Fabio Medeiros, our friend and colleague in Dubai who is a proper born and bred carioca, graciously offered to put us up with his grandmother’s sister Dona Margarida during our stay in Rio. “Dona Margarida lives very close to Rocinha,” explained a homesick Fabio over an espresso not quite as s[...]
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Festival Feijoada
It’s Friday afternoon. We arrive at Bar do Mineiro in Santa Teresa to find a queue of hungry Brasilians eagerly awaiting their turn to dig into a pot of lovingly prepared feijoada. Legend has it this meal, which is usually prepared on weekends due to the long preparation process, was born in the [...]
Boxing Like Rocky: Spotlight on Cleber Santana
I first met Cleber Santana, a 30-year-old Rocinha resident and boxing coach, on a chilly September eve. I was struggling to keep up with one of my English students, Jose, who was weaseling his way through an intricate maze of tiny streets in an unfamiliar part of Rocinha. Huffing and puffing after a[...]
A Leap Into the Forest…
So here begins the travel log of two Dubai girls who have fled the luxuries of the Middle East for rainforest-clad Brazil. Rewind two months back: “That’s the problem with creative agency folk,” my father complained, “one minute you’re happily working the next you have quit and booked a fl[...]
