Tuesday, December 23rd

The kite was small and designed with the words “Tropa de Elite”.  I walked from the juice stand, across the street, and into the alleyway that led to the institute.  The child carrying the kite was seven years old, and running playfully in front of me.  His rubber sandals were too big, slowing him down and keeping me right behind him.  He led me all the way to the institute door, the kite’s words dancing in my view, and their significance pressing into my mind.

 

Amir, the Iranian born Swedish boxer told me the story.  “I was in the van coming home to Rocinha at 5am yesterday morning.  The police barricaded the road, and all the van passengers were made to lay face down on the road.  The inspection took thirty minutes and they searched everything.  We were cleared to continue and I got a motortaxi from the bottom of Rocinha to take me to the top.  [Amir lives in Cachopa, an area located close to the traffickers]  At Cachopa, the motortaxi driver did not stop to let me off; he slowed down enough for me to jump off.  He heard the military police helicopter above, and saw the weapons pointed down.  Something like two hundred traffickers, all with guns pointed to the sky aimed at the helicopter.  A young trafficker recognized me, ran over to me and to tell me to get out of here.  I began running to my home and then all hell broke loose.  I heard bullets literally ‘whizzing’ by and ricocheting in all directions.  It was like the movies.  I made it inside and took cover.” 

 

I came to Rocinha this same morning to begin preparations for my physical training class.  There was a big storm around midnight the night before and the streets were muddy.  Roosters were crowing from small metal cages, reminding me that Rocinha actually used to be a farm.   The garbage-filled aqueduct that carries dirty water out of Rocinha was roaring.  I met two lifeless bodies of decent sized rats, victims of last night’s storm.  I looked to my left and a young boy was riding a plastic tricycle.  It was just like the one I had when I was little.  He stopped and stood up, taking a look at his next path of travel.  He did not have any pants or underwear on; I thought this was quite unusual as the cold plastic must have been uncomfortable on the behind.  Just past this child was a heaping mound of garbage, wet from the rain and smelling terribly.  Later in the day I would watch a bulldozer move the heap around, and lift it into a truck.  This morning I went about my business in my usual manner, and did not hear anything about the previous nights clash between the police and the local gang.  The following day I read about it on page 12. 

 

 

“Tropa de Elite” is a new semi-fictional book written by a sociologist and two former members of the BOPE.  The translated title is Elite Squad and the BOPE is the special operations of the military police in Rio de Janeiro.  The BOPE are trained well, are strictly offensive, and shoot first and ask questions later.  They use the best of the world’s military equipment and train as hard as the SEALs.  Once in a while I will catch a glimpse of them, usually in a black vehicle, with their famous logo of a skull with knives through it.  The hoods truly fear the BOPE, much more than the civilian police who are on the grease.  The movie “Tropa de Elite” is very famous in Brazil, in and out of the favelas.  Its account of the perverse underground dealings with all major players in Rio accurately portrays the tangled web of greed and political subterfuge.

 

I take the white vans around Rio, made popular because they are the cheapest form of transportation.  Looking like a modern, squared-off version of a VW van, they are designed to carry 16 passengers.  I have been on several rides wherein we easily had 21.  No air conditioning, vinyl seating, and Rio’s summer heat seem to accelerate the level of intimacy between the passengers.  When you suffer together, you feel closer, and by the time we reach Rocinha, the entire van has experienced severely humid conditions with limited air flow, constant contact by fellow passengers in all directions, almost constant near misses, shoddy brakes, and a continual dance of loading and offloading of passengers.  I am happy that I no longer receive unusual looks from passengers, confused by the presence of blond hair and blue eyes on a van bound for Rocinha.  I realize now that it wasn’t my strange looks that brought attention; I was subcommunicating fear. 

 

The vans that crisscross Rio each have a fee collector that works the door.  The fee collector today was a young boy, barely strong enough to work the door.  He wore a red T-shirt and his bright white Adidas hat was on backwards.  He was mulatto and his long hair curled out the back of his hat.  His way was not the way of your typical pre-teen.  He carried the cash, folded in half, as if he had been doing this for decades.  He was demanding with the passage fee, though as I watched I felt he took a little longer counting correct change.  He must have fought his way into this job.  He ran this van as if he had something to prove.  His eyes were stern and cold, and you knew for him that childhood never really happened.

