Trapped in a Favela during a Battle
Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. A military tank was making its way up the hill to the favela…
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The classroom
The two teenage girls knew what was going on before I did. I’d sent them to pick something up. I forget what it is now, probably some stationary, and they ran back into the classroom excited and nervous. I couldn’t make out through their breathless yet excited chatter what they were trying to tell me. My Portuguese was still a little rusty. But then I heard the sounds. At first, I thought they were fireworks, but when I saw the girls make gun shapes with their hands, I knew the noises were gunshots. Instinctively I ran over to the windows and closed the wooden shutters over them. They all automatically stopped and looked at me.
In front of me were twelve Brazilian teenagers aged from eleven to sixteen from the surrounding favela communities. They had all chosen to be here. This was an after school voluntary English program. I was told that the wars between gangs and the police would never happen around the school. It was an unwritten rule. Not only because there were students at the school that were likely to be connected to the gang members, but also the school was positioned on the periphery of the favela close to Copacabana, a part of Rio de Janeiro’s affluent South Zone. Any kind of shooting would draw too much unwanted public attention. This was supposed to be a safe space.
I hadn’t received any training about this kind of situation, and I was alone. “The gunshots might just stop”, I thought. The school had a basketball court and a theatre built one level up behind it; sound often bounced around the open spaces around the building. It was hard to determine what was close and what was far away. I continued with the class, pretending that I was still in control and that the sounds didn’t make me panic. The gunshots became louder. This was supposed to be a safe space.
The art teacher from the room next door ran into our classroom anxiously. He was also a volunteer, but he wasn’t a foreigner like me. He asked me what to do in evident panic. He had a couple of older students in the art room. I muttered that I didn’t know. A part of me liked that he had…
