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My Life in the Slums
RIO DE JANEIRO
Adam Pitt
I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America, in a large neighborhood with a very high population density. Each building has ten stories and the buildings are so close together that people can barely walk through them. They also are always flooded with disgusting brown water because in the rainy season there are flash-floods and mud slides and the drainage is not good.
Despite this, Rio is special and I love it because there is a beautiful view of the beach from the top floor of our building. Rio also has the biggest and best carnival in the world every year. They are really fun and exciting and a lot of tourists visit, so I do better when I beg for money, called reais (pronounced hey-ice). I use the money to buy some food for my family and to fix things in my house.
Rio is also very beautiful. We are surrounded by pretty mountains, coves, and beaches. The bad thing is that we can’t go and enjoy them, because the government is building a wall around our neighborhood. They say it’s to protect the forest, but I think it’s just to divide the rich people from the poor people. There is a huge division between rich and poor in Rio. Outside the wall there are beautiful steep hills and mountains which are offshoots of the mountain range Sierra do Mar. Although they are beautiful, the rivers that run through them are sometimes polluted, even with human waste. This causes people to get sick.
While there are a lot of music and dance performances in Rio and a lot of art galleries and other cultural events, I have never been to any of them because I don’t have the money or clothes to go. They are for the rich people in Rio and the tourists. Sometimes I stay outside the events and beg the tourists as they go in. Some of them do not speak Spanish like me, so they don’t understand what I am saying. But I can’t stay on the streets too late at night because gangs of children may attack me, or even the police may chase me off by swinging their batons at me.
My house is small, cramped and empty. It is mostly made of bricks and pieces of concrete and metal that me, my dad and brother found while looking for food. I live with my Mom, Dad, brother and sister. My home is below another person’s home because we sold our roof rights to them so we could buy food.
Every day I go walking around the city. I also go to the video game arcade. If I can get any money from begging on the streets, I play games for a while. If I don’t have any money I just watch others play. Then I go back home for a light lunch. There are many different kinds of dishes in Brazil made from fish, beef, pork and even alligator. These dishes were influenced by the Amerindians, Portugese, Italian, Spanish, German, Arabic, African and Japanese. But we almost never eat any of these dishes, or meat because we can’t afford it. When we get food it is natural crops such as root vegetables, or beans and rice, and if we are lucky, local fruits like mangoes, papayas, guavas, oranges and pineapples. But most of the time we have nothing to eat and I go to bed hungry.
After lunch I go up and look at the view of the mountains. Then I just stay inside for the afternoon because that’s when the shooting starts. Every day there is shooting outside my building and explosions because there are a lot of drug related gang wars. Last year 5,000 people were murdered. I have no friends because the other children roam the streets, get into fights and smoke cigarettes.
Sometimes we have water and I can bathe before I go to sleep, but not very often. This makes me uncomfortable because Rio is war all year round and it is hot and humid during the summer. We also hardly ever have electricity so there is nothing we can do when it gets dark.
People are dying every day from sickness and not enough water or food. Even though I like living in Rio because I feel free and don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do, like go to school, I worry that I might get sick and die before I even grow up. Since I don’t go to school I also know I won’t be able to get a good job or make much money to support a family even if I get to grow up.
If I could change five things out of all the problems, first I would get the buildings farther apart to make the walk ways wider, and clean the streets and fix the drainage so it wouldn’t be so crowded and unsanitary. This way, people won’t get sick and die of diseases. Second, I would make the food better and increase the amount of food so that everyone could be healthy and not get sick or die from starvation. Third, I would make sure all children have access to schools so they can get an education instead of begging on the streets. This way they will have a brighter future and they can help solve the problems in Brazil when they grow up. Fourth, I would get rid of crime and gang violence so people aren’t afraid to go outside to enjoy the beauty of Rio. And fifth, I would give the people a way to get to the mountains so they could enjoy the beauty of our country.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.macalester.edu/courses/GEOG61/chad/geograph.htm
http://www.worldtravelguide.net/city/104/culture/South-America/Rio-de-Janeiro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_cuisine
http://www.ipanema.com/rio/basics/e/money.htm
http://www.wordtravels.com/Cities/Brazil/Rio%20de%20Janeiro/Climate
http://pangaea.org/street_children/latin/newsweek.htm
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN28291897
