This morning we were up early and out the door to visit the favela closest to our hotel. Favelas are the poor areas of the city, sort of squatter´s shanty-towns that house over 2 million people in Rio. We started walking up the hill, with normal city streets and traffic and sidewalks. And we walked up further, winding onto narrower streets. The streets started getting narrower and steeper. Then we reached a T in the road, with a large bus right in the middle. The T was the divide from the city into the favelas, with one favela to the left and one to the right. The bus was a grocery produce bus, where people from the favelas could come to shop for fresh food. Behind the bus, the earth rose up steeply, and the haphazard construction suddenly began to loom and twist.
As we walked into the Chapeu Manguiera favela, we were really climbing. We went up past a large sign that said UPP, which means that this favela had been ´pacified´ by the police. This means that the favela is no longer controlled by the drug gangs which in the recent past controlled all the favelas. Along with pacification comes the ability for the government to institute social programs and development, and we could see the result in some newly constructed concrete steps. We needed those stairs, BTW, because by now the rise up the hill was incredibly steep. We kept going up and up.
As we climbed, we twisted through narrow paths and new concrete stairs. We walked on old wooden steps packed with dirt, and tree roots serving as steps. Some steps were wide, some narrow, and none were uniform width or height. There were bags of dry cement on some steps, left outside the shacks of people who hauled up their own construction materials. In some places, there was garbage or sewage that we had to step over. Some of the shacks leaned out over the narrow pathways. But always, it was incredibly steep. In a way, it was easy to see how this land was never suitable for normal city development; we really were climbing up the side of a mountain.
As we got higher up, the paths became dirt-packed and the houses more ramshackle. Finally, we were in increasingly green space, until we reached the formal upper edge of the favela. Here was the oldest house in the favela, from 1903, and made of mud-brick. We stopped for a while to rest under the shade of a giant jackfruit tree, watching tiny marmosets scurry in the branches. It was cooler and we picked up a slight breeze, which was quite welcome after the long climb upwards. We were at the edge of the community reforestation project, which is now a kind of mountainside park.
In 1993, the residents of both the favelas on Babylonia Mountain began a government sponsored reforestation project using native forest species. Residents were educated in forestry and ecology and employed to plant and maintain the new forest. Prior to replanatation, the top of the mountain had been logged and stripped, causing massive erosion and some deadly mudslides down the side of the mountain. Now, though, 20 years later, there was a genuine new-growth forest there. About the size of 60 football fields and using about 400,000 new trees, this forest was dark, cool, and green.
We started up the path through the forest and found that we weren´t anywhere near done climbing yet! These dirt paths were well-maintained but just as steep, if not steeper, than the route through the favela. Some of us were huffing and puffing by this point, and some of the climb was quite steep. But the forest was beautiful and dense, even though the trees were still quite young. We saw banana trees, palm, ferns, ficus, pau brazil, and even wild impatients (which here they call ´little kisses´). When finally we reached the top, we stood on an open expanse of granite and caught the amazing view. We were facing Sugarloaf, and almost as high up. We could see the ocean and the beaches and the city. Except for the fact that we were hot, tired, breathless, and standing in the open sun, it was amazing!
Going back down was in some ways easier, and in some ways harder. It wasn´t as strenuous, but it took more care not to slip in some of the steeper places. We got quite a work-out, with about 2 miles of intense walking in each direction, all of it along a ridiculously steep mountainside. The experience of the city to the favela to the forest was really amazing, though, and it really drove home the interesting ways that Brazil is managing both the people and the environment. Many of us will be sore tomorrow, certainly, but it was surely worth it!
As we walked into the Chapeu Manguiera favela, we were really climbing. We went up past a large sign that said UPP, which means that this favela had been ´pacified´ by the police. This means that the favela is no longer controlled by the drug gangs which in the recent past controlled all the favelas. Along with pacification comes the ability for the government to institute social programs and development, and we could see the result in some newly constructed concrete steps. We needed those stairs, BTW, because by now the rise up the hill was incredibly steep. We kept going up and up.
As we climbed, we twisted through narrow paths and new concrete stairs. We walked on old wooden steps packed with dirt, and tree roots serving as steps. Some steps were wide, some narrow, and none were uniform width or height. There were bags of dry cement on some steps, left outside the shacks of people who hauled up their own construction materials. In some places, there was garbage or sewage that we had to step over. Some of the shacks leaned out over the narrow pathways. But always, it was incredibly steep. In a way, it was easy to see how this land was never suitable for normal city development; we really were climbing up the side of a mountain.
As we got higher up, the paths became dirt-packed and the houses more ramshackle. Finally, we were in increasingly green space, until we reached the formal upper edge of the favela. Here was the oldest house in the favela, from 1903, and made of mud-brick. We stopped for a while to rest under the shade of a giant jackfruit tree, watching tiny marmosets scurry in the branches. It was cooler and we picked up a slight breeze, which was quite welcome after the long climb upwards. We were at the edge of the community reforestation project, which is now a kind of mountainside park.
In 1993, the residents of both the favelas on Babylonia Mountain began a government sponsored reforestation project using native forest species. Residents were educated in forestry and ecology and employed to plant and maintain the new forest. Prior to replanatation, the top of the mountain had been logged and stripped, causing massive erosion and some deadly mudslides down the side of the mountain. Now, though, 20 years later, there was a genuine new-growth forest there. About the size of 60 football fields and using about 400,000 new trees, this forest was dark, cool, and green.
We started up the path through the forest and found that we weren´t anywhere near done climbing yet! These dirt paths were well-maintained but just as steep, if not steeper, than the route through the favela. Some of us were huffing and puffing by this point, and some of the climb was quite steep. But the forest was beautiful and dense, even though the trees were still quite young. We saw banana trees, palm, ferns, ficus, pau brazil, and even wild impatients (which here they call ´little kisses´). When finally we reached the top, we stood on an open expanse of granite and caught the amazing view. We were facing Sugarloaf, and almost as high up. We could see the ocean and the beaches and the city. Except for the fact that we were hot, tired, breathless, and standing in the open sun, it was amazing!
Going back down was in some ways easier, and in some ways harder. It wasn´t as strenuous, but it took more care not to slip in some of the steeper places. We got quite a work-out, with about 2 miles of intense walking in each direction, all of it along a ridiculously steep mountainside. The experience of the city to the favela to the forest was really amazing, though, and it really drove home the interesting ways that Brazil is managing both the people and the environment. Many of us will be sore tomorrow, certainly, but it was surely worth it!
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