While I usually try to focus on the fun part of travelling, this will be a much more serious post, in which I can present to you an experience I've had when I stayed in Brazil. There will be less pictures and more text - but I'll still try to keep it fairly bite-sized!
Backstory
As a part of a minor I took at my university, I went to Rio de Janeiro. The idea behind the trip was to learn in practice to make places better - both my influencing the physical space, but also the people within. The minor was called "Making Places and Shaping Destinations", but I'd say that this experience ended up reshaping my own world view to a certain extent.
Our itinerary was to be in different parts of Rio de Janeiro for a while, as well as visiting some of the beautiful villages around the area - such as Silva Jardim, Nova Iguacu and more. I will definitely make more posts about just the trip to Brazil, as there are tons of stunning views and great stories. But this one will be specifically about Tubiacanga, as that community for sure deserves its own post.
Tubiacanga
Pier at one of the few eateries in the community
So who are the Tubiacanga people? Well, to put it short, they are the ones that live in a small area nearby the international Rio Galeao airport on Ilha do Governador. It is a poor neighborhood, but it is far from the many favelas of the city. The story of Tubiacanga is much different.
There is very little information out there about them, so I have to base my knowledge of what I have been told by the local people, as well as other cariocas. According to the people of Tubiacanga, their little place on Earth was theirs much before Rio de Janeiro became a full-fledged city that encompassed Ilha do Governador. Due to this, but also due to complacence, laziness and many communication issues, they are sort of outcast - politically and economically - from the rest of Rio de Janeiro.
But what does this mean? Well, they are in a sort of a conflict with the city, which could lead to awful consequences to them. They do not pay taxes and in return do not receive any sort of city services, like trash collection and so on. They claim they are not integrated, thus cannot find jobs or receive financial help - but obviously there are two sides to each story.
Beautiful Hearts
That's one way to utilize plastic during holiday season
For the government of Rio de Janeiro, the area of Tubiacanga is a wasteland. They envision it used much better for other things than what in their mind is a parasitic society, living on their land. From an economic point of view - that is hard to argue with. We need to remember, however, that the Tubiacanga community is full of people. Sure, some of them need guidance, but they are still people.
Within the community, multiple hard-working, intelligent and amazing people with beautiful hearts decided to step forward and attempt to fix it. Through their connections, they managed to contact not only people within Rio, but also our school - and the university used this as an opportunity for students to get involved and help make a change.
We were asked to - after spending some days visiting multiple points of interest and talking to the people - try and dig deeper into the root cause of problems, as well as give ideas on how to improve the community's situation.
On our first day, we met with some of those people - the leaders of change, who wanted to improve the community's lives. I wish I could tell you all of their names, but I wouldn't be able to type them, and there were many of them. From young to old, around 15-20 people came around to try and talk to us; with the help of students from Rio de Janeiro who translated from Portuguese to English.
We did some roundtables, we were shown around the village and we heard a lot of their perspective on the entire situation. They were full of enthusiasm to save their community, but quite empty on ideas how to do it. In the evening, we had a whole show with them - and here I'd just like to point out that all our meetings took part in what was a community center of sorts - a huge container-like building with a bunch of rusty chairs and tables. They offered us drinks and food, welcomed us with banners in Portuguese, English and Dutch (our university was Dutch) and showed off their passions: some showed devices they invented, some told stories - it was truly touching how these poor people managed to get around and love life, despite it being difficult as hell.
The Fear of Change
Among the many problems they listed - a lot of it was resentment towards the city officials - a glaring one we saw was the community itself. While what we had seen on the first days made us feel pity, the realization came pretty soon after. The leaders might want to work, change and give life to the community, but others much less so.
We have visited the local school, a kindergarten (photo below!), we walked through the living areas and saw a few beaches - yes, they have those there, going right into the Atlantic Ocean; yet that does not help them get any tourists at all! Why? Because people litter. They just do not think of the consequences of not keeping their environment clean. This was a recurring theme - they did not know that what they were doing led them nowhere.
The Tubiacanga kindergarten
This is the short summary of the long story - people of Tubiacanga were simply not informed enough to be aware of what a little change can bring. But let's not only treat them as victims of the system. The truth is, many of them were given jobs. Not great jobs, but ones that paid on time and did not require skills; mostly working at the airport. Cleaning, carrying stuff - those were the jobs they were offered and took. It turned out most of them simply did not show up to their work with no notice. On one hand it is easy to feel bad for someone who gets treated as outcasts; on the other hand, the blame is rarely on one side.
