Rocinha, Brazil
Adélia
If you take a walk down my street in Rocinha, the first thing you'll notice is how crowded it is. It's not pleasant, but it's almost gives a sense of security. Small brick and concrete houses line narrow, roughly paved streets and alleys. They team with drug dealers that run the city. Everywhere you turn, a person appears. You keep your head down or you could get shot if you look the wrong way at the wrong person. Children with bikes zoom around, spewing rain and mud around. When it does rain, each house gets a drum solo on the metal roofs.
My mother died giving birth to my sister, Gisele, four years ago. My father turned to the drug gangs, because that's the only way you're going to survive here. Papai brings home as much cocaine as he can, then distributes it into little baggies while adding some of his own ingredients. He usually has his friends over, some of them big and scary. I always take Gisele into the bedroom in the hope that she won't understand what Papai does. The only problem is, his gang runs the giant parties, with quality DJ's and some good sweets.
Another major problem for my four-year-old sister: the guns. Every boy over the age of 13 has one, either smuggled or passed down from his father. Papai yells at me whenever he brings his out, which means he's always yelling. The gun never leaves the table. I keep telling him, think of Gisele! But once you start using the drugs you sell, kids aren't a priority; they're a nuisance. That said, we fared better off than most kids. At least we had a constant roof, even if it was one that was caving in. João and his brother Pedro had been kicked out of their shack once their very high parents and uncle decided that children who didn't want to fight yet were too much trouble.
The biggest blessing is that Papai decided to get into drugs right after the police left. If he had been caught, Gisele would likely be separated and I could've been sold into a prostitution ring. The police were sometimes worse than the dealers, shooting anyone with what looked like white powder on them. Unfortunately, that meant anyone who lived in the concrete buildings. The concrete would slowly disintegrate, leaving a trail of powder that looked like cocaine in its wake.
The funniest thing about living in Rocinha is that no one ever questions getting out. Our favela on the hill is all many will ever know. The rumor going around was that the police were only there to clean up the cities so the tourists didn't have to see the mess that most of Rio de Janeiro is. I just don't understand how no one who lives in riches and luxuries that none of us have can sit by while we suffer. They use drugs because it's "cool." We use them because it's all we have.
