| published on October 19, 2006 |
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Dona Marta Favela, Rio de Janeiro: At the Foot of the Hill
by Tom Moore
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Tom Moore
Dancing to the beat of Dona Marta’s Carnaval group, the bloco |
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Rio de Janeiro - The favelas of Rio de Janeiro (especially the largest one, Rocinha) are known around the world. A sizeable proportion of the population (perhaps 15-20%) lives in these "informal" areas, where the housing is constructed by those dwelling there, access is by foot only, the enforcement of the law occurs only sporadically (since there is no way patrol cars can enter), and residents often do not pay for such services as electricity and water (siphoned off without accounting). Outsiders get their impressions from feature films such as Black Orpheus (the original, directed by Marcel Camus, from 1959, and the remake, officially entitled merely Orfeu and directed by Cacá Diegues, from 1999), and City of God (2002).
What often surprises visitors to Rio is not the fact that the poverty of the favelas exists, but that it is so closely integrated with the middle- and upper-class neighborhoods of the city. Economist Edmar Bacha coined the term Belindia in 1974 to describe the distribution of income in Brazil (a small group with a European standard of living - Belgium, and an immensely larger group with a South Asian standard of living - India).
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Many, though not all, of Rio's favelas, particularly in the South Zone, are located on steep hillsides, places where the terrain would have been too hilly for streetcar lines, and the construction of apartment houses difficult. My wife Deborah and I live "on the asphalt," on the main access road to the Dona Marta (also known as Santa Marta) favela, located in the neighborhood of Botafogo. The hillside on either side of the favela is almost vertical, with a sheer rock wall ascending behind on the left to the Dona Marta lookout (Mirante Dona Marta). We are not in the favela itself, which you could define as beginning where you must get out of your car, and go up by foot, but in an area of transition, where middle-class apartment buildings and mores give way to the social life of the favela, perhaps 100 meters from one of the two main thoroughfares in Botafogo, Rua São Clemente. On the other side of São Clemente, life is middle-class - fancy high-rises with doormen, the Museum of the Indian, the Villa-Lobos Museum. On our side, favela life begins.
Dona Marta houses approximately 7,000 residents in more than 1,000 dwellings. The hill was already named for Dona Marta in the late 19th century when there were no roads on the north (hill) side of São Clemente, and the neighborhood was filled with mansions of the elite, a few of which still exist amidst the more recent construction. The favela got its start in the 1940s. Many residents head down Rua Marechal Francisco de Moura (the street that connects the favela to São Clemente) each morning to work and school.
When people start returning after work there are a number of booths (the sort that can be dismantled and taken away at night) along the street supplying their retail needs - a vendor selling açaí with toppings, a hot-dog stand, a woman selling women's clothing. Most days there is someone selling bread and cakes and someone else selling garlic, limes and a few greens. Most days the noise from the street is happy voices, particularly at night, when there are children playing.
In addition to the many residents working at gainful employment outside the favela, Dona Marta, like most favelas, has "bocas-de-fumo" - places where drugs are sold. From where we are on the asphalt, this trade is invisible, but not inaudible. One of the aspects of life here at the foot of the hill that might be disturbing to the beginner is the fact that one hears fireworks from uphill on a regular basis. The general notion is that these are to signal the availability of drugs for sale, but one also gets the impression that it is not so uncommon to shoot these off just for the hell of it, to celebrate. Dona Marta seems to be full of fans rooting for the Flamengo soccer team, and when there is a game on the television, you don't need to have your own television on in order to know when Flamengo has scored a goal - there certainly will be a burst of fireworks to mark the occasion.
Indeed, the favela hardly misses an occasion to celebrate. Each of Brazil's victories in the most recent World Cup meant a large party in the square outside our window, with hundreds of people dancing, drinking, singing, shouting, and just generally having a good time. But every weekend means that the workday schedule is completely inverted. The partying starts on Friday night, with music going on until the early hours. Things really get going on Saturday nights - but not until close to midnight, when visitors from elsewhere (other favelas?) start heading uphill to the “baile funk” (funk dance). If you keep regular hours, this can be a little daunting, because even if you manage to get to sleep by midnight, the volume of the amplified music can continue to increase as the party goes on, so that you may be wakened at 4:30 a.m., not by the music, but because the heavy bass is causing your windows to buzz rhythmically in their frames. Revelers pass at regular intervals heading downhill to go home, singing happy birthday, shouting at one another. By dawn, as Corcovado is beginning to be visible at 6:30 or so, the final strains are heard ("Brasileirinho," a choro), and finally by 7 a.m., the calm is complete. You know there will be a serious baile funk when the police (the PM, “policia militar”) station themselves with two cars to do a pedestrian blitz on the uphill-headed partygoers.
