In the hills that hug Maracana Stadium, many Brazilians saw the flash and glitz of the opening ceremony for the Olympics from rooftops with exposed wiring and water pipes, amid trash-filled streets separated from the spectacle by a highway and train tracks.
Mangueira is but one of the thousand favelas in Rio de Janeiro, a slum marred by gang violence and poverty that sits squarely in the shadow of the Olympic Games. In this neighborhood of tattered homes, the next two weeks are a visceral reminder of the lines dividing the city’s haves and have-nots, and the opening gala just down the road punctuated those differences with every crackle and pop.
“The poor, we don’t really get to experience the Olympics. We are close in distance, but far away,” said Luiz Alberto Araujo, a 30-year-old doorman who lives in the slums.
Even from afar, the party was a momentary distraction for many of Mangueira’s 40,000 or so souls, offering a brief respite from the country’s persistent economic and political woes.
But they warned: Don’t confuse temporary joy with lasting satisfaction.
For the poor, the celebration that launched the coming competition was far out of reach financially. Ticket prices for the opening ceremony ranged from about $63 to $1,400. A minimum-wage worker in Brazil takes home some $55 a week.
“It is scandalous that ticket prices cater to very few higher-income residents and that the bulk of profits will leave the country,” said Bruno Carvalho, a Princeton University professor and author of the book Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro.