It's raining so I have gladly been spending time writing emails I should have written eons ago, reading other people's blogs and just idling the afternoon away.
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When in Rio I went with a guide to one of the favelas. If I'd gone there without the guidance of a local I would hardly being writing this, or anything else for that matter. Except maybe inventory of sins for my application for housing in heaven.

We went to Rocinha, which is the largest slum in South America. Nobody knows how many people live there. A common number to hear is 250.000. Other sources say at least 500.000, probably closer to 1.000.000. The inhabitants are packed together on an area of 800.000 sq meters (compare that to the nearly 300.000 inhabitants in Iceland spread over an area of 103.000 sq km. But then again that is very spacious).

Rocinha is sprawled over a hillside in the south part of Rio, down to São Conrado which is an upper class area where people live in airconditioned forts with high fences and fierce guard dogs.

What was most surprising to me was the infrastructure, but Rocinha is sometimes referred to as the "First World of the Favelas", with shops, daycare centers, schools and two banks, two radio-stations, two bus-routes, two supermarkets, three nightclubs, three of its own newspapers and even a McDonald branch in the nicest area. Most of the people are trying to make an honest living, many of the women work as maids in the ritzy parts of the city or at hotels close by. The houses are multistorey buildings made of concrete and bricks, not mud or cardboard boxes and plywood. Petty crimes are rare in the favelas, there you respect the unwritten laws of the community.

That said life in the favelas can be very bleak. It's the turf of drug lords and crime gangs and about $500.000 worth of drugs go in and out Rocinha every week. It's normal to see armed men in narcotrafficking with walkie-talkies around and they use fireworks to signal each others. The police doesn't enter the favelas too often, just leave business there alone. About 3 weeks ago 200 policemen raided Rocinha for 24 hours, arrested 7 people and killed 2. That's like a drop in the ocean. Last month a war broke out between the ruling drug dealers in Rocinha and a neighbourhood favela. The government is content to sit back and watch. And still the favelas are squatter cities, on state land. Nobody pays taxes and few pay electricity or water, just tap into power lines and watermains that crisscross the slum, filthy water runs in open sewers. The problems are so big, no one knows how to start tackling them.
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A traveller in Rio bought a bunch of disposable cameras, took them to Rocinha and handed out to the kids in the favela and let them take whatever photos they wanted. You can see the results here: http://nat.org/rocinha/, scroll to the bottom of the page and there you can see the photos. A similar project was carried out in Rwanda a few years ago, you can read about it here: http://www.rwandaproject.org/.