1,003 Steps

A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
                                                                   --Confucius

(Luana:) Those of you who know me well would not describe me as a gym rat, but that is what I have become during our voyage. I now spend about two hours a day in the ship’s fitness center, and the payoff came on day two of our Rio excursion.

We headed out with a company called Jeep Adventure Tours (curiously, they had no Jeeps, just other brands of big open-air 4-wheel-drive vehicles) for a very full day that included a hike in the rainforest of Tijuca National Park, a picnic at the beach, some city sightseeing, a visit to a favela, dinner at a blue-collar fair, and a music/bar-hopping visit through Rio‘s nightlife area. Most of these areas can’t be reached by tour bus because of switchbacks and narrow roads.

Anyway, after lunch we headed to the Lapa Steps, a famous tiled stairway created by artist Jorge Selaron. It’s been a work in progress for the past 20 years and has 215 steps, 17 landings and 16 entrances. We started at the bottom and climbed all the way to the top on a hot and humid day, enjoying the colorful and whimsical tiles sent from around the world. I reached the top feeling like Rocky Balboa on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, because it wasn’t hard for me to do. Four months ago I would have been doubled over and out of breath.

Next we went to the Santa Marta favela where Michael Jackson filmed parts of his “They Don’t Care About Us” video. (Santa Marta is now a “model” favela, but it was such a mess and so drug-infested at the time he made the video that it’s reported he had to bribe the drug lords to receive permission to film.) This place has 788 steps and has been in the news recently because it now has a funicular to save the residents from having to climb up the nearly vertical hill. We didn’t use the funicular, and fortunately we were doing the trip downhill, but still, 788 steps is a lot! It’s about like a 56-story building. Everyone arrived at the bottom sweaty and thirsty and with shins a-tingling. But I made it -- and saw an interesting slice of life along the way.

A Million Dollar View

Luana has written about our guided walk through Santa Marta, one of Rio’s smaller favelas -- about 1,000 homes serving 8,000 residents. About 20 percent of Rio’s 9 million people live in favelas, and it is interesting to hear local people describe them.


Many have been around for decades, and they all started the same way: poor people new to the city and looking for work threw up shacks in open space. All of Brazil’s big cities have them. In Rio, surrounded by hills and with limited available real estate, these favelas were often built on steep hills that were rated geologically unstable for construction. Thus, in Rio, they often have fantastic views -- local people say they are $1,000 shacks with $1 million views.

Many of these favelas are run by drug gangs, with police afraid to venture into them. The one we walked down through had been “pacified.” The drug gangs had been kicked out, and there were two police stations among the houses.

Rio residents don’t view these areas as shantytowns filled with the unemployed. Rather, in Rio they are seen as working class neighborhoods, since most of the people living there have jobs. These neighborhoods evolve. The people living in the shacks gradually replace the wood walls with brick. You can see houses that are halfway through this process, which can take some time as the resident earns the cash to buy the building materials and then does the work himself. In established favelas the city brings in water and sewer lines, electricity and even cable TV and Internet lines. All these services are free to the residents. All this is, in a sense, a form of welfare, but as was pointed out, since many of these people are employed as maids and gardeners for rich people it also allows those employers to pay lower wages.

Another big plus for the favela residents is the short commute they have to work; if they lived way out in the suburbs where they could afford land for houses, they would probably have a 2-hour commute each way. So, all-in-all, there are some economic and lifestyle advantages to living in these neighborhoods.

One disadvantage is when torrential rains occur; some of these structures slide off the hills. More than 240 Rio residents were killed in recent downpours about two weeks before our visit.

Stores, bars and churches also set up in the neighborhoods. One guide said the bars in the favelas have the coldest beer in the city, since the bars are getting their electricity free.

Our guide said a recent poll of favela residents in Rio found only 15 percent wanted to move to regular neighborhoods. I would tend to doubt that percentage since I wouldn’t want to raise kids in areas controlled by drug gangs. But in the safe favela we walked through the people were engaged in regular neighborhood activities: watching TV, children playing, dogs everywhere (a slight sanitation problem there), doing laundry, cooking, talking, etc. It provides a different perspective than the usual American one. I haven’t told Luana yet, but I’m thinking of moving to a favela for our retirement; free cable TV sounds like a pretty good deal.

Best and Worst of Brazil

(Bob:) Of all the countries we visited on this trip and those I have visited in 60-plus years, Brazil is the hardest to categorize. It is a place of extreme dichotomies. It is the size of the continental U.S., but only has about 190 million people.

It is a land of vast natural resources -- lands, minerals, fresh water -- and a geography as varied as that of the U.S., although in general much warmer; shoveling snow is not a Brazilian activity.