There doesn't need to be a baile funk uphill to ensure a level of music on the weekends that would motivate most gringos (or even square locals, known as “cariocas”) to call the cops. Sometimes there is competing music from the “barraca” (stall) downhill and the “botequim” (local bar) uphill. The latter regularly puts up a stage for musical attractions. These vary over time. For some months there was a regular “roda de choro” (choro session) on Sunday evenings featuring young musicians from Dona Marta. Then there was pagode-style samba (lamentably, not as good quality as the choro) on Friday evenings. Every now and then there is heavy metal (something you wouldn't think had much to do with the culture of the "morro" - or hill), attracting a crowd of goth, "dark" teens, with pale skin, piercings, dark clothes, and dyed-black hair.
Dona Marta has other musical activities which are less audible. Among the young children walking down to go to school are a surprising number carrying violin cases, something you might not associate with a favela. The Villa-Lobinhos program, which got its start at the nearby Museu Villa-Lobos, makes possible musical education for needy children between 12 and 20 years old. Its musical co-coordinator, Rodrigo Belchior, grew up in Dona Marta. Thanks to an outreach program, he went from Dona Marta to earn a degree in music at UNIRIO, a college in nearby Urca. During Carnaval the Grémio Recreativo Carnavalesco Pela-Saco takes to the streets, with a substantial “bateria” (drum corps). At Christmastime there is a “Folia de Reis” (Wise Men Festival).
In contrast to favelas like Rocinha and Vidigal, regularly in the news for violence and drugs, Dona Marta has been relatively peaceful of late. (This was not always the case. After visiting a family uphill in Dona Marta for a Sunday afternoon dinner in 1999, I was surprised and a little shocked to read in the weekly newsmagazine Veja that it was considered to be one of the most dangerous of favelas. This period is detailed in the book Abusado: o Dono do Morro Dona Marta (2003) by Caco Barcellos.) Since we have been living down below, I have witnessed only one major gun battle, in which the police later reported that 1,000 rounds were fired. The battle lasted about a half-hour. Afterwards there was a regular police presence (more or less 24/7) in the plaza for several months.
Policing seems to be primarily concerned with discouraging drug sales to upper-middle-class customers from outside the community. This takes the form of stopping cars (by definition, upper-middle-class) which may be exiting late at night, on the presumption that the only business they might have would be drugs. This even though the apartment houses on the Dona Marta side of São Clemente are still middle-class residences, by and large, and cars exiting might conceivably have business other than at the bocas-de fumo. Nevertheless the perception among cariocas is that these buildings are already in a law-enforcement free zone (many businesses refuse to make deliveries). To a certain extent they are right. Rio in general has a bracing level of libertarianism, at least to a gringo eye, a looseness with some social niceties (generally on the broader level, as opposed to the in-group, where etiquette is, if anything, more important and more strictly enforced), and this is even more the case in places where there is not much veneer of middle-class propriety. If you want to sing happy birthday on the street at 3 a.m., you can, and it's not your problem, it's that of those who might be trying to sleep. The same goes for starting the diesel engine on your bus so that you can go to the farmer's market at 4 a.m. to bring back vegetables to sell to the Dona Marta consumers.
There have been some government efforts at "urbanizing" Rio favelas, bringing them closer to the urbanity of the rest of the city, so they will be less a place apart that strangers fear to enter. Dona Marta has benefited from some of these initiatives (to the tune of 28 million reals or about US$13 million) including a inclined plane descending from the top of the favela (where there is an access road), scheduled to be opened by the end of 2006, the construction of 23 play areas, 150 new residences (to house families dislocated by the construction of the inclined plane), and a daycare center for 100 children, located at the top of the hill, where it can be seen from a middle class neighborhood called Laranjeiras, on the other side of the mountain. (This has been a source of controversy for Laranjeiras residents who believed that the thin wedge of the daycare center would extend Dona Marta in their direction).
Favelas are usually (though not always) no-go zones for cariocas, but what is obvious to anyone who lives next to one is that “favelados” (favela residents) are hard-working citizens contributing to society, aspiring to climb the social ladder. Though non-Brazilians may hear the word "favela" and think misery, people work hard to achieve a reasonable standard of living – thus attracting migrants from the Northeast and interior in general. Those who live in Dona Marta are poor, yes, even quite poor, but this does not mean they are set apart from the rest of the society. They are an integral part of life in Zona Sul, Rio de Janeiro.
Tom Moore is a classical musician and translator who lives in Rio de Janeiro. His most recent CD of trio sonatas by Boismortier is available from A Casa Estúdio.
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