Contrasts of Urbanity-Rio
How does one place the contrasts between poverty and privilege while exploring other universes of urbanity? Rio makes you think of such things when you visit, if you have some heart. The favelas (shanty towns) circle the city in a ring of earthy colors- terracotta hills, tin roofs that reflect the sun, the rainbow of fabrics drying on clothes lines… They’re always there, in every landscape you set your eyes to. Or at least my mind won’t allow me to forget them when I look away.
You’re reminded of this contrast as you stroll the boutiques of Ipanema that New Yorkers might say reminds them of Soho, except for one detail. In front of the window selling $400 shoes is a guard armed with a machine gun. In front of every gated residence you’ll see him there too.
After you eat you’ll stumble on the plethora of street kids sniffing glue, laughing, high because their brain cells are being zapped. You’ll look at their young faces and realize that back home such homeless youth would be institutionalized. It isn’t that there aren’t agencies there- there are-LL worked for one- and it isn’t because people don’t care. But there they are, poverty is such an anchor. They are ignored or sneered at, just as the homeless are here too. See them and you’ll begin to see how their existence is no difference than rats. Your heart will be weighted. Then a young one will approach you for food, you know he’s only like eight, but the way he asks you will make you realize how hardened he is, and that’s he’s a full fledged punk.
Perhaps you’ll be forced to think about this more in Rio while exploring its scenic beauty, its samba rhythms, its carnival, the joys emanating from the favelas, because your eye will also catch the silhouette of Christ the Redeemer, the gigantic statue overlooking the entire city from Corcovado mountain with open arms in the Rio sky. I wonder (I often wonder this), is it an embrace for love and protection that is being offered to us, acceptance, or is it an invitation, an acknowledgement of the agony of the cross?
