A Walk through Rocinha, the Favela Bairro.

The ride in the minibus-taxi from Copacabana, along the promenade and beach filled with rows of red umbrellas and naked skin glistening in the sun, takes fifteen minutes–at most. One sudden turn swallows the beach view for two minutes before another swirl of the driver’s wheel brings it right back. Past an expensive hotel, past another curve, and there it is, spread out evenly on the hill, like a blanket on a body at winter time: Rocinha, the biggest favela of Brazil. 

Surrounded by full, big trees that do not seem to mind, matchbox-houses fill out the space from road up to sky, along the hilly mountain and cliffs. As the taxi approaches São Conrado, an affluent neighborhood at the foot of the mountain, the houses grow closer and more distinguishable but not really any bigger.

Rocinha is no longer considered a favela or slum; it has become a favela bairro, a ‘slum neighborhood,’ home to a community of between 150,000 and 300,000 persons, many dozens snack points, bike repair shops, bus stops and apparently even a McDonald’s. It is a place that, after a while, could no longer be ignored. It pushed and shoved its way into more-or-less formal existence, tolerated, though not liked, by its affluent neighbors.

The mini-taxi stops in the shade of a bus stop. The conductor’s worked hands calmly accept the five reais for the fare, and his earnest, tanned face expresses an unexpected understanding at our presence. “Estrada da Gavea,” he says and points towards a road that begins at a slight inclination on the other side of the intersection.

Walking through Rocinha is climbing a mountain. It is entering a jungle. One second, you admire the expensive houses and ocean from a barely populated, formal intersection; the next second you find yourself by a line of garages where drippy motorcycles are getting touched up by oily hands. Tiles for sale embellish the narrow sidewalk, competing with other businesses that spill onto the streets, from private to public. It happens fluently, dynamically, naturally. The strict, spacial border has vanished, as it is really ought to. Streets wind up the mountain, climbed by motorcycle taxi men and some cars. Speeding up the hill in ease, the motorcycles seem to tease the pedestrians who sweatily climb step by step, crossing the street every now and then, when the walkable path becomes a shop, a house, a garbage dump. Pedestrians are not expected, nor do they belong. But their slow pace allows for observation. It allows to notice the minor details that define the very space.

A white ship occupies a narrow patch on a gray wall. It exists steadily on the side of a house in the making, whose steal construction, just as the ship, hangs in mid-air, frozen in a moment of indecisiveness. A chessboard carved into a table stands unused, almost abandoned but well-cared for. The ridges between the black and white cubes are neat and precise. They matter, right here.

Entering a shop, we ask for a toilet.

“Banheiro, por favor?” 

“Aci?”

“Si.”

“Aci… Difícil,” is the answer, accompanied by a benevolent smile, almost an apology.  

A military policeman on motorbike speeds by, downhill, machine gun in hand. Too busy balancing, he barely pays attention to the road. Next to stacked-up orange bricks that are ready for construction, pieces of fresh laundry clipped onto long lines sway in the breeze. In the distance, the wide, blue ocean becomes the favela. Against the sky, birds fly in circles. Not birds. Kites. At any point in time during a day in Rocinha, at least ten kites will rise against the blue horizon. When you observe their movements over some time, you begin to suspect a secret schedule, arranged by the children on different sides of Rocinha. Too flawless is the kites’ communal rhythm. Auditory background to this visual scenario is the noise of new constructions taking place: Rocinha never ceases to expand. 

Mechanics nap in hammocks, providing shade for the dogs below them. On a Friday afternoon, the time has come to rest after another long week or drilling and fixing. Steep side roads, sprouting off of the main road, lead to residential areas. A beautiful boy washes a car, most likely not his, with a seldom sense of care. He looks up and smiles. “Eh,” he agrees to our gestures. “Acho que e Gavea,” he adds. He says other things through his wide smile, but we do not understand his words. “Obrigado.”

A woman drops a bag of trash from an elevation onto an accumulated pile below. It softly lands. Minibus-taxis with mothers and babies in them wait for customers. And a car blasting advertisements from speakers precedes a military police vehicle, equipped with seven men in full gear (helmets, machine guns and bulletproof what-nots), ready to leap. They look bored and hot, with their jackets and guns. One hums a song as they slowly pass by, scrutinizing the people on the street, one by one.

A few young boys listlessly kick a soccer ball around in the dust. Too hot. In the background, in Gavea, super-richdom is poorly hidden behind super-fences. Poorly so, because the beautiful house with adjacent basketball court, built on a platform exclusively for this purpose, is best seen from atop of the mountain that is Rocinha. So is the world-famous Jesus statue with its arms spread out above Rio de Janeiro, and its back–so endlessly ironic–turned to Rocinha.  

The walk through the greatest favela of Brazil and possibly the greatest favela of Latin America, from São Conrado to Gavea, is enlightening and unnerving at the same time. This is not because of the contrast between the first and the two latter neighborhoods. This grotesque economic contrast replicates in all poor, urban neighborhoods. What causes the strange aftertaste, that feels like the sensation of an unripe fruit on your tongue, like velvet rubbed the wrong way, is the suspect silence that hovers over Rocinha. It could be a state of relaxation, as some suggest. But it could also be the cloud before the storm. Or the exhausted remains afterwards. 