It is a land of beautiful natural surroundings and has the world‘s most naturally beautiful city, Rio, with no close second. (Paris, in another sense, could be considered the most beautiful city, when you rate on charm, history, beautiful buildings and gardens, etc., but that is a different category.) But imagine a major U.S. city with beautiful beaches everywhere, where holidays and other civic celebrations are frequent; where going down to the beach is a part of the lifestyle 12 months of the year; where family is a very important part of life, as is generally enjoying life -- long lunches and dinners, beach volleyball and soccer and surfing and walking along the beach and going to soccer games -- and where everything including schools shuts down to watch Brazil play in the World Cup. Only Miami is in the ballpark in lifestyle, but still far behind in beauty.

Per capita GNP is about $10,000 and 18 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day -- bad but still better than Africa. Brazil’s economy has a high growth rate, so it might join the “developed countries” within a decade or so.

Brazil produces all the energy it needs -- thanks to ethanol and abundant hydropower -- and even exports energy to other countries. And when and if its immense offshore oil reserves are developed, it may become another Saudi Arabia in 10 to 20 years. It could export cheap ethanol -- made from sugar cane -- to the U.S. if we hadn’t erected high tariff barriers to protect our corn farmers and big agribusiness companies. Brazil has figured out the energy situation.

(If a young person said they wanted to live overseas for a while, I would advise them, if they were doing it for the lifestyle, to learn Spanish or Portuguese and move to Buenos Aires or Rio. If they were doing it to earn big bucks, I would advise them to learn Mandarin and move to Hong Kong or Shanghai.)

Brazilians, like Americans in general, are a bit arrogant about their country. They feel they have a lot to teach America when it comes to appreciation of history, art, lifestyle and the “finer things” of life, and perhaps they do.

But Brazil, like Mexico, also has its dark side. Our ship docked in Salvador, the country’s oldest city near the hump. The city has about 3 million people, and is the capital of the state of Bahia. This place is a pit in terms of crime -- the worst of any port we visited by far. People were getting mugged and robbed in broad daylight -- women having purse straps cut by thieves running by, crew members having their pants torn off so they had to run for the ship in underpants, students being beat up. It is appalling that the ship even comes to this port. We were told it’s only because the dockage fees are so low. The city has a beautiful old town and some nice museums, restaurants and beaches, but they are unsafe. We ourselves didn’t have any problems, but we were very cautious and consider ourselves just lucky to not be among the victimized.

Rio, too, has major crime problems, although it seemed nowhere near as bad as Salvador. We had one free day in Rio after two full days of touring, and walked along and ate along Copacabana beach for that entire day with no problems. But our guide in Rio said he had been carjacked twice, and, at night, Rio law allows drivers to not stop at red lights on deserted streets to help prevent carjacking.

The causes of all this crime apparently are income disparity and drugs. Drug gangs control many of the favelas (poor neighborhoods) and a lot of very well off people live behind their big walls topped by broken glass and concertina wire with guards at the gates. I think another element may be that the entire society takes sort of a lax attitude toward stealing. I’ll deal more on that in my entry on favelas. I think people in Rio may also have the attitude of “Well, I was robbed and I can go to the police station and spend the day filling out police reports, or I can go to the beach. Screw it, surf’s up.”

Highlights of our days in Rio included taking the cable car up to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain, which is between downtown and Copacabana. Ipanema Beach is the next one beyond Copacabana, and there is another beyond that and another beyond that and ….. Beaches tend to be divided up into areas, with one section for gays, one for young people, one for families, etc. Thong bathing suits appear to be very popular among the women, although I didn’t really notice that, of course. “I’m just staring at the surfers out there in the ocean, dear, with my binoculars. Whoa, look at that pair … of surfers.”

We did a walking tour of downtown (without large cameras so they wouldn’t be the target of thieves), took a driving and hiking tour in the giant rain forest park up above the city and made several other stops, including one at the giant Catholic Cathedral built in 1980. It seats 20,000 and is shaped like a beehive (See photo) -- the result of an architectural competition. It’s quite an amazing building. Brazil takes great pride in its architecture and has many noteworthy buildings. Since the federal government agencies moved to Brasilia in the 1960s and 1970s, many of the previous government agency buildings have been converted into museums and cultural centers. The city has a very European feel in its appreciation for the arts.

We stayed at a nice hotel across the street from Copacabana beach. The hotel’s buffet breakfast was fantastic, with an enormous supply of tropical fruit.

Sugar Loaf is about 1,000 meters high, while the other big monument is on the other side of town on a 2,000-meter mountain. That’s the Christ the Redeemer statue built in the 1920s. It was closed when we were in Rio because torrential rains the week before caused slides that closed access roads to it, and the statue itself had scaffolding around it for renovation. So we didn’t get to go there.

