{"id":20388,"date":"2015-03-06T11:03:46","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T14:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=20388"},"modified":"2015-03-08T14:54:36","modified_gmt":"2015-03-08T17:54:36","slug":"history-in-santa-marta-each-brick-has-its-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=20388","title":{"rendered":"Tram, Tourism, History & Resistance in Santa Marta: \u201cEach Brick Has Its Story\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the original in Portuguese by Miriane Peregrino, published in Ag\u00eancia de Not\u00edcias das Favelas, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Santa Marta<\/a>\u00a0tram\u00a0was launched\u00a0on May 29, 2008, the same year Rio de Janeiro’s first Police Pacification Unit (UPP)<\/a>\u00a0was established in the same community\u00a0on\u00a0December 19. It was a funicular tram up one of the steepest favelas of the city, which for several years thereafter became known\u00a0as the ‘Model Favela’ with a UPP. Two years later, the project Rio Top Tour was launched in Santa Marta, as a partnership between the Ministry of Tourism and the city government. Santa Marta was founded\u00a0between the 1920s and 30s, with an area of 53,706m\u00b2 and around 4,000 residents.<\/p>\n

“Rio de Janeiro, Botafogo, South Zone,
\n<\/em>Community of Santa Marta
\n<\/em>73 years of resistance, my partners.
\n<\/em>Go up, go down. Go down, go up,
\n<\/em>Every day. Can you believe\u2026
\n<\/em>788 to get up there to the top
\n<\/em>788, you have to have faith in Christ
\n<\/em>788 to get home
\n<\/em>788 is the truth of Santa Marta!
\n<\/em>\u2026Today it\u2019s got a tram, but it can\u2019t deceive me
\n<\/em>Uh, babou \u2026 I have to go up on foot.\u201d
\n<\/em>–\u00a0<\/em>788<\/em> by Repper Fiell<\/a> from the album\u00a0Pedagogia da Domina\u00e7\u00e3o<\/em>\u00a0(Pedagogy\u00a0of Domination)\u00a0<\/em>(2013)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

1. The tram<\/h3>\n

I met Dona Maria de Lourdes, aged 57, at the bottom of the Santa Marta steps. I asked her where the Residents’ Association was and she readily told me: \u201cI\u2019m going up to station four. Come with me, I\u2019ll take you there.\u201d Having already gone up to the top once, I found this\u00a0strange. There are 788 steps to the top of Santa Marta which is at station five, so to get to station four she would be going up at least 500 steps. I asked why she didn\u2019t go up in the tram. Dona Maria shrugged her shoulders, put her shopping bags down on the ground, gave a light smile and replied: \u201cThe tram\u00a0isn\u2019t working today, so by foot it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that moment a mailman (he preferred to remain anonymous) walked by. \u201cWhen the tram is working I go up on it but when it isn\u2019t, I go\u00a0by foot. Today, it\u2019s not working so it\u2019s got to be by foot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The steps of Santa Marta. Photo by Miriane Peregrino<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Resident Cosme Uch\u00f4a, 59 years old, also complained about the malfunctioning tram\u00a0and added that it\u2019s a problem the company needs to fix. He said: \u201cThere are people who work and go to great lengths to make sure things work. Julian, for example, he\u2019s a resident and works there. But he has to buy parts for the tram, a lot of things need changing. The company needs to do this. The Prefeitura (City Hall) needs to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs always it\u2019s out of service,\u201d Dona Maria de Lourdes said. \u201cI climb slowly. There are people who use crutches. There are people who never leave the house because the tram\u00a0is faulty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tram\u00a0is free and makes the journey through five stations up to the top of the hill. When questioned about the last time it\u00a0was working, the resident recalled, \u201cOn Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Tourism<\/h3>\n

While the malfunctioning of the funicular tram is inconvenient for residents, it does not seem to stop the increasing influx of tourism<\/a>\u00a0in Santa Marta. According to Jos\u00e9 Elias, resident and local guide, 80% of the tourists he receives in\u00a0Santa Marta are foreigners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demand for Santa Marta is huge; it\u2019s the favela that is truly pacified. We have a flow of around two thousand people a month,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Rio Top Tour<\/a> project consists of\u00a0at least 34 local tourist points in Santa Marta, including\u00a0the trail to the Dona Marta observatory\u00a0with a view of Christ the Redeemer, evangelical churches and chapels, the \u201cPedr\u00e3o\u201d observatory, and the Michael Jackson terrace.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
\u201cRio de Janeiro from another point of view\u201d \u2013 the information board of Rio Top Tour shows a list of the 34 touristic points of the favela. Corumb\u00e1 Square, Santa Marta in Botafogo. Photo by Miriane Peregrino<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jos\u00e9 M\u00e1rio, president of the Residents’ Association and the Community Union agreed with\u00a0tour guide Jos\u00e9 Elias that the most visited tourist point of the favela is the Michael Jackson statue at tram station four. The bronze statue was launched\u00a0in Santa Marta in 2010, a year after the death of the singer. Its location\u00a0was named\u00a0Michael Jackson Terrace by the State Government and it commemorates the pop star’s visit to the favela to shoot the video for the song \u201cThey Don\u2019t Care About Us<\/a>\u201d in 1996.<\/p>\n

