Favela Chic

Favela. Somewhere cool and gritty you tell people back home you have been hanging in. A bar in Shoreditch full of hipsters drinking Caipirinhas. A place where 20% of Rio call home.

It is cold as we zoom up the rock, along a winding path, where houses are piled one on one and all the doors are open. We are riding through the clouds, on the back of a motorbike and my rider can feel the keenness of my fear as i squeeze his shoulders terrified with every wet curve of the road.

`No photos` says Daniel - our guide. A top dog from the Flamengo Football team, he greets everyone he sees like an old friend - and his presence is the only guarentee of our safety. Highly regarded and mammothly tattooed, it´s a fable: footballer in the favela. With the gringos. We have just ridden into Rocinha Favela - the biggest in Rio De Janeiro and home to 200,000 people. Cobwebs of wires are jacked into the mains; the electricity companies rarely come up here to disconnect - preferring to take the bill dodgers where they can get them on safer ground.

No one official comes up here unless they are asked to. The Government have made steps to try and ´reclaim´ the favela by force but they never stay. They make arrests, remove some of the dealers, fill the gap they leave and then recede again, unsafe on territory which is absolutely not their own. It is very clear that we are here because we are allowed to be here. Climbing off the bikes i feel unseen eyes on us. `No photos` Daniel says again.

We are all conciously making obvious ´non-shop lifter´ gestures. No sudden moves for the cameras or anything else. The truth is the population of the favelas - and the drug dealers who control them - like tourists to come here. They badly need attention and the eyes of the world to be on these places. And, as dangerous as it may be here were i alone, i am struck by how overwhelmingly normal it is. Life goes on.

We bump into a chap taking a census. There are political posters littering the alleys. Children scurry to school, we pass open doors, clean houses, made beds, shop fronts, barbers, bakeries. People taking out the trash. There´s a woman getting her eyebrows plucked by her mate as we pass her door, plucked chickens lined up and spread-eagled in a butchers window. I spot a flash of a Rooney shirt under a toothy grin. This is just life in a poor estate. The drug barons are here somewhere but mainly it´s families, kids. The average birth rate here is 5-6 children so contreception and education are what they need.

The houses stretch all the way up the rock face, right on top of the luxury Copacabana hotels and beach-side apartments. Juxtaposition, a satisfying contrast which must irk the powers that be no end. There are no taxes paid by these people. No bills - at least not once you get up the hill. All building is done by the people who live here and it´s completely unregulated, climbing ever higher into the jungle, eating the greenery, landscaping the horizon with overcrowded, buzzing life.

The Gov are talking about building a wall around this favela to stop the spread. You can see why they think it´s a good idea. Soon, the rock will be just a favela.

A month ago there was a shoot out at a hotel. Nine dealers - including the top guy - a 34 year old called Nam (what must his life be like?????) were ambushed on their way back from a party and took some hostages in a hotel. People died. The dealers fled back to the warren. They make millions and millions but must live their lives in these places, always hiding, buying guns, protecting themselves. ANOTHER WORLD. The people in charge here are one of three gangs in Rio - Amigos Des Amigos - Friends of Friends.

We visit an art gallery and meet one of the artists. On his wall, painted beautifully, is a self-portrait. Above it, he has written;

´I arte imita vida. I vida imita arte´. Art imitates life, life imitates art. Looking around this sprawling, crawling estate, alive with smiles and ´ois´ and ´holas´, chickens, lizards, kids, trees and, invisibly but undenaibly, cocaine, i really don´t agree with his assertion. This is not art. This is merely life.