Rocinha , Lapa and…

ROCINHA , LAPA ... and ....the other side of Rio

“Quando, seu moço, nasceu meu rebento
Não era o momento dele rebentar
Já foi nascendo com cara de fome
E eu não tinha nem nome pra lhe dar…” 

  Chico Buarque   Rocinha favela Rio Brasil

“When, young man, my child was born, it wasn’t the moment for him to come out.He came out looking hungry , and I didn’t even have a name to give him.”

On the less frequented side of Rio, a world of unsung people, living their lives far from the tourist itineraries. This photo gallery attempts to show you the human narrative of this Rio: the denizens of the “botecos” (cheap bars);   the  souls  who  pass  their  lives  on  the streets of  Lapa or Ipanema; the unheard and overworked laborers in the center or in the “Zona Sul” (South Zone), like João carrying his colored balls back and forth from morning until night between Copacabana and Leblon; the “Meninos” (street urchins) who wander the beaches, with a precocious awareness of the lives of risky opportunism that await them on the street.

We cannot overlook the favela dwellers of the former drug haven, Rocinha. You can see them stationed at every corner, or sitting in front of their homes, shrouded in the smoke of”churrasco,”  with  the  reverberation  the  motorcycles  in  the air,  the  whole scene enmeshed in a tangle of electrical wires and mountains of  waste,  emblematicc urban ornaments all of them,  part of the mosaic of Rocinha. Rocinha favela Rio Brasil

Rio de Janeiro, January 2013 ©Pablo Munini

Rocinha favela Rio Brasil