At 4.06am on a Sunday in November of 2011, 3000 police officers and soldiers entered Rocinha as part of a plan to “pacify” the city in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. Snipers from bullet-proof helicopters searched for gunmen and drug lords. The favela surrendered; not a shot was fired. The operation was rendered successful (the big fish in the drug pond, Antônio Bonfim Lopes, known as Nem, had been arrested a week prior), but the police remained. And they are still there, in full gear, ready to leap. 

‘Twist and Shout’ – Brazilian Style: An Excursion of Carnival Blocos in Rio de Janeiro (Part 2)

Across a bubbly sea of long-haired heads, I spot a sign. “Se perdeu?” (Got Lost?) it says on one side; “encontram-se aqui” (Meet Here) on the other. Ingenious. A floating meeting point for those poor fellas who were intoxicated or overwhelmed enough to get lost in this human ocean. Which is, actually, not hard to do, because on Carnival Monday at Marina da Glória in Rio de Janeiro, at 2.30pm, tens of thousands of people have come together for some serious partying. Crammed between groups of sturdy cross-dressers drinking Skol beer and many hundreds of hippies, equipped with heart-shaped sun glasses and caipirinha cups, everyone is shaking it to the samba version of — “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

Finally, we have made it to a big deal bloco. (For more information on how this journey started, check out Part 1.) Not only is this an immensely popular bloco – we are talking over 15 thousand Facebook likes! – but it is one that transcends age, language and borders. Of the almost one million tourists who come to Rio during the five days of Carnival each year, only a minority speaks Portuguese (a quite unfortunate circumstance, since half the fun at blocos is singing along).

“Sargento Pimenta,” Portuguese for “Sergeant Pepper” makes exactly that possible. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was The Beatles’ alter ego band. The Beatles’ eighth album, a forerunner of the concept album, was recorded under this alternative name and thus, provided The Beatles with some leeway to experiment. So the band decided to try something new: They recorded the album as if it were a life performance and sold that as the official version, the idea being that this style could substitute their never-ending world tour, while simultaneously expanding their global crowd of listeners. Similarly, the bloco Sargento Pimenta reaches out to include a greater audience, through Brazilian-flavored Beatles classics.

“Sargento Pimenta is not just a “Bloco de Carnaval”. It is an initiative started by friends, for all of our friends, and for all people who together share the same dreams and are happy,” states the bloco‘s Facebook page.

Carnival and The Beatles seem to go together naturally considering that both are based on the idea of celebrating culture, love and unity (and if you still find it hard to imagine a coming together of The Beatles and samba, check this out.) But it took a group of non-musicians for a Beatles only bloco to become a reality, lead-singer and guitarist of Sargento Pimenta, Felipe Fernandes, explains.

This group of friends––doctors, lawyers––came to Carnival in 2010. And as they danced and sang at the different blocos around town, the obvious question came to mind: ‘Why isn’t there a Beatles bloco?’ “They were not musicians,” Fernandes says. “But they knew some, so they called them up.” As easy as that. When a friend asked Fernandes if he wanted to join, he immediately agreed. A handful of musicians started practicing in September 2010. In December, Sargento Pimenta was already performing, and at Carnival in 2011, they did not only draw 10,000 partiers to their bloco (they expected 500 to 1000), but the mayor of Rio called them a “great acquisition.”

“We have more musicians and voice in our bloco than there is in the typical one,” Fernandes says. “It was uncommon.” So uncommon that their first concert following Carnival in 2011 sold out. 500 people could not get into the venue. “It was like playing in the Madison Square Garden,” Fernandes says. “Almost,” he adds with a smile.

Fernandes and I are standing by a window overlooking Lapa, one of Rio’s most popular nightlife spots. Below, on something that appears to be a battlefield after a whole day of Carnival festivities, homeless men pick up beer cans to sell for some extra cash, while a horde of drunken men and women, ignoring them, continue to samba vigorously.

It is two days before the big Carnival performance and Sargento Pimenta is practicing their gig in an Open Rehearsal at Fundicao Progresso, a well-respected, old-school performing venue. And even here, on one of the first days of Carnival with free street parties taking place all over town, Sargento Pimenta manages to fill the venue up, cover charge and all.

The secret could be the mix of tradition and modernity. Young and old. Or the magic Beatles touch. It does not really matter. At the bloco two days later, it rains shiny, pink plastic hearts onto umbrellas whose tips look like aquariums full of fish. Behind me, a John Lennon in his late fifties shouts towards the Carnival float where Fernandes and his bloco mates are brilliantly impersonating the probably greatest band of all times. On my right, a Tarzan dressed in a green, nilon-skirt creeps a long fuzzy stuffed animal snake from under his skirt onto girls’ shoulders. They shriek and giggle. Under the burning sun, the crowd moves like waves. And young and old twist and shout.

For fabulous Sam Wolson slideshow, please see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-wolson/twist-and-shout-brazilian_b_1302826.html