Our Journey to Brazil Part 4
Our Journey to Brazil Part 4
Salvador de Bahia, now we are here just for two days. Salvador is one of the most beautiful cities I have visited in Brazil until now. This city was the first capital of Brazil and because of that has many old constructions. The first day we couldn’t visit any place, just at night we went to have a walk on the beach and we saw a groups of gays playing some boll games… it was very funny because they were making a lot of jokes so we really laugh a lot.
The second day we woke up very early and we went to the historic center and a neighborhood called Pelourinho. This place is were the city started so is full of history and is like the postal card place of Salvador. Is a neighborhood constructed on the mountains in front of the see, and it’s full of old houses painted in many colors… you can always hear some percussion music on the street and the sideways are replete of people selling crafts typical from Salvador.
We walked all around the neighborhood because is nice just to see it. You have to take care of your things, people here said that it was full of rovers… we didn’t have any problem, but we saw a lot of security guys around the area.
The Pelourinho is full of art, full of churches, which shows the strong religion tradition on the city of Salvador, full of colors which is a just the reflect of the happiness of the people of Salvador.
IN the afternoon we went to visit and NGO that is located in a Fabella called Saramandaia. The NGO is called Grupo Cultural Arte Consciente. If you want to visit them you can contact Fabio Santos de Jesus (Tel: (71) 3491.2124/ (71) 8223.7387 / (71) 8879.7756 or programaarteconsciente@hotmail.com).
They are a cultural center that gives dance, graffiti, box, cirqus and percussion classes to poor children. The kids have just one requisite to go there: go to the regular school.
The group was created by for young people that some years ago were street children. They were rescued from the street by a social project called Projeto Axe and now they feel the obligation of do the same with the children of their community.
At the beginning all the classes were given on the street because they didn’t have a physic place to do it. Now they are constructing a space for the NG that consists in three classrooms, one office and one kitchen that is going to prepare food for the children.
The constructors are them, and they get the money from another NGO situated in Rio de Janeiro.
This NGO sends volunteers to work in Projeto Arte Consciente, and for each volunteer that the project receives they have the right to get R$300. So, with that money they are constructing the space for the NGO… of course, it is taking a long time to do it, because of the money and because they can’t pay for constructors, they have to do it by them selves.
One of the main achievements of the project has been the reduction of the violence index on the community. Since they are working there, children had something more interesting to do, they can see a better future now, and the community respects a lot their work.
Six years ago it was almost impossible to walk on the streets of Saramandaia; today you can do it almost without problem. That doesn’t mean that all the problems are solved: now they are trying to fight against the drugs traffic, and they continue asking to the city government for the basic services that the community needs.
Another important thing is that since they are working the children have a space for leisure, which is very important. The community doesn’t have any yard, or football yard, or any kind of space for leisure, so the children have to stay on the street very close to the violence and the drugs. Now, they had created that leisure space, they created festivals and cultural events so the community can enjoy together and see the output of months of hard work.
Now they have 250 children, they want to have more but they don’t have space. The mothers ask them to receive their children because they can’t handle with them, so sometimes when the people from the project see that is better to receive the child they receive him/her even thought they don’t have more space.
The project is really great, but, as most of social projects they need more resources and people. They receive volunteers so if you want to stay some days with them and help them you are welcome.
On the 31st of July we arrive to Rio de Janerio. We took an airplane from Salvador to Rio, the company was Azul. You can check on www.voeazul.com to try to find cheap tickets, on our case was cheaper the airplane than the bus.
Once we arrive Helcio was waiting for us to drive us to the house. The house is in Sao Cristovao, a low middle class neighborhood not too far from downtown. The place is not bad; there are no favelas close to the house, even though there are a lot of homeless on the streets.
Even though we had contacted two NGO and one person that knows several NGOs in Rio, just this last person answer when we arrive to Rio. Her name was Leandra and she was contacted by Yasuaki because both of them are Buddhist.
Lenadra made some calls and we got a meeting with Projeto Afro Reaggae on the favela Canta Galo, and with Assesoria Comunitaria on the favela Rocinha.
Projeto Afro Reggae (www.afroreggae.org.br) started 16 years ago as a social newspaper that talks about the black people situation in Brazil. At that time they got the money making parties of Funky music, but at some point the government of Rio de Janeiro forbid that kind of parties so they have to change to Samba Reggae parties.
Some years after that there were some fights between the police and the people from the favelas and a lot of people died. Once the people from Afro Reggae saw this situation they started to develop social projects.
At this moment they are working with 2000 people in a direct way and with more people in indirect ways. They have 64 projects in Brazil and 11 projects abroad.
For the projects abroad what they do is travel to the city were someone ask for them to came and they start the project. At the same time they give courses to form the people who are going to work in the project. The formation they receive is very particular: they are formed with the methodology of a Circus that is based on the methodology of the native’s communities. In a circus everybody is equal; there are no people more important than other. Once the local people are formed they leave the project there so the locals can run it by themselves.