In many ways, they were/are afraid of change. They knew their lives - and even if they did not like them.. What if the change leads to them being worse? In a way, we are all worried about the outcome of change. We see it in the littlest of things: there's outrage when interfaces of games change - and this would change their whole life. This is understandable, though not necessarily excusable.
This is why as the outcome of our project, we suggested the simplest and cheapest solutions: education and stimulation. We believe that the people should be shown what a change in their behaviour could bring so they can see a goal at the end. In addition, giving some rewards for completing the little tasks - like segregating their trash, or simply not littering - was suggested.
In the end, the leaders of the community that we were communicating with were truly grateful for our insights. We did not give them anything groundbreaking, but it was enough to inspire them to work with others in the community and stimulate them - as opposed to blaming them for laziness and lack of effort.
Closing Words
For me, personally, it was a touching experience. Watching people like this, some young and some long retired, trying to change not only their own lives, but also those around them, who are not really helping with that.. It felt magical and made me strive to always help those around me in need. It was not a journey I expected to take when leaving for Brazil, but it is one that changed the way I see many things.
I loved every single place I went to in Brazil and I will sure make more posts about it - beautiful views, poor favelas, terrifying experiences and awesome people. Tubiacanga, however, was simply a whole different story as we got deeper into the community and got to bond with the people in it - I wish I had a way to check if anything has changed; I will surely visit them if fate takes me to Rio again.
That must have been one heck of a trip @mezume? What you portrayed of their lives and history sounds quite sad. It is often the little things that we need to focus on though... because if we aren't getting the little things right, how can we hope to accomplish our dreams and goals where the big things are concerned, right? It sounds like you guys gave them some pretty decent insights that were staring them in the face anyway, but perhaps being too close to the situation and embroiled in the tug between modernity and progress and wanting to retain a part of their own tradition, something got lost along the way and they just couldn't see where things were going wrong. And you gave them nice simple things to focus on too. I love that. The recognition that baby steps were needed. I do hope that you one day get to go back to Rio and meet with some of the people that you helped while you were out there. It would be incredible to hear firsthand how their journies have developed off the back of the school's input. Sadly though from what I have read of Rio and the Tubiacanga area, the city's sanitation projects as a whole are not up to scratch, and the amount of effluent and sewerage that stacks up in their bay from rivers that cut across from the rest of the city, is insurmountable until the government takes action. !PIZZA !ALIVE !LUV
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Hi there. I understand the plight of this community. Their culture is just very laid back in which they do not expect to do any work. Sometimes, it's just their culture and there is nothing wrong with that. It's just their way of life how they live it and we should not impose anything that does hurt their lifestyle. Instead, change the generations ahead of them than to make their older generations suffer the need to put in work to get money.
I don't really know how this can work out, since we have these kinds of cultures all over the world.
It is the new generations that should change and I hope we can all make the world a better place.
I found you through @dreemport
Such an interesting post to read and an experience no doubt you will never forget
Your team no doubt gave them solid advice and perhaps common sense advise that they could not see themselves being so involved in the situation
I think many people are afraid of change because what they know seems more comfortable than going out.
Beautiful trip, I wish I could travel more.
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Woww... @mezume.
I'll start by recognising the fact that you people seem to have a learning pattern that appreciates the importance of 'practicals' because that is basically what took you to this outcast of a place and I'm glad that y'all came up with nice suggestions for the community.
What they are facing in that part of the country is due to the contributory effort of those living there and also that of the government for overlooking them.
Yeah, people like that would likely not add much to the GDP, but if the government can focus on the fact that there are still human resources there which can well make up the work force, it will make it easier for them to alleviate these people and get them involved with the overall happenings in Brazil.
Well Done @mezume
I came to your post through @dreemport
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hi @mezume ghad, we just met at @dreemport... this is really amazing and somewhat sad in the same.
if ever I get back to Rio again, I'll be sure to go visit.. not that it will change anything but I want to see it with my own eyes but then again I need to polish my portuguese 🤣
I am really happy I read this.
awesome tale of your trip - makes me want to go and visit there myself.
Looking forward to your next travel tale.
You've been curated by the
Hope I can visit here one day 😀