Rio de Janeiro (Oito)

We´ve seen many slums in the South American countries we´ve travelled through over the last two months, but none as extensive or organised as the favelas in Rio which house 20% of its population. In fact, most Samba Schools participating in Carnaval come from favelas.

Favelas have grown rapidly as poor people who can´t afford to purchase land build their homes on public property. Their reputation for violence stems from the drug cartels who operate within favelas since the government has turned a blind eye to them.

We did a Favela Tour, which took us into two of the city´s 750 favelas - Vila Canoas and Rocinha (the largest favela in Brazil), and provided an insight to this aspect of Brazilian society. `Don´t stare if you see people carrying machine guns around,´our tour guide advised as we walked around Rocinha. `Just think of these as the tools of their trade. And, if you find it unerving that they`re being used by teenagers, it´s just that they start work young.´

Programs initiated by NGOs such as Favela Tour try to keep kids off the street by providing after-school assistance with their homework, and the government´s "Favela Bairro" urbanization project has helped improve infrastructure by providing electricity, refuse removal, and public transport in recent years.

Tarcisio had told us the sad story of a family within a favela that had been seduced by advertising into buying a refrigerator via monthly payments. As they had no electricity, they used their new refrigerator to store their clothes.