Brazil hosts the World Cup soccer competition in 2014 and the Summer Olympics two years later, so a lot of new construction and renovation is planned. One hopes that preparation work also includes a major beefing up of police forces, but we would love to return to Rio regardless.

Obladee, obladah, OLODUM!

We arrived in Salvador, Brazil, with some sense of trepidation, as our guest lecturers from Salvador, Nelson and Molly Cerqueira, had stressed the safety problems of this troubled city. So we headed out on a walking tour of the old historic district, the Pelourinho, with a bit of dread -- and stumbled on one of those delightful moments of travel where you find something unexpected and totally fun.

We took the municipal elevator (something like Oregon City’s but with an entire marketplace at the bottom) to the bluff above the port area to visit monuments, churches, and the requisite shops with ladies dressed in traditional white hoop skirts and bright head wraps (the old slave garb now used for tourism). The lovely colonial-era Portuguese architecture dating from the 1500s makes this city architecturally stunning (it’s a Unesco World Heritage site), but the weather was iffy and we were dragging a bit.

Then we heard music, rounded a corner into one of the town squares, and stumbled on a band in the plaza playing lively Afro-Brazilian music. It turned out to be one of Brazil’s most famous music groups, Olodum, performing in front of a huge crowd of our students who had beaten us up the hill. Olodum was filming a TV commercial to advertise the upcoming World Cup games in Brazil. They have played with Paul Simon and appeared in one version of Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” video (not the Prisoner version). All I can say is, they were FUN. Instant energy.

One of the students got to wave a huge American flag in the video, and there were other international flags in the crowd, and everyone was learning a dance step to go along with the samba-reggae music. So if you see a commercial for Brazil’s World Cup that has people dancing to energetic music and flags waving all over the place, look for us in the crowd. Of course, we’ll be the only ones not dancing.

I shot a quick and bumpy video that I will post when we get home, but for now here is a picture of the crowd scene. The music was so fun -- vibrant, catchy, totally alive. I bought a CD to bring home. We should have a party, because this is great party music.

You may never get to see Olodum playing live in the square in the Pelourinho, but if you ever do make it to Salvador, be sure to see the beautiful Igreja de São Francisco, or the Gold Church. Cherubs and angels in abundance, all washed in gold leaf. Unfortunately, no photos allowed. But amazing…

Reflections on Ghana

(Bob:) We spent four days in Ghana in West Africa, and two statistics will immediately make clear a lot about the country to people who live in Oregon. The Ghanaians themselves describe the size of their country as being about the same as the state of Oregon. Ghana, however, has 23 million people. Since I consider Oregon -- at least the Portland area -- overcrowded at present and there are only 3.5 million people in all of Oregon, you can make your own comparisons.

And all these people tend to live in single story homes, shantytowns or huts; there are few multistory apartment buildings.

The capital, Accra, has about 4 million people, so it’s among the smaller of the cities we have visited on this trip.

Even with all these people, you still find plenty of open spaces. One of our days was spent touring Accra, and the other three driving through the countryside -- 4 to six hours of driving a day -- so we got to see a little of the area around Accra.

You become very aware of your whiteness in Ghana. In three days of travel outside Accra, I saw 3 white people not from the ship. Vegetation is lush, but with few tall trees. You find mostly tall grasses, bushes and low palm trees, and banana and plantain plants.

Ghana is just north of the equator, so is very hot and humid. The rainy season is just starting there.

If you want to go into business in Ghana, the best bet seems to be to start a Christian church or school. Churches are everywhere (60 percent of Ghanaians are Christian, 17 percent Moslem), and people love to advertise their religion. There are many, many, many businesses with names like Jesus Loves Me Auto Parts and Praise the Lord Fast Food. There are also many technical schools advertising for students -- everything from language schools to computer schools to truck driving schools. Also a number of “remedial” schools.

Ghana has about 40 tribes, each with its own language, but the official language is English, from the days when England was the colonial power. Ghana was the first black African country to become independent in 1957. It has had several military coups since then, but now appears to have a generally stable, democratic government. (I loved one campaign slogan I saw on a sign: Vote BHP Party. So Far, So Good) This was the first African country visited by Obama last year, and the Ghanaians are very proud of that.

The people are very friendly. They were always smiling and helpful, although pushy when trying to sell you something. Our guide said Ghanaians are only pushy with Americans because they know they can get away with it with us; they don’t try those type of sales tactics with Europeans. We are too willing to make eye contact and engage in conversation.

Ghana is a true Third World country with a high rate of poverty: 54 percent of the population earns less than $2 a day. Many people appear to be trying to make ends meet by setting up roadside stands to sell a variety of items or by trying to sell to cars stuck in traffic. They make very delicious bread that is sold that way. It‘s about 75 cents a loaf U.S. for a big loaf. It’s a good thing I ran out of Ghana money (called cedis), or I would have bought 100 loaves and ate them all. (It’s also perhaps a reflection of how sick I am of shipboard food.)