 

Luciano startled me as I was checking my email at the institute.  We had just finished the kids Christmas party upstairs.  We had decorated and set up food and drinks.  I had gone shopping a few weeks before for some of the gifts but someone else had wrapped them.  All the gifts were laid underneath a paper Christmas tree taped to the wall.  For several hours everyone talked and ate.  The music was turned up and the girls began dance routines.  Another American volunteer seeing my discomfort, tried to console me,“yeah, I remember the first time I saw ten year olds dancing like strippers to the delight of their parents.”  This was the culture, the truth was the girls did not connect the dancing to the act, they were just having fun by imitating, I hoped.  There was a three year-old girl in a pink dress standing with us; she shared our desire to finish the dancing and get on with the presents, and this fact she did not hide.  Post-party I turned around from the computer to see Luciano.  I had been fully engaged with one of those stupid forward emails, something about a teacher and her student, but it was too late when Luciano surprised me, I had to feint sickness for watery eyes.  At that precise moment the three year old with the pink dress walked by.  She stopped, held out her new present with a smile and beaming pride, and then walked out quietly into the night.  I recognized the gift as one I picked out a few weeks earlier.  A plastic turtle that you could disassemble and build again like a puzzle. 

 

My first physical training classes have begun.  I am adapting to a new set of clientele, much different from Marines and Vanderbilt NROTC all-stars.  However, I will keep the intensity level high.  They come to the class because I am a Marine, they have heard, and I will give them the intensity that they may not want but will keep them coming back.  The reader should picture circuit training with medicine balls, kettlebells, pull-ups, blasting music, and yes, a whistle.  The stretch routine is complicated for them, so we do it the exact same way every time.  The first two times were rough, but on the third time I hid my pleasure when one of the students corrected the other, who was not in the correct position. This is exactly what I wanted, a shared culture of correctness.   Already they are beginning to instinctively move to the next stretch position without command.  One day they will be able to lead each other when I am gone. The series I present for each workout is different, but always challenging.  We end with hands in the middle for our usual post-workout cheer, “força e honra”, in Portuguese, strength and honor. 

 

 

 

Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?”

 - Seneca

 

The first two days in the desert of Southern Utah were an exercise in mental management.  New Age spiritualists would call it a cleansing of the soul.  I prefer the less abstract.   The lead instructor from the desert survival school had given us a briefing prior to stepping off, “stop thinking about what’s next, your instructors will never answer.  And always, always, contrast down.”  We had one Nalgene bottle of water and a knife as our only pieces of useful gear.  To say we “walked” through the desert would be incorrect.  We trudged.  The next water source and meal were constantly re-entering the mind.  Learning to manage the mind is like trying to tame a mustang.  A source of water was found in a canyon and we learned that drinking water teeming with mosquito larvae was safe.  We were only a few days into the course and the mental scrubbing was beginning to create an awareness of the present moment and revealing the narrow margin by which you are sustained.  We had reached the high desert mountains by the fourth day.  I was sitting on a rock next to a large mountain lake and I wrote down my question, ‘why is it that when you have little, you are grateful, and when you live in abundance you are annoyed?’  

Sunday, December 14th

Portela is Rio’s most legendary Samba School.  To arrive at Saturday night’s concert, we took a bus, subway, and a taxi.  The street outside the practice hall was full of partiers drinking, eating, and singing.  The practice hall was a mass of concrete surrounded by spaces for vendors to sell beer and food.  The security guards performed their usual inspection, requiring males to lift up their shirt to ensure we weren’t carrying.  Each Samba School is associated with a favela, and there was always potential for violence.  Empty beer cans plastic cups filled every table and spilled over to the ground.  Only the elderly were sitting down, but everyone was singing.  Portela’s band was older and richly traditional.  Lead singers would trade off songs in front of fifteen men playing drums, tambourines, and rattles.

