battles between police and traffickers. He lives with his parents who support his work in helping the animals of Rocinha. He has joined with a vet here in the favela who will fix any of the cats or dogs that he brings in. He also has a connection with a store that helps provide him food as well.

Extra costs do come up so I have decided that I am going to put a percentage of money from the tours away to help his project. To help Cristiano's work with homeless and abandoned animals his page on Facebook is P.L.A.R. “Projeto Lar Aos Animais daRocinha”.

As our tourism company grows, I would like to continue to find people like Cristiano who are actively trying to better people's or animal's lives here in Rocinha. The more money we can raise through our work, the more projects can receive help. If you have any questions about the projects that we support, please contact us at: visitrocinha@gmail.com
Thank you!

Introducing New Guides working with Favela Adventures

Our team is coming a long great. We are preparing for the busy season and want to employ as many local people as possible. Its awesome to see how we started out with two people and now we have access to about 9 people. Some of the guides also work with other tour companies. I do not hold anybody under contract so guides in Rocinha can work for whomever they want. These are three new guides that have joined with us in the last two months. Erik (the guide listed at the bottom) has been working with us off and on for about 2 years. It would be nice to find more women to be guides but finding English speakers is not very easy.

Guilherme Silva

 "Xuxa" on the mat training submission (jiu jitsu) at the Rocinha Sports Complex

 Bodyboarding is one of Guilherme's loves that he has been doing for 10 years..

Guilherme with two tourists from Slovenia. Nikola Veljovic and her husband.

Guilherme loves his dog "Mengo" and kitty "Jorginho". They love each other.

I first met Guilherme or "Xuxa" (pronounced Shoo-Sha) as he is called back in 2007 when he was studying English at Two Brothers, a NGO here in Rocinha.
He was born and raised in Rocinha. He is now 24 years old. He used to hang out with Sandro, a graffiti artist and Jiu jitsu practitioner. When I would see Xuxa, he always enjoyed showing off his new ability to speak English. My friend Ryan came to visit in 2011 and donated his bodyboard to me to give to somebody in Rocinha. I knew Xuxa loved to bodyboard and knew that this would be a great present. Every month or so I would see him while walking through the community and always thought he would be a good choice as a guide. The only problem is he was already working at a store in Leblon. He went to  Estacio de Sa University and graduated in the hospitality sector so this tourism course is just adding to his objective.  I never knew about him graduating or making this course until recently. About 2 months ago I saw him and he told me his plans. He studies Monday through Friday from 8am -12 noon.

On the weekends Guilherme works with us. He also still bodyboards and is now training Jiu jitsu as well. His other hobbies are running, hiking and bike riding. He enjoys football and his favorite team is Flamengo. His favorite American football team is the Seattle Sea Hawks. He is a good addition to our team as he enjoys meeting people from all over the world.

Carlos Augusto

 In the Rocinha, its common for kids to plat Futsal which is a game of 5 on 5. Due to lack of space for playing full field, Futsal is very popular. Here is Carlos making a save. 

Carlos front row first on the left with the red shirt.

I remember making a two with two Canadian researchers about 3 months ago. We were walking down street number 4 as I was explaining the new construction of buildings that took place there in 2009. We can across this young man and we stopped to have a conversation with him. We ended up having an hour conversation with him about growing up in Rocinha and his future goals.

Carlos is 21 years old and was born and raised in the favela. He enjoys working part time with us as a guide so he can keep up with his studies. He lives with his father but visits his mother and brothers everyday. In his spare time he likes to play video games, go to the beach or read. He and his friends enjoy going to Lapa to listen to live music. Right now he is getting prepared for college and he is studying hard. He enjoys working and studying. He plays football recreationally with his friends. He is a fan of Flamengo like most people in Rocinha. He enjoys following the English National Team and his favorite team outside of Brazil is Manchester United. His plans are to go to University to study International Relations or History and eventually study outside of Brazil.

Daniel Santana

Daniel enjoys being in the Air Force. 

 Daniel in basic training 

Daniel with "Lion" his 13 year old fluffy dog. 

I met Daniel through Obi, who has been working with us over 1 year. Daniel expressed interest in wanting to work as a guide like Obi so he can improve his English. I asked Daniel to come by my house to meet with him and find out his plans. I also wanted to see how much English he can speak. At 23 years old he is in his 5th year enlisted in the Brazilian Air Force. His first taste of travel was when he visited Argentina to see an Air Force base there. He lives at home with his mother, father and brother. He learned English by studying at the American School in Gavea for 8 years. His plans are he would like to be an officer in the Air Force. If that does not work out his other choice is to study and graduate a course in tourism so he can show the beauty of Rio de Janeiro and Rocinha.
He loves sports and follows several American sports teams. He follows New York Giants (Football), Boston Celtics (NBA) and the Boston Red Sox (Baseball).
His own sport that he practices is Muay Thai kickboxing. He has a 13 year old Fluffy dog "Lion" who he loves dearly. With friends he likes to go dancing and enjoys hip hop.

Electricity in Rocinha: A history lesson

The owners of Electricity in Rocinha
Translated from story by Ze Luiz (in Portugues) with some comments added by myself in the story.

