Melissa Harvey
West Virginia University College of Law, 2L
May 30, 2007
Reflection Day 18

In Rio, the favelas cling to the hillsides, stacked like legos between the more affluent neighborhoods. On our tour with Luis, we started at the top of the Rocinha favela. To get to the top, we hired motorcycles – think dirtbikes, motorcross. Like every other too high, too fast facet of this trip, I hesitated. Everyone else picked a driver, a bike, hopped on like old friends, and was gone. I stood there, last left until Luis looked at me and assigned me a driver. Then I stood beside my driver until Luis insisted I get on the bike. So, off we go, careering around switchback turns among buses, vans, pedestrians, dogs, chickens, and so many other motorbikes. Like some absurd race we zoomed up the hillside, passing everyone, cutting off our own party. From last to first, I arrived at the top two minutes before anyone else from my group. As the tires of the bike slid and skidded in the dirty water covering the streets on the dry day I couldn’t help but think of the sensation of us skidding on our sides through the muck under the wheels of an oncoming city bus. Not here, was my silent wish. Not here with the smell and the dirt and the bright sun on this street. I think about that a lot, how I´d like to go with dignity. But, like everywhere, people die here every day.

And it made me wonder, why do I think here is a place that lacks dignity? I went on the last day, after hearing the opinions of all my peers. It´s so terrible, how they live, I hear over and over. But I´m not so sure. A life of fear and groveling lacks dignity, but the favelas are safe, Luis says, because of the drug lords. There is a crazy beauty to the architecture of the favelas, floor stacked on floor into the hills, a patchwork of terra cotta and concrete and bags of trash.

There are stores tucked everywhere, with some of the best pastries and pizza I´ve had in this country. The residents pass by on their cell phones, the children with their hello kitty bags. And I find it very beautiful. The only sorrow I feel is for the children. So many I saw with health problems, sores on their faces. But I wonder who we think we are to judge, we who slave away to our economy, who sell ourselves for six figures and eighty hour weeks. Are we so rich? In Vila Vehla, our hosts kept the cleanest house and worked the longest hours, living the American dream of escape to the middle class life of luxury aparments and the Ford Focus.

And Luis says – don´t give the children money. They used to beg and we taught them to paint, to sell their art. Buy if you want. And I did, but I wonder why is selling a product better than begging? Why is fair trade better than fair allocation of wealth? The first world also has the shame of poverty.

And dignity is something that you own, and that you must refuse to relinquish. I will never try to steal theirs with pity.