 

The roots of Samba reach back centuries and across to Africa.  The Portuguese colonists forced Catholicism upon the slaves, and they in return merged the Catholic Saints with their African deities, creating Candomblé.  Candomblé has thrived for four centuries and is practiced by many Brazilians today, whom do not see religion as mutually exclusive.  The slave immigrants that practiced Candomble also danced the Samba in the streets of Northern Brazil.  In the 1920s several communities in Rio de Janeiro organized parades, developing a storyline and creating music, costumes, sculptures, and choreography.  Today there are over 70 Samba Schools in Rio and the preparation for Carnaval is a yearlong endeavor. Volunteers from the favelas who create and dance in their parade are financed by mafia-style bosses.  The money for the Carnaval preparations  and the structure for asset flow come from the Animal Game. 

 

The head of the Rio de Janeiro Zoo created the Animal Game in the 19^th century to increase attendance.  The Animal Game is a lottery, anyone can play, and bet any amount of money.  Twenty-five animals are each assigned four consecutive numbers and the bettors can make an assortment of bets on the resultant drawing.  Odds for a straight animal are 20 to 1. 

 

Sidenote: Brazilians are very superstitious, and place their bets upon a variety of happenings. 

 

The elephant is associated with death in Brazil.  If there is a fatal car accident involving a car with one of the elephant’s numbers (45-48) on its license plates, the betting is unusually heavy.  (Time, 25 March 1966)

 

 

The Animal Game is highly organized and extremely complex.  It is also illegal.  Police and politicians assigned to crackdown on the game become known as “jockeys” because of the good rides they can get from the payoffs. (Time, 25 March, 1966)  Today the Animal Game provides the structure that facilitates countless illegal activities.  This is perhaps its most insidious result.  Gangsters in the favela who run a more dangerous and dirty form of activity, model their structure off of the Bicheiro.  The Bicheiro is a head mobster, and a local God who finances his Samba School.  This is just one example of the intricate, fragile, and legally ambiguous institution that is Brazil. 

 

 

 

I turn left into Rocinha and walk by Joao’s welding shop.  I give him a Brazilian thumbs up and he discreetly returns his own.  I think that Joao does not want to be associated with me, which makes me… curious.  I continue my walk and see a twenty year-old kid being dragged out by two other young men.  His arms are draped across the shoulders of his escorts, and he has blood running down from his forehead.  He is crying and muttering something.  There is an unusual energy today in Rocinha and I don’t like it.  I walk busily past the trafficking stand and a teenager has an AR-15 semi-automatic.  He is skinny, about 5’10” tall, very black, and wearing only shorts and flip-flops.  He is fascinated by throwing his spinning weapon in the air and catching it.  I veer to the right, and out of the way of his less than satisfactory rifle manual skills.  I pick up Rogerio at the institute and we walk towards the hall to boxing class.  In the alley we see an old man with a perfectly round belly, laughing as he smokes a joint.  Rogerio turns back towards me, and tells me how weird it is to see an old man smoking a joint, normally our image of pot-smokers is much younger.  I agreed. 

 

We had two young kids in the boxing class.  I take the lead for the warm-up and stretches, then Rogerio takes the boxing instruction.  Both of these boys are hopeful.  One is truly exceptional, he is about 11 years old.  When he greets me he shakes my hand confidently and looks me in the eye.  During the exercises he follows along perfectly, and instructs the other to do the same.  He has discipline and focus.  During the class a drunken man enters and begins to practice with us.  I can smell him from ten feet away.  He yells loudly to the children to “do what the professor is saying”.  Rogerio tells him that the adult class is later, and keeps his cool.  The children don’t pay much attention, it seems that this scene is normal.  I was agitated.  How does any child have hope with daily images of hoods with high caliber weapons, the near constant whiff of marijuana, and drunken men in the afternoon. 

 

The next day I make my medicine balls.  The walk to the beach from Rocinha takes about 20 minutes.  I have four old, used basketballs to pack with sand.  I underestimate the weight of all four balls loaded with sand and my walk back was an exercise in patience and perseverance.  The last portion of my walk takes me past the trafficking stand.  I was not excited to be doing anything unusual in front of the traffickers, like carrying an old bucket filled with three medicine balls, and holding the fourth on my opposite shoulder.  I planned my rest breaks so I would not have to stop and rest near the stand.  As I walked past the stand, the hoods were up to their usual antics, smoking pot, measuring bags of cocaine, fiddling with their weapons, and joking about something.  At this point, nearing completion of awkwardly carrying 80 pounds for over an hour, my patience was thin.  It was clear to any onlooker that it took much effort to carry this load, and the 95-degree heat soaked my shirt in sweat.  Yet not one attempt to offer assistance.  This was the first time I felt anger since I’ve been here.

 

I delivered the medicine balls to the institute, and needing a juice desperately I left to get something to drink.  It had just begun to rain.  I heard the birds in the alley for the first time.  I looked up, and through the narrow crease between randomly built homes, was silhouetted several bird cages against the cloudy, but bright background.  The raindrops came down in a highly irregular pattern.  Water finding its way to the alley had to make its descent around misshapen building structure, birdcages, and a jungle of electrical cables.  A human trying to avoid getting wet would find no consistent pattern of water flow to avoid, unlike the perfect and symmetrical spilloffs found in highly developed countries, dripping from skyscrapers and overhangs made with perfect, laser-like precision. 

 

Four armed hoods guarded the exterior of the juice stand and adjacent restaurant.  I made my way around them and ordered a banana cake and strawberry smoothie.  The cake was yellow.  The top of the cake was fried and had a thin, sugarcoated slice of banana.  The shop owner used his juice machine to make the smoothie.  I asked him to add milk and only a little sugar.  The rain today kept the flies away from the shop, making my dining experience more pleasurable.  As I ate, standing at the shop, I turned and watched the hustle of the street.  The four hoods had an assortment of semi-automatic rifles.  Each had a vest with many pockets for radios or ammunition.  They were spread in a fan-like formation with weapons at the alert carry.  My friend, an Iranian-born Swedish boxing champion named Amir, showed up for a juice cocktail.  I asked what was going on with the hoods today.  The “boca”, or head trafficker of Rocinha was dining at the adjacent restaurant.  The boca does not carry weapons, and is always escorted by several fully armed guards.  We watched, enjoying our lunch, as a crazy old man began to yell and seemingly taunt the hoods.  Something was going to happen so we left. 

 

I have now been in Rio for three weeks.  Already it has been an interesting study, both culturally and introspectively.  I did not come to Brazil to find out who I am.  But as I have shed some old skin to create a life here, I am finding out, albeit shockingly, why I am.  The discovery of why you are, and your needs, is highly melodramatic.  I find that existentially speaking, the core self is an imperfect form.  But this is irrelevant, the clarity achieved from the perfect view upon the self is divine, ushering in calm and acceptance that permits peace in right action and right conduct.  

Saturday, 6 December

The snack shop owner busily packed up my pastry and juice.  It was a busy and lucrative time of day for him.  The mid-day sun was bringing heat to the streets of Rocinha, and drying off the roads that are dirt and concrete.  As I readied to grab my lunch, I looked to my left and straight into the barrel of an M4 carbine rifle. 

 

Rocinha is a thriving community.  At any time of day or night, you can eat, shop, drink, surf the internet, or play pool.  Two banks are here, tapping into the buying power of Rocinha’s one hundred thousand residents.  Foreign volunteers often initially complain about the noise, and then find that after a month it becomes soothing.  There are a few main thoroughfares that wind without reason up the hill.

 

“The Italian” is a friend of the institute.   He is pictured above.  His real name is Luciano.  He lives in Rocinha next door to the institute and is a professional photographer.  During the day he enjoys hanging out and joking around with the directors and volunteers.  He enjoys any type of conversation, as long as it ends up busting someone’s balls.  I like him and trust him.  The Italian and I go out on daily excursions to find equipment for the gym.  He does not speak any English but we converse well together in Portuguese.  I tell him what I need, and he walks with me around Rocinha, searching for stuff.  He does a good job of bartering with the shop owners for a lower price. 