In the year of 1970 when darkness settled on the favela of Rocinha, was the time to show kerosene lamps and any other type of illumination in the alleyways. We had to improvise the way we could bring light into our shacks. The strengthening of electric energy for the favela was made informally by LIGHT (electric company). We had this guy in Rocinha who everybody called "Mr. Batista". He was able to receive a concession to distribute and charge for the use of this energy. It was a small area that this electricity covered and he could only share it with a few people. So this is how it was organized. LIGHT installed a transformer close to the main street Estrada Da Gavea at the top of Caminho do Boiadeiro. The transformer had a potency to serve many houses. And of course, those who had money would pay. To this day, nobody knows how Mr. Batista was chosen to be one of the owners of electricity. This gave him a lot of power. For the stores, it was vital to have energy. Especially restaurants for refridgeration and keeping their beer ice cold! There were other owners of energy as well but nobody ever questioned the way it was distributed or the price people were being asked to pay. To have energy in your house or commercial building was a priveledge few in the favela had.

According to a collaborator of the group “Memories of Alley 4”, the distribution of light in the favela was made by several “owners.”

On the lower part of Rocinha, energy was distributed by Mr. Olimpio,  collected about 5 thousand reais. Jefferson from the top of the hill, collected 15 thousand. But remember, the electricity was spread to serve a lot of houses in those specific areas controlled by the owners. Mr. Batista was the most popular because his distribution was better structured and lasted about 25 years. Because there was no regulation by the government, these owners could charge what they wanted. But with this, the spread of gatos or illegal hook ups began by those who could not afford what the owners were charging. With many changes in the 1980’s, the company LIGHT decided through community pressure to install legal electricity posts, meters and charging residents. This initiative was started soon after by Rondon Project through the census of 1980.

Returning to my shack, there was no light because we ran out of money so we had to start using the kerosene lamps again. The problem is the house would have this terrible smell of smoke. And there was also a high risk that if the kerosene lamp fell, that the whole shack would burn down. We would try to secure the lamp high up close to the ceiling to prevent problems. I cant remember when electricity came to our house because my father and uncle paid for the installation initially and paid the bill every month.

The installation of energy was not done immediately. You had to initiate negociations with one of the owners. They would decide who would receive electricity regardless of their ability to pay. It was a type of selection and we didn’t know the criteria of how people were chosen. But the owner controlled the transformer and in the end, he decided. We had neighbors that were good friends and one who worked with one of the owners of a transformer. We eventually around 1983 were able to secure fairly regular electricity in our house. The light had arrived!!

You could not be late with the payment or the owner would cut your power. The owner had a son who was a large and strong guy who would be the one who would cut your power. He would get up on the ladder, climb the post and cut it! The power wasn’t the strongest and I think its because it was shared by so many people. But it was better than the smelly high risk kerosene lamps. To pay the bill we would have to descend the hill to the owners office at the entrance to the Valao. There would be 2 lines, one to pay and the other requesting installation. It was confusion.

It was at this time (1980’s) where many ran illegal lines or gatos, off the posts that already had electricity. If your neighbor had light, you wanted it too. If the line was made direct on the post, somebody had knowledge of this and soon you had light and your shack was illuminated. There were times the electricity would not work and I think its because there was a recharging system. This recharging was usually done late at night when you couldn’t see anything. During the day we had natural light so only the houses that fridges, tv’s, blenders etc, the energy was available.

The people in the favela this idea came about where it seemed favors were being done in exchange for people having access to getting installation to their homes. Mr. Batista of Caminho do Boiadeiro was loved and hated. Its unfortunate that he did not have the ability to provide electricity to everybody but it was obvious that there was favoritism.  Even those with power couldn’t really complain if the service was bad because we all knew there was no guarantee of good reliable power. A restaurant could lose all of their refrigerated goods from day to night if there was a lack of power. And when the power went off during the novella, many women would “die” wanted to “kill” the owner. What craziness.

Later, with all the challenges, we would work our way through it. In the alley where I used to live, the majority of the houses had electricity. They had fridges and tv’s, often for those neighbors who didn’t have access to power, we would share or try to help them out. Before my father bought a tv, I used to watch at my neighbors house. We had a code, if the door of a house was open, it meant you were welcome inside. We had this trust. But even with the door open, you would always ask if you could enter out of respect for that family. We were poor but not disrespectful.

I'm sure theres some gatos in there! :)

By the mid 2000’s the majority of the favela had electricity. But you still had those on gatos and those that paid regular rate. I lived at my first house, which I knew had a gato. I paid equal to about 5 reais a month for electricity, which I knew was not right. I had friends that were paying 30-50 reais a month. So, I knew my house was on a gato. I was not the owner of the house, I was renting. Now that I live in an apartment, I know I pay what others pay and I don’t have a gato. There is more regulation now of the electricity and less illegal hook ups. But every now and then I hear about somebody illegally tapping into the lines. A friend of mine receives regular power but when he wanted to install an air conditioner, he knew that his cost of power would go up a lot. So, he called a neighbor to create a gato only for his air conditioner.

Unfortunately, the favela never was really a democratic place back then, where to be a citizen is a condition structured by relations. There was a structure in the favela of those who made decisions. This is before the drug trafficking came in. This condition of sub citizenship limited the possibilities of active participation when it came to the necessities of the residents guarantee of individual rights. It was always like this. I’m talking 40 years ago of the brief memory of history of electricity in the favela. Some thins changed in respect of guarantee of people’s rights and democracy in the favela. In some aspects it got worse.

There grew new owners, new possibilities of exploration that were organized, people who presented themselves as community leaders to stabilize the relations with politicians, big businesses and even city government associations to attend to the demands made by residents inside the favela.

It is wrong to think that the owner of the hill came with the drug trade. Yes, those guys were here and sold their stuff but when it came to issues of infrastructure and public services, we had other representatives in the favela that would work with these outside agencies. Life in the favela is a very small scale compared to the whole country of Brasil.