Twerking in 2016: New Years in the Favela

With Bruno Matias from Checkmat and some other people

from Terere's 

Everyone that knows me should be hip to the fact that I hate holidays (with a passion), being away from home makes holidays all the more fun to deal with.

My first year in Brazil I was looking forward to avoiding all aspects of Christmas but I randomly ended up moving in with a Peruvian family and ended up celebrating Latin American style with Pisco Sour and Ceviche. My second year in Rio a friend of my moms from the US was visiting her family in Belo Horizante (in Minas Gerais, a state north of Rio) and she invited me to spend the holidays with her family. It was actually a dope trip as I only paid for a bus ticket and she treated me to an amazing time and I got to visit the historic city of Oro Preto and stay in a sick house that her family has owned for generations.

This year was the first year that I was able to avoid Christmas all together. It was glorious. I went to the beach (twice).

For New Years, everyone in Rio dressed in white and heads to Copacabana beach to watch the fireworks (the Cantagalo favela where I live is above Copacabana and Ipanema beach). I hate crowds so there was no way in hell I was planning on leaving the favela. I just got a new Iphone 5 (for free) and I wasn’t about to have my baby snatched up at the beach while taking my first selfies of 2016 (and then have to walk up over 28 flights of stairs to get home or wait til the elevator opens at 5). Plus, from Terere’s roof you can see Copacabana, Ipanema, Lagoa, and Christ Redeemer. From Copacabana beach you can see… Copacabana beach.

So, I ditched all the parties and went to Terere’s house instead. Terere is traveling but I chilled there with his girlfriend, his family, and the other teachers from the social project. Good food, good friends, and the best view of the fireworks.

After getting down on some food and distributing a millions hugs and kisses to a lot of drunk sweaty strangers, I rolled out with Terere’s girlfriend to hang out on the Pistao (the main road of the favela where there are a few bars and, at the time, a huge setup of speakers). We came back around 3A.M. to find a nearly empty house with a few kids playing playstation and a very inebriated black belt up on the roof.

I cleaned up the beer and then rolled out to the with the inebriated black belt that was pressed to go to the pistao.

The pistao is the main strip in the favela that connects the two sides. I tried to take a video but it was too dark and there were too many guns so I desisted. One of the weirdest things about being on a party in the pistao (especially if your not from around here) is seeing the mix of people here. At one end there were a bunch of dealers with walkie talkies, dancing, drinking, and performing their nightly lookout duties, then you would pass by another group of guys two stepping with a drink in their hand, watching a third group of girls that were shaking their asses, and then.... then out of nowhere pops out a crew of 6 year olds working it like they were professionals. 

This is such a shitty picture but I feel like it adequately describes 

my relationship with them: blurry, confusing, but lots of love and 

always repping that FT spirit! 

I made my way to the end of the pistao where I posted up on someone's car with my inebriated black belt and some other guys from the Checkmat gym that is also located in the favela (Terere and Checkmat are to rival BJJ social projects from Cantagalo). 

I was just chilling, thinking about how 2016 was going to be a year of small miracles (starting with the fact that you can never catch me out this late), when all of the sudden someone comes up from behind me and flips my new FT Jiu Jitsu snapback off my head. 

Apparently it's not meant for me to have nice things because a black belt in Curitiba recently took a liking to my brand new sexy ass red leather machina boxing gloves and subsequently relieved me of them. Matias finessed my hat off me though because he followed up his theft saying:

"You know who I am right? I know you know who I am cause you follow me on Facebook. You run the marketing at Terere's so don't even tell me you can't get another hat"

At which point my ego exploded. 

Seeing as how I have just recently been graduated from the ignominious ranks of white belt, its an honor when black belts, or anyone in the Jiu Jitsu world for that matter, actually acknowledges you as a person. 

(Note: or the non jiu jitsu crowd, lets just be clear, I mean that literally. I have been told time and time again that white belts aren't people!) 

After that I entrusted the care of my inebriated black belt to someone else and headed off home to sleep. 