 

I found my welder.  His name is Joao and he is around sixty years old.  He is quiet and goes about his work in a funereal manner.  I measured the iron bar and marked exactly where I wanted the wheels to be welded.  He asked us to back up and face away from the welding torch.  We were in a small room, basement-like, halfway below the street.  Occasionally the sparks from the torch would singe the back of our legs.  OSHA would not be able to keep up with the safety violations that occur continually in Rocinha. 

 

The worker at the wood shop handed me a 2x3 piece of wood that I examined.  To measure the wood properly, I placed my pen and paper on the ground.  As the Italian and I were discussing proper lengths and marking the wood, several street children happened upon my pen and paper.  I watched them as they examined with intense curiosity, my pen, which was cheap by American standards, but had the appearance of high quality.  They also found the equivalent of 30 dollars I had, inside the folded piece of paper.  Upon finding this, they counted it and began dancing around with it.  The worker broke my gaze with a question, I answered it and I figured that the best thing to do about the children was nothing at all.  After completion of my task the children were gone, and I figured, so was my cash.  I was disappointed in myself to find that every dollar that I had was neatly placed back inside my paper, just as I left it. 

 

Isabella was sick again.  This time I had 20 minutes of preparation time for English class.  I drew up a schedule for our class on the whiteboard.  This time, I would not suffer from lack of things to teach.   The children like to play Simon Says.  I promised them that we would play at the end of class, hoping this token would keep them in their seats longer.  At the end of class the girls gathered around.  I began to play Simon Says, however, I quickly realized that I had forgotten how to play.  I kept saying Simon Says before each object, and this went on for about 3 minutes before the girls realized I did not know the rules.  During their explanation, I remember the exact moment when it all came back to me.  They also saw exactly when I figured it out, and quickly broke into the full chorus of “Hallelujah.”  I was told later that their singing was heard throughout the neighborhood. 

 

I walked out of Rocinha in the late afternoon.  Along one of the concrete walls lining the street, a tall, black 15-year old was looking down the street as he pressed his left shoulder against the wall.  He seemed to be looking for something but I couldn’t tell what it was.  The sling for his rifle was on his right shoulder and his right hand was on the grip.  I couldn’t make out the type of weapon, but it was long, black, and very modern.  Everyone on the street was still walking, going about their business as if nothing was happening.  I took comfort in knowing that if the hoods wanted me dead, I’d already be gone…

 

 

 

Saturday was the day of the big fight.  Rogerio would be competing for the first time.  The community center in Cantagalo would host the afternoon of boxing matches.  Cantagalo is another favela located very close to two wealthy neighborhoods, Copacabana and Ipanema.  It is much smaller than Rocinha, and more dangerous.  We met at the bottom of the hill and walked up as a group.  We were safe with several Brazilians escorting us.  The community center was a mass of concrete and had a view of the entire south zone of Rio de Janeiro.  The boxing room was hot.  On the walls were hundreds of photos of famous fighters that have visited here.  In boxing lore, this place was true tradition.  After Rogerio’s fight several of us needed to leave.  We left the building and began the long walk downhill through Cantagalo and to Copacabana.  As we left the center I looked back and realized that we were 5 deep with Americans and Europeans.  My pulse started to race as I saw several children dragging our formation, asking for money and calling us gringos.  This would not be the way to walk through Cantagalo.  The children would be flagging all the hoods that we were targets.  We quickened our pace and walked in silence and with purpose.  A turn came up and we did not know which direction to take.  When in doubt in a favela, always go downhill.  This ended up being the wrong decision, and we walked for what seemed like an eternity through a bad portion of the favela.  During the walk I promised myself that I would not be without a Brazilian escort in another favela.  In Rocinha, we are protected by the common knowledge of the institute, anywhere else, we weren’t. 