Questioned about tourism in Santa Marta, Jos\u00e9 M\u00e1rio pointed out both positive and negative aspects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe receive around 10,000 tourists, 3,000 of them foreign, per month.\u00a0The positive is that it creates an expectation among the community, it improves business, people are interested in\u00a0speaking other languages: English, Spanish, French. There is that positive side of it but the negative is that the community feels like an attraction park where people come here and see the community like animals at a zoo. They come, walk around, look at people and then leave. That\u2019s the negative side, I think.”<\/p>\n

Favela resident Mr. Ronaldo, 60 years old, seemed impressed with the flow of tourists: “There are lots of gringos here. Even early on Saturdays and Sundays they\u2019re already coming down [the hill]. They take photos of the mice, of the dog poop… man! Everything is a novelty for them.\u201d Mr. Ronaldo said life in the favela \u201chas improved, but to be a model favela there\u2019s a long way to go\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The phrases \u201cFavela ‘model’ of what?\u201d and \u201cWhite eviction\u201d (local term for ‘gentrification’) on a house in Santa Marta demonstrate the dissatisfaction\u00a0of the residents. Photo by Miriane Peregrino<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For resident Cosme Uch\u00f4a, Santa Marta still needs to improve: \u201cThe favela community still needs to rethink the hill’s garbage situation. Everything needs rethinking. [The canned paint company] Coral painted some houses here but look at the propaganda for the company. All this is investment, nothing came here for free.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tourist information stand in Pra\u00e7a Corumb\u00e1 (at the entrance at the bottom\u00a0of the hill) highlights\u00a0one\u00a0significant favela location which, at least for now, does not make the Rio Top Tour’s list of 34 points of interest: the Nega Vilma Ecomuseum<\/a>, situated on\u00a0top of the hill (Rua da Tranquilidade, n. 3, casa 2,\u00a0Pico do Santa Marta\/Botafogo). According to the tour guide the Rio Top Tour team did not know about the Ecomuseum program.<\/p>\n

According to Kad\u00e3o Costa, 38, founder and one of the managers of the Ecomuseum, Nega Vilma was left off the\u00a0list of the favela’s tourist points because the list was generated\u00a0before it\u00a0was officially registered in\u00a02013. \u201cFurthermore, Santa Marta has a very strong political force and many [other] institutions exist [here],\u201d said Kad\u00e3o. In regards to visits, Kad\u00e3o informed me the Ecomuseum is currently being renovated but visits can still be arranged directly with the institution via email<\/a> or by phone (+55 (21) 988-250-576).<\/p>\n

3. The Nega Vilma Ecomuseum<\/h3>\n

Ecomuseum is the name given to an establishment\u00a0that\u00a0is part of a community and helps to develop its territory, not only by valuing its history and local culture but also by respecting its natural environment.<\/p>\n

Kad\u00e3o, whose full name is Ricardo da Silva Costa, is the son of a nephew of the Candombl\u00e9 (Afro-Brazilian religion’s) priestess Nega Vilma (1943-2006). He explained that his family’s history is told along with the history of Santa Marta and that he believes in an integration of the hill (morro<\/em>)\u00a0and the formal city below (asfalto<\/em>, literally “asphalt”) through culture. He also said\u00a0that while there are lots of descriptions of Santa Marta, \u201cthey reduce the community down to the place that Michael Jackson went.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Poster<\/a>
Poster for the launch of the Nega Vilma Ecomuseum in 2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNega Vilma’s story<\/a> brings together very present features which symbolize so many other histories in this and in other communities,\u201d he continued.\u00a0\u201cThe relationship between the museum and\u00a0the community [of Santa Marta] still isn\u2019t ideal. There is a certain resistance because\u00a0they all think their parents are as or more important than Nega Vilma and should have the Ecomuseum named after them. There is also the fact that people don\u2019t value their space and don\u2019t recognize the value of their daily lives. But this is\u00a0already changing and today we have a much better relationship [with the community] than when we started.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kad\u00e3o<\/a>
Kad\u00e3o Costa, from the Nega Vilma Ecomuseum, tells the story of Vilma and Santa Marta to a group of visitors to the Ecomuseum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In fact, on arriving in\u00a0Santa Marta, few residents were able to give me any information about the Ecomuseum. It was through formal scheduling that a group of young people from Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a> came to see the Nega Vilma Ecomuseum<\/a> last year. One sunny Saturday morning, Ra\u00edza Barros, 17 years old, fell ill climbing up the steps through Santa Marta and she only reached the Ecomuseum at the top because she finished the ascent on the tram.<\/p>\n

\u201cI confess I found this museum very odd, it\u2019s one room and it\u2019s difficult to get there,\u201d said the teenager. \u201cThe other thing I kept thinking about was the number of\u00a0steps people have to climb, and the tram has only been there for 5 years. It\u2019s so many stairs, I was surprised!\u201d<\/p>\n

