by Zezinho Da Rocinha

Created on: September 13, 2009   Last Updated: September 14, 2009

My Favela Life

"I believe that the lack of empathy and understanding from outsiders remains a big obstacle to long-term improvement of life in the favelas."

The opening statement says a lot about society. I do not think anybody wants to be raised in poverty. When we are born, we really do not have achoice what class we are born into. I never asked my parents to be born here in Rocinha, it just happened. Rocinha is a place like any that a child would not know anything different unless taken outside of Rocinha.

I just thought everybody lived like me. It was around 12 years old that I could see and understand that we had different classes of people depending on how much money you made. My father tried to protect me from seeing the realities outside of the favela becase he was ashamed of his own circumstances.

I remember the first time leaving the favela to go to centro to meet some of my fathers friends and seeing a public bathroom and places and how different it was from the favela shocked me.

As a child going to school I was made fun of because of where I lived. I went to a public school where there was a mix of kids. There were basically two classes of people in the public schools, those of us from "the hill" or favela, and those that were from the "asfalto" or formal city. We were the favelados or slum dwellers.

The rich always went to private schools and did not want to mix with the lower classes. Still, in public schools the non favela kids who were poor but not favela poor, still made fun of us. I guess they felt better because they could pick on us. I am sure looking back that they got picked on by the upper class kids, so this was a continuation for them to pick on us.

A cruel cycle but reality. Being from the favela was just one step up from being homeless or living on the street. If I look at it that way, I am so happy I had a home, favela or not, I had a roof over my head, opportunity for school, and some food in my stomach.

We had little but we made do. I had one pair of shoes that I was only allowed to wear to school and otherwise I wore sandals. My father wanted our shoes to last. As my three brothers grew older, shoes and clothes if in good condition were handed down. I remember I owned 1 jacket, 1 hat, 4 t-shirts, 1 nice slacks for church, 1 nice button shirt, three shorts, 4 underwear and 2 socks.

We ate one large meal a day and one snack or small meal. We had access to Jaca fruit, which we ate everyday because you could eat it off the tree.

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