... starts at 7 - I grab breakfast at the corner bar or the bakery and jump on the next bus to Rocinha. The journey takes about 30 minutes, and winds through touristy Copacabana, cosmopolitan Ipanema and the very elegant Leblon before reaching Rocinha through the Sao Conrado tunnel. Rocinha is built on the hillside of Morro Dois Irmãos behind Sao Conrado, one of Rio`s wealthiest neighbourhoods, and its a steep climb up Rua Um (Street No. 1), particularly with this week`s heatwave.
I am one of a very few people heading into the favela against the rush of people traffic out towards the city, and my arrival is announced by radio by the guys that watch the boundaries of the favela. Occasionally they leave a machine gun resting against the wall, but not everyday. Its not particularly scary, but a good reminder of the boundary line that I cross everyday.
When I arrive early enough, I meet everybody and their kids heading to school and work, but by 8.30, the neighbourhoood is quiet and the watchers have left for the morning. Kids of all ages start school and daycare at 7.30, and those kids that have school in the afternoon (school is provided in two shifts for 5-12s) attend the àfter-school club before school for a few hours!
Image: Rua Um (Street no. 1)
The street is only wide enough for one person in most places, so I step aside a lot of the time and take the opportunity to throw out `Bom Dia`s to everyone I meet. I make sure to say hi to everyone I meet so that know I`m not a tourist, and maybe so that they will recognise me - there are a few lost tourists by the afternoon when I leave and I dont want to be mistaken for one of them later! By now I know the shopkeepers and some of the older men and women who sit on their steps chatting with neighbours and can manage a few exchanges in Portuguese, so the reception I get is friendly.
If it`s hot, as it was last week, the smell of sewage and rubbish hits about halfway up (just when I most need to breathe deeply from the climb!), but the street is clean for the most part - its inhabitants are particular about keeping their doorsteps swept and washed, so its only a few corners that accumulate the rubbish. All the rubbish in the favela is brought down to the skips at the bottom of the hill, or dumped on a small slope off Rua 1, and is collected by community-organised sweepers and taken to the main road for the Prefeitura (local state government) to deal with from there.
The centre itself is halfway up Rua 1, just past the lower grocery and sweet shops, and from the balcony, there is a view all the way across Rocinha (as you see in my photos). There are 3 floors - on the ground floor a small kitchen-dining room for staff and kids who receive lunch, the school office and classroom for the 4-5s, and the laundry, on the 1st floor, two classrooms for the 2-4s, with a large bathroom to shower and dress the kids every day, and a small admin office for the organisation, and on the 2nd floor, the creche. Above that is a roof space that is used for playtime with the older kids. We have 8 babies most days, usually no more than 10, from 6 to 18 months, all residents of Roupa Suja, this particular neighbourhood, named for the women who carried their laundry down the hill to wash. Here there is the highest number of at-risk kids because many of the houses still have no running water or electricity (despite the favelas being known for electricity theft, and statistics showing how many houses have TVs here) and families of 6 live in just one or two rooms.
By 8am, the babies in our creche are all in their cots, changed out of their clothes into t-shirts and nappies, and are standing waiting for the day to begin properly! Usually I make it to the daycare centre by 8.15, in time to take the babies out of their cots for morning juice and playtime. At 11, we feed all the kids - they eat a mash of potatoes and vegetables - and although some like to try to feed themselves, they're no good at it yet - I curse when its black beans because everything gets covered in dark mush! Just when they're all covered in food and we are running around trying to mop up puree and snot from all the faces and hands, we get our visitors!Every day, we are visited by two to three favela tour groups in the morning, and one in the afternoon - that can be anything up to 50 people a day. The main tour company is Be a Local, which is the tour I took to Rocinha when I first arrived in Rio. I am always introduced as one of theirs, and we joke about my commission, because there's nearly always someone on the tour from my hostel whom I have encouraged to take the tour! There's quite a few Irish through - always nice to hear the accent! The centre gets donations from the tours, and Be a Local give a regular food donation - they may now get some more volunteers out of it as well, which would be good too. By the time the favela tours will come through in mid-morning, the favela will look peaceful and almost spacious, with welcome shade from the hot sun on the hillside, a total contrast to the morning rush hour downhill and the late afternoon buzz of kids, family life and radios blasting hip-hop.
The babies sleep from 12 onwards, regardless of outside building noise or music, and that's usually the end of my time with them, so I get my lunch downstairs with the other staff (stew, rice and feijoa). At 1, I'm off to the Oficina de Saber, as the afterschool club is called, and work there till 3 or 4, depending on whats needed. The Oficina is in another building, just two small classrooms and a roof space which we use for football/dodgeball and general playtime.I've been teaching a little bit of english here and learning a lot of portuguese! The first week I mainly helped with art, played some sports, and just supervising the kids, but last week we introduced bingo (in English) which has been a massive hit, and did some south american geography - my first lesson given entirely in portuguese without Susie, the other volunteer, helping too much! Susie has been my lifesaver the last two weeks, as she speaks very good Portuguese, and I barely understood anything when i arrived, but as she has finished now I have to stand on my own two feet!When we finish, we head down through the favela and catch buses at the overpass - Rocinha is buzzing again and beyond Rua 1, we gringas are barely noticed in the games and business and chat going on at the front of the favela. Day over... till tomorrow.
If anyone is interested in contributing to the work of UMPMRS through sponsorship, it is possible to make donations via bank transfer - please see their website for details of how to do so: http://www.roupasuja.org/history.html
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