 

Marianne was a student from the University of North Carolina.  We took the bus from Ipanema to Rocinha last Saturday night.  Our goal was to make sushi for the two directors of the institute.  This would be my first time inside a Rocinha home.  It was ten pm and Rocinha was very much alive.  We walked in with Rogerio and went to a market to get some ice cream for the dessert.  Rogerio told us how to get to Danielle’s home via a series of back alleyways.  He needed a shower and said he would meet us there in a little while.  I was more than a little nervous proceeding as two gringos through Rocinha’s alleyways at night.  Bars, food shops, supply stores, and homes were spread randomly along our route.  A three-year-old girl pulled down her pants to pee in the alley, as her grandmother held her hand.  We turned the corner to a larger thoroughfare, and there was group of people outside of a street bar.  One middle-aged man was twirling around as he drunkenly danced and sang.  His head was tilted up to the sky and his eyes were closed.  He was overweight and his round belly barely allowed his bulletproof vest to fit.  The sling around his shoulder made is M-16 bounce randomly.  I swear I saw three grenades attached to his vest. 

 

It was a true pleasure to be welcomed into Danielle’s home.   Danielle is one of the volunteer coordinators at the institute.  He is very friendly and has a great laugh.  As we prepared the sushi, two cats were hovering around and made continuous attempts to capture our food.  Fighting them off was a constant struggle.  One of the cats displayed his distaste for me by defecating two inches from my foot. After dinner we enjoyed some Brazilian television.  We also experienced much pleasure watching a cat hunt for cockroaches. 

 

Marianne wanted to stay the night and sleep on the couch.  I wanted to return home so at two am I left Danielle’s.  It was raining as I left and proceeded for the walk out of Rocinha to catch a van.  Thank God for small blessings.  Rain would mean less people on the streets, making my exit safer.  Nearing the exit of the favela I heard the heavy beat of Samba drums.  The Rocinha Samba School was practicing in their warehouse at the bottom of the hill.  The sound was mesmerizing.  A van slowed down upon seeing me and the fee collector yelled “Copa”.  This was my van.  I instinctively opened the door and quickly sat down.  I was the only person in the van.  The driver and assistant were both up front, and clearly stoned out of their mind.  The drive from Rocinha to Ipanema winds along the coast, high above the water with a steep rocky ledge leading down to the ocean.  The road is narrow, curvy, with constant near misses expertly performed by its drivers.  The road was slick tonight, and my two men were having a great time in the front, laughing about what… I have no idea.  Halfway home we stopped at Vidigal, another favela en route.  We picked up four prostitutes on their way to begin the night shift in Copacabana. I exited the van in Ipanema and paid the fee collector, it was pouring rain and I was the only human in sight.  I thanked God to be alive, and walking safely in the rain. 

 

The Catholic Church in Leblon was full on Sunday morning.  I enjoyed the ritual of mass, as I have before in many foreign countries.  There is something very comforting about this.  The pews of this church were split into four columns, leaving five open pathways with which to proceed forward or backward during communion.   The two priests that were conferring the blessed host posted themselves in front, at the end of the two pathways, one column away from the walls of the church.  The middle pathway was not used.  As communion began I noticed that after each person received the host, they would make their way back to their seat using the same pathway from which they came, thus straining the free flow of traffic and creating chokepoints.  I set about proudly to demonstrate the most efficient way to conduct communion traffic.  After receiving the host, I proceeded to the outside pathway and made my way easily and expeditiously back to my seat.  I hope that the church may learn something from this proper demonstration.  

 

The Italian and I set about quickly on Tuesday morning.  We scavenged through the back alleyways of Rocinha to find strong buckets.   They had to be big enough to hold 5 large pieces of wood bolted together, then encased in concrete.  This would be my first attempt at building a bench and squat press.  (Thank you to Gunnery Sergeant Castro for the expert advice!) As we walked, one alleyway opened up into a square area no bigger than a family room.  The sun was angling in, and down on two boys sitting on a concrete abutment.  Wearing dirty swim shorts and barefoot, one of the boys was handing a burning joint to the other.  The sun caught the smoke just right, and it was a perfect image.  The boy receiving the joint had an M-16 casually lying on his right leg. 

