Sharpen Your Blade Here!

This is taken in Rua Sá Ferreira, just off Avenida Nossa Senhora de Copacabana, looking up Rua Saint Roman.  It takes you deep into a favela, whose housing clusters are visible between the apartment buildings.   You can see a line of motorbikes above the VW minibus waiting to take folk up, with or without their shopping bags, along steep and twisting alleys.  I'm not sure if this favela has been pacified, it may well have been, but I don't think it counts for much these days and the presence of multiple heavy-duty police vehicles in the area supports the view that it would be very unwise for us to venture there.   The locksmith's kiosk to right of frame offers knife sharpening as one of its publicised services.   Meeting customer needs always makes good business sense!

Pacification meant (it probably still is attempted) a sudden police invasion to drive out the drug lords (often with loss of life) who ran the many favela roosts, usually forcing young kids into their operations with all kinds of knife and gun threats.   Their grip was/is iron firm. The ‘pacified’ favelas then had police control points put in place and patrols established, having been completely barred and unable to enter before. The reaction of ordinary favela dwellers was very favourable and the world of normal eduction and work opened up to young people. The immediate effect was a displacement of the centre of drug operations to other areas, including other favelas.   I think over the years initially pacified favelas, after the honey moon period, have not stayed completely that way…probably a case of three steps forward, one step back.  Progress, if not very orderly.