Favela firsts

So today my new life in favela PARADA DE LUCAS has begun! Parada is situated in the north of Rio. The south is the rich area where Copacabana is and the north is where there is more poverty. I was originally told there are two types of favelas – the pacified ones where the police have gone in and 'cleaned things up' or the ones that are not pacified and therefore are run by the narcos. My favela is run by narcos. After a conversation with Neuza though, she said that no favela is pacified and all continue to have problems with drugs and guns, only that the pacified ones have a higher police presence. Apparently there is a police presence in Parada once a week/month – in this case they are coming to collect their bribe.

Most of you have seen pictures of where I am staying. The place is more than adequate, although there are some windows missing, but that's only really a problem when it rains. Most people start with a ground floor house and as they save money or as their family grows they build another floor. Three floors is the maximum any house can have. Pretty mcuh as far as the eye can see are these types of houses here.  My classroom is on the second floor and I live on the third floor.

After a long journey (of which most of I slept) I arrived at Rio airport to be greeted by big smiles and open arms from Elisa. I literally couldn't ask for a better person to be here to greet me and show me around. She was accompanied by a girl who will be a future student of mine and we all headed back to the flat together. To say it is hot would be an understatement. You can be sitting still and the sweat is pouring....we are still in winter! Within ten minutes of arriving I was having a beer with Elisa, Neuza (the woman who runs the community centre here), Walter (a guy who runs a project in another favela which I'm going to visit this weekend) and a guy called Paul who is a previous volunteer and funnily enough from Manchester. Within the first few hours I heard and saw fireworks. These are used by the narcos to communicate with each other. It could be anything from a warning about trouble, or to say the police are coming in or simply that they are having a party.

The area was more or less as I expected it to be to be honest. Possibly the stench of the river was worse than anticipated. One thing that has surprised me a lot is the amount of people in the street – at all hours. I had the impression it would be some what of a ghost town maybe because people were scared to go out but there are always people out and about. Unfortunately there are also kids out and about and last night I saw kids that must have been less than 5 years old hanging out on the street.