 

The search for equipment continued, and Rogerio suggested we take motorcycle taxis over the hill, to a place where they were doing construction on the other side.  I don’t like motorcycles.  Young men, teenagers, drive motorcycle taxis through Rocinha. I watched Rogerio getting on the back of his, and repeated exactly what he did.  I held onto a rusted iron bar welded on to the rear portion of the bike.  I found that this grip, no matter how tightly I held it, would not ever prevent me from flying off of the bike.  We began our journey and I noted how calmly Rogerio was on his bike, with almost no concern for his grip.  The road through Rocinha winds up a hill like Lombard Street in San Francisco.  Only this road was very busy with motorcycles, taxis, and gigantic buses.  We had to lean in heavily at each turn, blindly hoping there wasn’t another car or bus coming down on the other side.  The road was so steep that a bus’s back end was caught on the ground, and it could not negotiate its way down.  My driver quickly skirted behind this bus, and we proceeded through the subsequent traffic jam.  I said three Hail Mary’s on the way up.  Tiny miracles were happening continuously as we were millimeters from head-on traffic at 40 miles per hour.  I actually closed my eyes during several near misses.  At the top of Rocinha I saw a perfect view of Christ the Redeemer Statue, the most popular tourist attraction in Rio and one of the seven man-made wonders of the world.  Framed in this view was a military helicopter hovering perfectly above us, and a telephone poll carrying the burden of a thousand power cables, all rigged by Rocinha residents tapping into power from the city.  The stealing of power through adhoc addition of random power cables to existing lines was commonplace.  The sight of a thousand mazelike cables going out in every direction was truly fascinating.  Heading down the backside of Rocinha we entered a wealthy neighborhood identified with large stone walls encased in thick ivy.  Before every turn at the bottom, another driver, heading in the opposite direction would give us a signal that the coast was clear.  This was done with a thumbs-up.  The Rocinha motorcycle taxis were not legally licensed drivers.  I noticed that we paid a little more than I expected for this ride.  This was a risk premium, for driving us outside of their territory, into the legal world. 

 

The boy with the M4 carbine rifle was in his teens.  His sling was loose, and the rifle lay lazily against his hip.  He did not seem to care that the weapon was pointing directly at my head, only inches away.  Proper weapons handling procedures include the most common rule: Never point your weapon at anything you don’t intend to shoot.  I thought briefly about giving the boy a period of instruction on the importance of these safety rules, but thought otherwise. 

 

 

First Week in Rocinha

The word Rocinha posted on the dashboard of the crowded van made my heart rise up into my throat.  The van screeched to a halt in response to my thumb.  The boy who worked the door was also the fee collector.  He let me in and I sat close to the driver, limiting the amount of passengers that heard my accent, as I told him in Portuguese to drop me off at the entrance to Rocinha.  While sitting in the van I pretended to be calm, I also pretended not to acknowledge that I could feel my heart beating loudly and rapidly.  I thought about the night before, meeting two Brazilian flight attendants at the nightclub, and how they made me promise not to go to Rocinha.  One of them, buried her face in her hands as I told her, and then hugged me.  I was nervous, actually.. scared, for the very first time in my life.  Night combat missions in Iraq did not touch this. 

 

I arrived five days ago.  As in standard American fashion I set about quickly to check off items on my task list.  Arrive hostel, check-in, contact institute, unpack, work on setting up my phone, get internet access, create a sense of normalcy.  I remember feeling that I wanted for things get going already.  Now, after 5 days my brain has begun its adjustment to a new sense of time, one much less precise. 

 

Existential Anxiety – I recently read Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”  I found it to be perhaps my most preferred model on existence.  In this book, the author, a psychiatrist who spent time in Auschwitz as a prisoner, describes man’s constant battle to resolve the meaning of life.  I must admit that I have been mentally battling a serious bout of existential anxiety, summed up in layman’s as “what the f… am I doing here… why did I leave such a perfect life…  what’s wrong with me that would make me do this…”  The anxiety would come in waves, at their peak I confess I am close to packing my bags and catching a taxi direct to the airport. 

