The eternal quest for urban "authenticity" spreads globally, to perhaps one of the unlikeliest places: the favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro. (via, if you don't believe me!)
It is the first Friday of the month and, as usual, dozens of people are milling about Englishman Bob Nadkardi's house listening to a jazz jam session. But although this is Rio de Janeiro, there is hardly a Brazilian in sight. The reason is the venue. If this was the ritzy Ipanema area, the place would be filled with well-off Cariocas, as people from the city are called, enjoying sounds that run from beebop to bossa nova.
But Mr. Nadkardi's sprawling, unfinished, labyrinth of a home is set on top of a favela, one of the thousands of shantytowns that dot Brazil's big cities. To many Brazilians, favelas are dirty, violent, frightening places. But to many foreigners, they are exciting, interesting, and romantic. More and more outsiders are coming from overseas to live, work, and just visit favelas, observers say. In doing so they are highlighting the difference between Brazilians who regard favelas with fear, rejection, and even disgust, and foreigners who embrace them as vibrant crucibles of modern Brazilian culture.
Nadkardi's house has all the things city-dwellers could want: an expansive view, a close-in location, a close-knit neighborhood, an inexpensive price tag. Astronomical crime rates, frequent violence, and erratic (or nonexistent) public services are the tradeoffs...
Recent expatriate arrivals say favela life offers close proximity to culture that more genteel neighborhoods cannot. It also increasingly serves as the inspiration for movies, fashion, and music:
"City of God," for example, the Oscar-nominated film that was a worldwide hit in 2003, was set in a Rio favela of the same name. Funk music, with its aggressive, raplike beat is now common on dance floors in Paris and London. It started in favelas and is still hugely popular there. And some of Brazil's hottest fashion designers take their inspiration from the poor communities.
Favela life offers glimpses of a time gone by, just as cheap warehouses left over from rampant deindustrialization provided cheap shelter for would-be bohemians of the '60s, '70s, and '80s.
American Michael Allett admits he was scared when he first moved to Rocinha, one of Rio's biggest favelas, two years ago. His house was surrounded by smoldering garbage, and piles of rubble from half finished construction projects. He frequently crossed paths with drug gangs wielding semiautomatic weapons....
"I feel more secure here than in Copacabana, where I saw people get mugged three times," says the former stockbroker from California. "If you cause turbulence here it is dealt with heavily. The guys with the guns come and take care of it. People respect each other more here, but the sad thing is that it is enforced by guns." But most of all, Allett enjoys what all the outsiders say is perhaps the main reason for living there: The feeling they have recaptured a time gone by.
"I go to the plaza and discuss things with people," says Max Eichhorn, a former violinmaker from Germany who has lived in Rocinha since 2000. "I know everyone by name. I go to the bar for a coffee and if I forget my money they say, 'Don't worry, pay me later.' I love the freedom I have here. Living here is like living in Tuscany."
Comments