aq_winter 2016-rio's big moment

Inside the city’s favelas during an Olympic year —and a recession

DISPATCHESRio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rio’s Big Moment

Denis Torres,

40, wears a cap

that reads: “I am

part of the favela.”

Photographs by Carlos Coutinho

With reporting by Thainã Medeiros

and Stephen Kurczy

56 AMERICAS quarterly issue 1, 2016

AQ0116F_RIO_LAY12.indd 56 1/7/16 6:40 PM


THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE the year of Rio de Janeiro. The 2016 Olympics were meant to showcase a safer, modernizing city that could not only provide for its more than 6 million citizens but also play host to a marvelous global party. Unfortunately, it hasn’t turned out that way — Rio has been badly hit by Brazil’s worst recession in 80 years, and violence is once again on the rise.

As a result, residents of Complexo do Alemão — one of Rio’s largest and poorest collections of favelas, or shantytowns — face even greater challenges than usual. Unemployment is rising, people are spending less on even the most basic needs, and Brazil’s boom years of the late 2000s are becoming a distant memory. Police are trying to wrest control of the area from drug gangs, and shootings are rife. But the Complexo is also a hotbed of the entrepreneurial energy that Brazil needs to get back on the right path, as the following photo essay by local journalists shows. This is a portrait of a community under pressure from all sides.

Complexo do Alemão

Carlos Coutinho Born and raised in Complexo do Alemão, Coutinho is a photographic reporter with the media group Coletivo Papo Reto. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Sydney Morning Herald and Fusion.

Stephen Kurczy Based in Rio de Janeiro, Kurczy has been a Brazil correspondent since 2013 and is a special correspondent for Americas Quarterly.

Thainã Medeiros A reporter for Coletivo Papo Reto, Medeiros also lives in Complexo do Alemão. His work has appeared in The New York Times, BBC, and VICE.



issue 1, 2016 AMERICAS quarterly 59




“I’m happy that [the Olympics] But the Olympics don’t happen

Souza, 30, stands in the narrow

kitchen alley of her one-bedroom

home. For the mother of six, life

is looking up with her new job

as a cleaner in Rio’s ritzy south-

ern neighborhood of Barra

da Tijuca, which has seen a

blitz in housing development

to handle the infl ux of tour-

ists for the mid-2016 Olympics.

Souza earns 1,100 reais ($293)

a month, but she said she

still depends on aid from the

government’s Bolsa Família

welfare program — which some

in Congress have threatened

to cut amid the recession.


gave me work. here. So many things in Rio are more important.”

Catarina Souza



“The word ‘favela’ now is not a slur—it’s a symbol of pride.” Denis Torres

Torres, 40, remembers the

boom years in Complexo

do Alemão, when strong

economic growth from 2003

to 2013 lifted more than

26 million Brazilians out of

poverty. Riding that wave, in

2010 he started Brazil’s fi rst

favela-themed clothing line

and quickly licensed seven

franchises around Rio. But

whereas he once counted

daily sales of around $750 at

his fl agship Complexidade

Urbana shop, sales have

now plummeted to around

$15 a day, forcing him to lay

off six of his 10 workers. Four

of his stores have closed.


“Now I just buy the basics.”Anita Maria da Silva



The empty shelves of Silva’s refrigerator refl ect

her pinched pocketbook. The 34-year-old

was forced to shutter her food stall business

(pictured right) in early 2015 amid the wors-

ening recession and rising violence, and now

her family relies on a Catholic charity for gifts

of rice, beans, coffee and pasta. Their trou-

bles have been compounded by a mudslide

that destroyed their home in 2012 — a rela-

tively common occurrence in Rio’s hilly

favelas. Once Silva’s husband fi nishes build-

ing their new one-bedroom brick dwelling,

they plan to sell the property and return to her

hometown in the northeast state of Paraíba.

“Everyone living here knows someone who

has died,” she said. “I fear for my kids.”


AQ0116F_RIO_LAY12b.indd 66 1/13/16 6:26 PM

Barbershop owner Renato

Aguiar, wearing the

white sports jersey, said

he raised the price of a

haircut by 50 percent to 15

reais ($4). That’s because

of Brazil’s double-digit

infl ation, which has

hiked his costs for basic

items such as electric-

ity and hair gels. More

pain is expected, with

the economy forecast

to contract another 2

percent in 2016, after

an estimated 3 percent

recession in 2015, spell-

ing the longest recession

since the 1930s. Complexo

residents are cutting

back on non-essen-

tial purchases — and

waiting longer between

trims, said Aguiar.

AQ0116F_RIO_LAY12b.indd 67 1/13/16 6:26 PM

-Mariluce Mariá needs to have an accent on the last A in her


“When there was only drug violence, the media said nothing. But when the violence was between the police and gangs the media got interested. Now there’s fewer tourists.”Mariluce Mariá

Mariá, 34, capitalized on the tourism that

came with the opening of a cable car (tele-

férico) through Complexo do Alemão in

mid-2011 by creating a line of teleférico-

themed fl ip-fl ops and paintings. But with

the rise in gang-police shootings in 2015,

the iconic cable car became associated

with violence in the favela and visitors

dropped off. “Every time the media has a

report about a shooting here they show the

teleférico, so people think it’s happening

by the teleférico,” said Mariá, whose sales

have dropped to less than 100 reais ($26) a

weekend from a high of 1,200 reais ($310).


For the past 16 years, fi sh-

monger Gil Pontes has

driven the hilly streets of

Complexo do Alemão selling

fresh-caught sardines,

shrimp, tilapia and corvina

out of his Volkswagen van.


“[The increase in sales] has been good for me.” Gil Pontes


Pontes, 31, proudly said he’s selling more

fi sh than when he started in 1999. He now

earns about 1,000 reais ($270) a day — a

good living here, and a credit to the growing

population and general rise in incomes

in Complexo do Alemão. But he said the

recent fl are-up in police-gang violence now

prevents him from entering certain areas.




“Everything is more expensive

in the market.” Josinete Hermínio

Hermínio, 52, rides the cable car

during her daily commute to work

as a maid in Rio de Janeiro’s affl u-

ent Zona Sul (south zone), which

includes the beachside neighbor-

hoods of Copacabana and Ipanema.

She said she earns about 800 reais

a month ($213) but added that

wage increases haven’t kept pace

with rising costs of basic items like

chicken, which has doubled in price

to 8 reais per kilogram over the past

year — highlighting how the poor are

especially vulnerable to price shocks.


“In the media, this place is the terror of Rio de Janeiro. Before, we had drug dealers in the streets, but this wasn’t a problem. Now, we have police and drug dealers shooting all the time.”Genilson dos Santos

Gil Pontes

Like the dragon-slaying saint on his T-shirt, favela resident Santos is

in the middle of a battle. “We’re not selling anything,” said the long-

time owner of Amigos Bar. He said he lost many customers when

he was forced to relocate during the building of a nearby cable

car station. Another sap on demand has been the police ban on

raucous funk music parties. Other former customers have simply

disappeared altogether, he added, squeezed out by the combina-

tion of recession and heightened violence in Complexo do Alemão.


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