In the community were we went there were 23 different social projects running at the same time. On one hand this is good because that means that people is attended an they have were to go when they need something, but in the other hand this show a sad reality: most of the projects are located on the south area because is the reaches area of Rio de Janeiro, so there are people interested in maintain this area out of conflicts and people living on the streets. On the north area, the poorest one, there are almost no projects which means that the are were the people with biggest necessities lives is the area with less social coverage.
On Afro Reggae we talked with Boris, the head master (boris.trindade@afroreggae.org.br; boristrindadejr@hotmail.com), he explained to us that they have a very unique method to approach the teenagers when they want to convince them to be part of the project.
Usually teenagers go with the drug dealers because is with them were they can find: girls, fun, music and nice clothe. So, from Afro Reggae they offer the teenagers the same things but in a safety environment: there are girls in the projects, they can dance and study percussion, and they can get imported clothe if they travel abroad with the project.
Afro Reggae offers dance classes and circus classes on this community. Even though, their objective is not to form professional dancers or professionals in circus issues but to form citizens. So, after the classes they dedicated some time to talk about issues like drugs, sex, violence, etc. These talks are assisted by professionals as: social workers and psychologists.
In this building, donate by the government Afro Reggae works with 100 people in a daily basis. In order to do that they hired 20 professionals from the favela. This people receives a normal salary for a full time job, they don’t work with volunteers.
They get the money from Sponsors and from some income generating activities: they sell t-shirts of Afro Reggae of Hering brand, and they charge money to make presentations outside the favela. Some times the government, some schools or private people ask to the group to make some performance, so the project charges some money to do that.
The only requisite to enter into the project is to go the school on a regular basis if the person has an age were they suppose to go to school.
Apart from the classes they can give psychological attention and food fro those who need it.
On the same building were this NGO is working there is another NGO that works with street children and is supported by the UNESCO, is called “Criança Esperança” so if you have time is a good idea to contact them and visit them.
The second NGO was called Assesoria Comunitaria and it was located on the biggest favela of Rio de Janeiro: Rocinha. This NGO is new, it only has one year working but it seams like they are having great results.
Once a week they go to the poorest area of the favela to give some food for free, there they have the opportunity of talk with people and find out their mains problems. That is the first contact with the family. From there, they give company to the families and offer them assistance in issues like: judicial things, accountant things, health things and so on.
They have professionals like lawyers, social workers and pedagogues that helps the people for free to solve their problems.
In order to run this organization they receive money from another NGO called “Associaçao de Moradores da Rocinha”. This NGO receives money from the people that has some kind of business on the favela: motto taxis, supermarkets, fast food stores, etc. All the workers of the NGO are volunteers, and all of them had some kind of relationship with the favela.
Even though at the beginning was hard to believe this favela has all kind of stores inside, even a store that sells flight tickets. I was curios so I asked how this can be possible and the answer was simple: here people consumes, there are a lot of people and now one will still anything from you ¿why should not open a store?. Of course, there stores were on the main street were the public transport enters and were there is a big movement of people. Not all the Rocinha is like that; Rocinha has too small streets with no business and a lot of problems.
Another thing that called my attention was the one related with robbers. I asked several times and the answer was always the same: there are no robbers here, no one will still anything from you inside the favela. The drugs dealers don’t aloud people from the favela to still, at least inside the favela.
In the same NGO there was a man called Ocimar Santos (ocimarsantos@rocinha.org) that has another NGO called Rocinha.org (www.rocinha.org). This NGO works mainly with the website. Here people can fin jobs and make some ads asking thins, looking for person, etc.
The main activity of this NGO is to make a bound between the companies that are looking for workers on the south area and the people unemployed on the favela. After 3 months of existence this NGO has found jobs for 300 people, which means that 300 people had abandoned the streets and the drugs business to work as legal workers on legal business.
Ocimar was telling us that there are a lot of people that came to him saying that they want to be out of the drugs business and change their life because they don’t want to die. So, Ocimar helps them to make their legal documents and find a decent job.
Ocimar knows very good the situation on the favela because he was born there, and he lived there until 6 years ago. Now he is married and he lives outside the favela and he wants to show his example to other people in the favela to convince them that there is another future possible, a better one, out of the drugs and the violence.
Of course, there is another Rio, the one prepare four tourists. We couldn’t do too much of this because the weather wasn’t good and because we spent a lot of time just trying to make contact with the NGOs.
We went to Copacabana beach which is very nice but cold in this time of the year. We went to the Corcovado were you can see the Cristo Redentor. From there you can have a nice view and have an idea of the favelas problem in Rio de Janeiro: there are almost 800 favelas on Rio, they are everywhere, and they are growing.
If you have more time you can visit a lot of interest places in Rio: Ipanema, Feria do Zaara, Palacio Duque das Caixas, Museo Nacional, Zoologico, Igreja Candelaria, etc.