As if the 788 steps to the top weren’t\u00a0enough, the ground is pretty rough, and these challenges\u00a0reflect the routine of daily struggle, not only for Nega Vilma but for all residents of the favela. This is a struggle that is still present to this day, a struggle we saw through Dona Maria de Lourdes, 57, carrying her shopping bags on a recent\u00a0January afternoon on a day when the tram, yet again, was not working.<\/p>\n

Matheus Fraz\u00e3o, 17 years old, called our attention to other aspects of\u00a0the visit to the Ecomuseum: \u201cWe were really well received, we exchanged ideas, we spoke about religion\u2014which plays a really strong role within the communities be they Catholic or Candombl\u00e9\u2014and the view from up there is so beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>
View of Nega Vilma’s one-bedroom house where her memory is preserved<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photographic<\/a>
Photographic exhibition inside Nega Vilma Ecomuseum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although the Ecomuseum does not have a programed tour, it has\u00a0some partners on the hill who support its activities, such as the Vanderl\u00e9ia restaurant and Lurdes Ice-creams, where Kad\u00e3o\u00a0also takes visitors. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a set tour, we have options which depend on the\u00a0type of visitor we have,\u201d said Kad\u00e3o. \u201cThe Ecomuseum has existed since 2009 and in truth we have existed through donations of Vilma\u2019s family and friends. We don\u2019t have any patrons but we legally exist as a non-profit organization.\u201d The Ecomuseum video<\/a> is not to be missed.<\/p>\n

4. From Santa Marta to other favelas<\/h3>\n

In the fight against\u00a0real estate\u00a0speculation<\/a>, electric bill increases<\/a>, a repressive\u00a0state and other issues, many Santa Marta residents are organizing themselves to put together protests, music, documentaries and books. Although Santa Marta is\u00a0still not the model favela the government initially promised, the increasing number\u00a0of foreign residents in the favela is noticeable. Resident Cosme Uch\u00f4a, married to a Swede, said: \u201cWe have foreign residents here but they prefer Vidigal<\/a> more, don\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2010, the The Santa Marta People\u2019s Handbook: Addressing the Police<\/em><\/a> was launched as a\u00a0tool to affirm\u00a0the rights of residents and strengthen the community. Santa Marta: Two weeks on the hill<\/a>, <\/em>a documentary directed by Eduardo Coutinho, is another important reference to understand the development of the favela and state intervention, primarily through the use of police force. Although it dates back to 1987, it highlights\u00a0aspects\u00a0that continue today.<\/p>\n

Repper Fiell<\/a>, born in Para\u00edba and resident of Santa Marta for 9 years, tells his story of struggle in the favela through hip hop and in 2011 he released the book From the Favela to\u00a0the Favelas: The story and experience of Repper Fiell<\/a>,<\/em> in which he recounts his story as a northeastern migrant and resident of the first favela in Rio de Janeiro to have a Pacifying Police Unit (UPP)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He writes: \u201cBy the arrival of the Olympics in 2016, I don\u2019t know if we will still be here on the hill of Santa Marta. Today, more than ever, we have a very high cost of living. Our electricity bill comes with unexpected costs\u2026Subtly, they are sanitizing the favela, without all the residents realizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeferson Luciano, 17, recognizes the author’s courage in speaking what he thinks, but suggested the rapper \u201csometimes exaggerates when, for example, he criticizes the people who go to shopping malls to hang out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferreira stated: \u201cRepper Fiell is close to us favela residents because he knows\u00a0what the favela is really like, what happens here and that we are not criminals.\u201d Aline Moura, 17, had a similar reaction:\u00a0\u201cMy\u00a0impression of the book\u00a0is that he speaks personally to\u00a0us, he opens our eyes to the injustice, discrimination, poverty, rights that we don\u2019t have, everything that happens daily in our favela called \u2018community\u2019 by politicians who like to put make-up on our situation.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the original in Portuguese by Miriane Peregrino, published in Ag\u00eancia de Not\u00edcias das Favelas, click\u00a0here. The Santa Marta\u00a0tram\u00a0was launched\u00a0on May 29, 2008, the same year Rio de Janeiro’s first Police Pacification Unit (UPP)\u00a0was established […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":20397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1267,1288,1328,1268,1271,1503,329,1330],"tags":[1448,662,1500,756,221,913,942,170,188,545,716,1559,15,174,66,156,194],"writer":[1532],"translator":[1344],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gentrificationwatch","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-by-community-contributors","10":"category-favelaculture","11":"category-favelaqualities","12":"category-opportunities-to-support-favelas","13":"category-solutions","14":"category-translation","15":"tag-favelasareassets","16":"tag-afro-brazilian-culture","17":"tag-candomble","18":"tag-community-organizing","19":"tag-favela-culture","20":"tag-free-transport","21":"tag-funicular-tram","22":"tag-historic-preservation","23":"tag-history","24":"tag-mobility","25":"tag-museum","26":"tag-nega-vilma-ecomuseum","27":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","28":"tag-rio-top-tour","29":"tag-santa-marta","30":"tag-south-zone","31":"tag-tourism","32":"writer-miriane-peregrino","33":"translator-cara-pears"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20388"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=20388"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=20388"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=20388"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=20388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}