The women, and some men, can carry an enormous amount of stuff on their heads without using their hands. The women who sell bread usually have it in tall glass cases on their head, or in baskets. (See accompanying photo of a woman who sold me a loaf of bread.) They can keep it balanced on their head while running alongside slowly moving vehicles and conducting business transactions with the riders.

Much of agriculture is slash-and-burn. The smoke in the air was very bad at times. Cacao is the big cash crop, but a lot of things are grown.

Ghana also appears to be the road construction capital of the world. Roads everywhere are being worked on -- perhaps not the correct word. More like under construction, with actual construction work visible only in scattered places. It’s said that the Chinese are helping fund a lot of these projects, since they are interested in many Ghanaian resources, including bauxite, manganese, and new and large offshore oil deposits that are just starting to be developed.

There is also one major road construction project in Accra, which our guide said was funded by the U.S. when George Bush was president, so the highway will be named for him. I told the guide that I guess that meant you could only turn right off that road and that it ran off a cliff after a few miles, but he didn’t understand the joke -- or perhaps I wasn‘t joking.

Anyway, with all the construction, plus many, many speed bumps, travel is very slow. Our six hours of driving one day probably covered about 220 miles. And that’s six hours of very bumpy travel. We thought that was bad until we heard about the Semester at Sea trip to a national park farther north where they have elephants; those folks spent 15 hours of driving each way.

We did purchase some crafts and visited some historic sites in this very hot country, mentioned in other posts. We are now in the Atlantic, traveling west and south toward Salvador, Brazil, where we arrive in a few days. This morning we crossed south of the equator again. We arrive in Florida May 5 and are back in Canby the next day.

The Vodaphone Village

(Luana:) In Ghana, if you live along a main thoroughfare and have no money for paint, and you want to spruce up your house or your shed or even your storage locker, you can swear allegiance to a cell phone carrier and -- voila! -- you're covered. The company paints your building in exchange for the right to slap multiple logos across your walls.

The Ghana countryside between Accra and Kumasi is an endless procession of red buildings with Vodaphone logos, canary yellow buildings with MTN logos, aqua and purple buildings with Zain logos…you get the idea. Sort of like a Crips vs. Bloods gang rivalry, with paint as the weapon.
 

The paint company evidently gets the idea too: there were many buildings painted with the Spar Paint logo.

Building Someone's Castle

(Luana:) I think Habitat for Humanity is one of the world’s great organizations and have volunteered with them in Canby, so we were really happy that we had the opportunity to participate in a “build” in Ghana as part of our Semester at Sea group. About 120 of our shipmates worked on three homes over three days in a village called Adadientem in Birim Agya, about 2 hours from Accra. A number of homes have already been built there and the community has several hundred people.

Our group of 40 went on the third and last day and we were divided into three teams. Our group had about six shovels, one pick ax, a wheelbarrow and two bowls, and our job was to move dirt about 100 feet from a rocky mound to fill in the foundation of a cinderblock house. (Another group had to pump water and mix cement to mold building blocks; there was only one form, and they said just pumping the water in that heat was exhausting.) I felt pretty cocky pushing the first three wheelbarrows filled with dirt, but soon switched to digging and chipping dirt from the rocks, and finally settled for stamping dirt into place or sitting in the shade and trying to avoid heatstroke.

It was hot, hot, hot, and everyone became very wet and dirty, but we had a lot of fun and we couldn’t have had a nicer group to work with. One person played her Ipod and everyone danced while shoveling. Several of the kids were people I knew from my English lit class, and my friend Chandra (in the picture with the bowl on her head) kept me laughing as she leapt in slow motion while carrying bowls of dirt. She has a gift for making things fun!

We also enjoyed meeting the people in the village, who made lunch for us. Many children were around because they have to attend school in shifts -- there aren’t enough teachers or classrooms, so there is a morning school and an afternoon school -- and some of the students gave them stickers, which they put all over their arms and faces. So cute…

What struck me most was how hard we worked and how little we accomplished. We all wished we could have done more for them. At home, we think nothing of calling up a contractor to bring a backhoe and dig things out for us. But these folks don‘t have that luxury. Their houses, simple as they are, represent a lot of physical labor. With a backhoe, one person could have had the entire foundation filled in in a couple of hours. As it was, it would take a group like ours several days to get the job done.

We didn’t meet the family that is going to live in the house we worked on, so I’m going to have to imagine them enjoying it, cooking meals, planting a garden, hanging laundry to dry, or walking down the road to go to school. I hope their house is finished soon.