fotografie alex bi.


RIO DE JANEIRO And..Bob's your uncle Building a guesthouse in a brazilian favela by chiara rimoldi pastapunx(at)hotmail.com “The favela is not necessarily a place into which you are born. You can come and live here by choice”, says Bob Nadkarni, English proprietor of Rio de Janeiro’s newest favela guesthouse. “This is what happened to me“, he says before exploding in fits of hearty laughter. “One day, about twenty five years ago, when I was living in a “normal” part of the city, I drove my maid back to her house and I simply fell in love with the place. So I built my studio here and never left”. Taking a walk into Bob's kitchen is like stepping inside someone’s most secret past. The walls are plastered with photos from his frenetic life: BBC and NBC correspondent, documentary film director, political exile, talented painter, loving father, skillful raconteur. The room can hardly contain the man. Literally. He’s somewhat corpulent too. To paraphrase Dostoevsky, he is not a common man. Put a few beers inside him and he’ll unfurl the intricately woven tapestry of his past. During the Lebanese civil war, he walked away, unharmed, from a firing squad after arguing with the soldiers that it was not yet his day to die. Before that, he once stole an Alfa Romeo Spider, from a Mafia boss in Rome, and ran away for a romantic week with a beautiful young actress. Naturally enough, he returned the car and faced the consequences with a smile. This is Bob, cheerful and irreverent. His home serves as a microcosm of his life, representing him perfectly. As he says himself, it’s a maze. Building and developing the project has kept him busy since he retired as a journalist. The “finished” result has a Grecian quality and seeks to re-create a slice of Santorini in the middle of a inner-city shanty town. It’s a contrast that can appear socially insulting at first. However, a deeper, more considered look into Bob's impact on the impoverished community he now calls home, itself a delicate mechanism and no mistake, reveals with clarity that Bob, far from being a pariah, is a beloved and intrical part of the landscape. “Bob è Nós”, they say. “Bob is one of us”. When he first arrived in Tavares Bastos the community was under the jackboot of corrupt police officers who used to enter the favela and steal the belongings of the inhabitants. Bob used his contacts with foreign medias and local politicians to end the abuses. 'After I saw an officer kicking a pregnant girl´, he explains, ´I went crazy. I had to put tremendous pressure on a couple of high-ranking individuals to get the guy arrested but, thankfully, I managed to have it done.' Afterwards, the community fell under the control of the no less appalling drug barons but nowadays it is a safe and quite neighborhood, tucked inside the middle of a frenetic city, with a privileged view on the Sugar Loaf. It is quite surreal. Ideas like Bob's one, of building a guesthouse in a favela, are becoming quite popular here in Rio. The capillaries of tourism are reaching into districts which until a couple of years ago inspired little interest among foreigners. So, what has changed? How did the ghetto managed to intrigue the ever more demanding tastes of foreigners? The truth is that tourism has changed. People are not only traveling to see new places, they want to be part of that place, live with the locals, wear the same clothes, listen to the same music and dance like them. Many travelers who visit Rio want to be Carioca, the name for a native of Rio, even if only for a few days. Seeming that more than a third of the city’s population dwell inside tin roof houses and slave for “minimal” wages, what better place than a slum to fully understand the complicated social issues of this divided and polarized city? The range of guests who enter Bob's house spread from established sociologists to young backpackers, all with the same aim: diving into the local culture. Escaping the tourist main routes may be a clever way to see hidden, secret parts of the city and learn more about Brazilian way of life. Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon are still the main attractions, no doubt and without reason, but an ever increasing portion of “alternative travelers” are seeking a different relationship with the city and Bob's house works as a great anthropological window for these culture vultures. The locals are at once incredulous and pleased to find “gringos” strolling around bars and shops. This, of course, brings immediate financial benefit for it contributes to the indigenous markets and introduces the community to a novel sets of cultural traits. Considering the many obvious socio-economic shackles in which many people in the favela find themselves locked opportunities to travel out of the slum are severely limited. Therefore, the chances of drinking a beer or playing a game of pool with a tourist are quite slim unless is on there own territory. Thus, when Bilo, the owner of a bar close to Bob’s house, says “You make us travel”, his words are infused with gratitude. Bob is trying to bring different worlds face-to-face. This is bound to create some clashes, but, on the other hand, he considers the favela not as a ghetto for the marginalized but as an ideal site for tourist to join with the local culture. All of which suggests quips such as, “even the gringos like it up here”. And it is true, the favela is where the soul of Rio rests. Simply witness the unequalled panoramic views and you'll understand. The favela exposes a different perspective of the city’s social drama. Just a short visit can free one from many of the preconceptions that medias have built up. Waiting for a bus in the morning at the entrance of Tavares Bastos reveals the honesty of the inhabitants, most of them have, and keep, jobs and as a result criminality only reaches a small part of the community. Thus, ironically, Bob, a foreigner, has been vital in creating a greater understanding of human rights and citizenship, and how they pertain to the locals, as well as helping to engender self-respect among the inhabitants of in Tavares Bastos. Now, he offers a chance for visitors to see this distinctive city of extremes from the inside. (Bob Nadkarni THE MAZE, Rua Tavares Bastos, Rio de Janeiro) [to be continued ... for further info please contact the Author or Alex bi.] Copyright: Chiara Rimoldi - february 2006

RIO DE JANEIRO
And..Bob's your uncle
Building a guesthouse in a brazilian favela

by chiara rimoldi
pastapunx(at)hotmail.com

“The favela is not necessarily a place into which you are born. You can come and live here by choice”, says Bob Nadkarni, English proprietor of Rio de Janeiro’s newest favela guesthouse. “This is what happened to me“, he says before exploding in fits of hearty laughter. “One day, about twenty five years ago, when I was living in a “normal” part of the city, I drove my maid back to her house and I simply fell in love with the place. So I built my studio here and never left”.