From the house there is a buss that goes to several places that you can visit. The buss is the 472 and it goes to: downtown, flamengo, botafogo, Igreja Candelaria, cityhall, Terminal Central (place were you can take busses to almost all the city), Santos Dumont Airport, Botafogo Yatch Club, Palacio Duque das Caixas, National Museum, Botafogo Praia Shopping, Rio Sul Shopping, etc.
If you want to the Corcovado you have to take a the 472 until the Terminal Central and there, on the same side of the street you take the 422 until the base of the Corcovado. The Corcovado tours cost between R$36 and R$40; it depends if you decide to do it by train or by car (with a driver).
In the neighborhood were the house is you are close to the Zoo and to the Centro Cultural da Cultura Nordestina, a place were you can find typical thing from the northeast of Brazil (it cost R$1 to enter and personally I didn’t found it interesting).
The rest of the team went to Petropolis, and old city close to Rio were the nobles use to go on holydays. You can read about that on Sofi’s report, I didn’t went because I was sick. If you want to go you can contact Karin or Avandson , they are very nice people and they wanted to know more volunteers. They are friends of Leandra Marun , the girl that make the contacts with NGOs. This three people are Buddhist so if you have some Buddhist on the group they will be very happy in know him/her.
FINAL ADVICES FOR THE NEXT TEAMS
- When doing internet reservation always triple check your airports. Sometimes the webpage changes them without asking you.
- Do not book itineraries with connections with a difference smaller than one hour; or be ready to loose a connection.
- Put at least four days on the first city because if you loose the flights connections you can loose one or two days.
- In São Paulo airport some airline offices are quite hidden, and change places often so, if you need to rebook it is better to ask for the location to the federal police before looking for it with your entire luggage.
- On the boat we bought a “camarote”, and 6 hammocks. We bought the “camarote” manly for luggage security but, when we got into the boat we discovered that what we bought was only a bed, and we would need to share the room. As so, we need to convert one of our hammock tickets in to a “camarote” bed. Check if what you are buying is a full “camarote”.
- Food on the ship is ALWAYS the same, ALL the meals, so, if you have time to buy some extra food outside before leaving the port is better.
- If you stay in Barreirinhas is better to pay for a Pousada, is actually very cheap (from R$10 t0 R$20 for two persons with breakfast).
- Do not bring traveler checks to Brazil, they are almost impossible to change in Brazil. Only few exchange houses change them and you need to be sure that your signature on the check is the same as in your passport (for Japanese that means that if your signature on your passport is in Japanese characters, on the traveler check should be on Japanese characters too).
- In Canoa Quebrada, the people in Recicriança helped us to find a place to stay paying R10 per person. They also told us that if we had told them in advance that we needed a place that could find one for us.
- After buying the ticket a person tells you to follow him/her and then some people start to carry your stuff. Beforehand check if you are going to need to pay it separately.
- Try to visit less cities and stay there more time, you will rest more, have a better idea of the place and you will spend less money in transportation.
- Try to put (if possible) R$20 per day per person for food, we putted R$10 and in some places that was not enough at all.
- Before leaving USA make a excel file with the information about where to sleep, which NGOs you will visit and which touristic places you can go and then print a copy for every member of the team.
- By a chip for cellular phone in Brazil if a member of your team has an unblocked cell phone; other wise buy public cell phones cards to use on the public phones. Remember that every time you will make a call to a phone that doesn’t belong to the same area were you are you must add before the number the following numbers: 031 or 041.
- Put on your budget money for public transportation in the cities and for phone calls. You will spend a lot of money in that.
- Don’t let more than one people take care of the money. Take not of every spend your team makes (is better if you have the money, paper and a pen on the same place so every time you spend you can take note).
- Create and Excel file with the money issues were you should put the date, the amount spent and the description of the thing you spent money on. At the end of the day transcript your things from the paper to the Excel file and control that there is no missing money.
- Take good notes of busses companies, places to sleep and visit, NGOs and other important issues for the next teams.
- Be ready for unexpected things and save money for that. Try to have options (like to contacts were to sleep in case one of them says no).
- Be nice with the people you know on the NGOs and on the houses you sleep, the next volunteers could need their help too.
- Try to stick together all the time, if the team divides you will spend more money and time. If anyway you need to separate, be shore that everybody has enough money to pay all the things until you get reunited again.
- There are some companies that don’t aloud you to pay with debit cards, so if you have the team money on an account and you need to spend in one day more than R$600 you will have to make 2 withdraw in two different days (because in some places the maximum amount you can withdraw is R$600 per day).
- Don’t carry big baggage because is really difficult to enter into the urban busses, is heavy to walk and you will get tired easily. Bring backpacks, they are better than suitcases to walk and carry them on busses. Even is possible that transport companies want to charge you excess of baggage, and it is VERY expensive. As an option you can take an airplane direct to Salvador from USA and ask Ricardo to take care of part of your baggage until you get there. Ricardo leaves in Salvador and he works for Humana
- Ask Trine for the excels files I will give her with our budget, our description of the expenses of the team during the travel, the list of Places to sleep, places to visit, and NGO contacts. Ask her too a file with the names of the busses companies that you can use to between cities.