 

I met the volunteer coordinator, a Brazilian named Rogerio under the bridge outside of Rocinha.  It was raining and the place smelled of fresh urine.  I recognized Rogerio, a 30ish guy with a light beard, as the guy walking directly toward me with a large grin on his face.  He shook my hand, and we rapidly began our walk into Rocinha.  I wore my sunglasses, as not to admit my eyes were blue, and constantly scanning.  My first time in I did not see the cocaine stand.  In aviation language this is called sensory overload.  I had too much information coming in from all my senses, that I would miss things such as a group of 6 young hoods next to a table full of cocaine packets, busy talking rapidly on their military grade radios.  The hoods can deal in the open because this is Rocinha.  The police do not come here. 

 

The second time I came to Rocinha was my first day of official work.  I was escorted for the last time, next time I would be on my own.  Better believe I memorized markings that corresponded to my turns.  To stop and look confused would not be acceptable. 

 

Isabella, one of the English teachers, was sick on Tuesday.  Rogerio asked me to take the class for her.  My brain very rapidly wondered where my lesson plan was, have I practiced it, and where are the class materials.  There would be none of these.  At 3 minutes til class I ran out of my boxing lesson, two blocks away from the institute, but within the favela.  I had just enjoyed two hours of boxing training with some children, and a few adults. 

 

The training room was a concrete block building, spartan-like, and about 50 ft by 40 ft.  I was surprised when upon entering the training room Rogerio asked me to warm-up the children up and do some exercises.  My brain very rapidly looked for my warm-up card and my exercise card.  There would be none of these.  I did not pass on this opportunity and relied on past experience to stretch and exercise the children.  Alternating the stretch counts between English and Portuguese kept the children on their toes.  A blue-eyed, blond stranger leading their class kept them amused.  A few of the children wore little more than a tattered shirt, and dirty, frequently worn shorts.  Only two of them actually had shoes.  With proper authority I was mostly able to keep them in line.  Encouraging them to repeat loudly after my calls. 

 

Breathing heavily and sweating profusely I walked quickly to English class.  As I entered the institute I gathered up the students, seven girls, and we headed upstairs.  I took 2 minutes to wash my hands and face before I met them in the third floor classroom.  I walked up to the head of the class and looked for a dry erase marker to use for the board.  I was very fortunate to find one, that barely worked.  I wrote my name on the board and quickly went into a session on introducing yourself in English.  The seven girls, ages nine to twelve, were not shy about talking to me in Portuguese and even less shy about yelling, hitting each other playfully, and moving about freely during my, albeit weak instruction.  I spent most of the hour trying to get them to focus on one thing.  More than once I experienced a wave of panic of “I have nothing else to do or say!  What else can I do?”  The hour felt like an eternity.  When I dismissed them, I told myself that no matter what happens, I will never let them see me lose my calm.

 

I spent the day Wednesday inside Rocinha at the institute.  I prepared a list of items I would need to begin building a homemade gym.  Iron bars, PVC piping, 2x4s, old tires with rims, buckets, concrete, duct tape, and rope were all on my list.  Rogerio and I took a walk around Rocinha, talking to shop owners about prices for some of these items.  We were lucky to find some PVC piping and a set of old tires and rims in a junkyard.  Sometimes during this task my brain would speak out of turn.  “What are you doing in one of the world’s most dangerous places, in a junkyard, scavenging for iron, pipe, and tires.”  As I was carrying two tires and one rim through Rocinha, I glanced downward and to my right to see an old man, probably seventy years old.  He had on a tattered, thin, blue shirt.  His beard was long, down to his chest, and was silver and white.  He was busy scraping cocaine off of an aluminum square tile about the size of a paper napkin, onto a cotton and green bandana lying neatly on the pavement.  We arrived back to the institute, filthy and sweaty, with some initial equipment.  My next task, find a guy in Rocinha who can weld…