Taking a walk into Bob's kitchen is like stepping inside someone’s most secret past. The walls are plastered with photos from his frenetic life: BBC and NBC correspondent, documentary film director, political exile, talented painter, loving father, skillful raconteur. The room can hardly contain the man. Literally. He’s somewhat corpulent too.

To paraphrase Dostoevsky, he is not a common man. Put a few beers inside him and he’ll unfurl the intricately woven tapestry of his past. During the Lebanese civil war, he walked away, unharmed, from a firing squad after arguing with the soldiers that it was not yet his day to die. Before that, he once stole an Alfa Romeo Spider, from a Mafia boss in Rome, and ran away for a romantic week with a beautiful young actress. Naturally enough, he returned the car and faced the consequences with a smile. This is Bob, cheerful and irreverent.

His home serves as a microcosm of his life, representing him perfectly. As he says himself, it’s a maze. Building and developing the project has kept him busy since he retired as a journalist. The “finished” result has a Grecian quality and seeks to re-create a slice of Santorini in the middle of a inner-city shanty town. It’s a contrast that can appear socially insulting at first. However, a deeper, more considered look into Bob's impact on the impoverished community he now calls home, itself a delicate mechanism and no mistake, reveals with clarity that Bob, far from being a pariah, is a beloved and intrical part of the landscape. “Bob è Nós”, they say. “Bob is one of us”.

When he first arrived in Tavares Bastos the community was under the jackboot of corrupt police officers who used to enter the favela and steal the belongings of the inhabitants. Bob used his contacts with foreign medias and local politicians to end the abuses. 'After I saw an officer kicking a pregnant girl´, he explains, ´I went crazy. I had to put tremendous pressure on a couple of high-ranking individuals to get the guy arrested but, thankfully, I managed to have it done.' Afterwards, the community fell under the control of the no less appalling drug barons but nowadays it is a safe and quite neighborhood, tucked inside the middle of a frenetic city, with a privileged view on the Sugar Loaf. It is quite surreal.

Ideas like Bob's one, of building a guesthouse in a favela, are becoming quite popular here in Rio. The capillaries of tourism are reaching into districts which until a couple of years ago inspired little interest among foreigners. So, what has changed? How did the ghetto managed to intrigue the ever more demanding tastes of foreigners?
The truth is that tourism has changed. People are not only traveling to see new places, they want to be part of that place, live with the locals, wear the same clothes, listen to the same music and dance like them. Many travelers who visit Rio want to be Carioca, the name for a native of Rio, even if only for a few days. Seeming that more than a third of the city’s population dwell inside tin roof houses and slave for “minimal” wages, what better place than a slum to fully understand the complicated social issues of this divided and polarized city? The range of guests who enter Bob's house spread from established sociologists to young backpackers, all with the same aim: diving into the local culture.

Escaping the tourist main routes may be a clever way to see hidden, secret parts of the city and learn more about Brazilian way of life. Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon are still the main attractions, no doubt and without reason, but an ever increasing portion of “alternative travelers” are seeking a different relationship with the city and Bob's house works as a great anthropological window for these culture vultures.

The locals are at once incredulous and pleased to find “gringos” strolling around bars and shops. This, of course, brings immediate financial benefit for it contributes to the indigenous markets and introduces the community to a novel sets of cultural traits. Considering the many obvious socio-economic shackles in which many people in the favela find themselves locked opportunities to travel out of the slum are severely limited. Therefore, the chances of drinking a beer or playing a game of pool with a tourist are quite slim unless is on there own territory. Thus, when Bilo, the owner of a bar close to Bob’s house, says “You make us travel”, his words are infused with gratitude.

Bob is trying to bring different worlds face-to-face. This is bound to create some clashes, but, on the other hand, he considers the favela not as a ghetto for the marginalized but as an ideal site for tourist to join with the local culture. All of which suggests quips such as, “even the gringos like it up here”.
And it is true, the favela is where the soul of Rio rests. Simply witness the unequalled panoramic views and you'll understand. The favela exposes a different perspective of the city’s social drama. Just a short visit can free one from many of the preconceptions that medias have built up. Waiting for a bus in the morning at the entrance of Tavares Bastos reveals the honesty of the inhabitants, most of them have, and keep, jobs and as a result criminality only reaches a small part of the community.

Thus, ironically, Bob, a foreigner, has been vital in creating a greater understanding of human rights and citizenship, and how they pertain to the locals, as well as helping to engender self-respect among the inhabitants of in Tavares Bastos. Now, he offers a chance for visitors to see this distinctive city of extremes from the inside.
(Bob Nadkarni THE MAZE, Rua Tavares Bastos, Rio de Janeiro)

[to be continued ... for further info please contact the Author or Alex bi.]