Best part of 2015:

When Terere printed the Terere Kids Project logo on shirts and rash-guards for the first time. The name came from a friend of mine from MiKiDo Martial Arts who helped me brain storm and the logo was designed by Deus Fight Co one of our sponors that we met through BudoVideos. 

Worst Part of 2015:

Its been two years since I've seen my family. I've missed births and deaths and everything in between. 

Southbound and down: stressed and stranded

There is nothing like being in a 3rd world country with 25 dollars... No I'm sorry, worse, 25 Reais. Except maybe being trapped in your small favela "studio apartment" as rain pours down infiltrating the pourous cemenet that is your ceiling.

It was Sunday and I was furiously looking for my plane ticket confirmation in my email... Or at least the receipt to prove that I had dished out the money in the first place. Naturally I had waited til the lasy minute to realize I had NO CLUE where my ticket was for my 7 A.M. flight that was leaving the next morning.

I was pissed off and tired. I was beyond broke and extremely stressed. I had spent the better part of the weekend running around the favela selling a few odds and ends at the boxing gym and to the corner boys to accumulate some spending money. I had, in fact, been quite successful thanks to the fact that my boxing coach includes hustling and whoring in with my bag work and normal boxing training.

Note: by whoring I mean I have to look like a girl... Get my hair done, paint my nails, smell like Victorias Secret, and stop wearing clothes that make me look like a dude.

Well, he would also like if I would find a boyfriend and destress myself but... See last blog post for more on THAT issue!

So, I hustled up a little over R100 but had to immediately front it to pay competition fees for the the kids at Terere KidsCuritiba. The actual sponsorship wouldn't arrive until Monday, leaving me to fly to Curitiba with R25.

After an hour or so I was finally able to secure my electronic ticket and I surrendered myself to my sad excuse of a bed, curling up into a ball to avoid the water that was drip dropping down by my feet.

Cut to a week later
(Details of my black out week to come)

There I was crying in a corner in of the airport with $2.50 in my pocket and my last $150 in the bank. It was money for food and for the kids snack program... Money that would hold me over til i got paid next week.

It was however not nearly enough money to pay for the $200 rebooking fee and it was almost exactly what I would need to buy a 18 hour bus ticket back to Rio... Leaving me with no money for food.

Amazingly, my phone went off. My internet never works it takes all of 5 minutes out of wifi for me to reach my daily limit and my phone to be blocked. Whether im using it or not. Another perfect example of how Brazilian governement allows companies to rob and rape thw Brazilian people... And then you wonder why everyone is getting stabbed up! Im american and I can barely make ends meet. Poor brazilians are left with virtually no options so shanking and robbing comes naturally since the alternative is starvation...

Yeah, so, my phone went off and it was one of my former students from DC, currently unemployed and unloved by his less than affectionate mother. It was like the damned advising the damned and I had to admit that the irony of the situation turned my tears into laughter... And to any onlookers probably completed a portrait of a crazy gringa having a breakdown in the airport.

Then came that dreadful text...
"You have reached 80% of your daily internet and your about to be blocked"

So I grabbed my bags, said my goodbyes, and withdrew the last of my money
Before begrudgingly paying the R20 to return to the gym that I had been sleeping at for the week.

Everything happens for a reason!

That was the mantra that I kept repeating to myself as I fought back tears of frustration. There had to be a reason I was still hear, wasting money I didnt have. I told myself not to stress, after all Nicki Minaj says the faster you spend it the faster you get it back... And seriously, how can you doubt the infallible wisdom of one of hiphops biggest female MCs.

So what have I learned from this?
Nothing. Not a damn thing! Im sorry if you were looking for some bad ass wisdom on growth and personal enlightenment but nah... Im still waiting on that one.

What resulted from this?
Im moving out of Rio! The only (affordable) way for me to get back to Rio is to purchase a round trip ticket). I was planning on moving anyway, but I could have moved in with teammates in Rio and put it off for a couple of months, using my hatred for cold whether as an excuse to enjoy running around half naked on the picturesque beaches of Copacobana. (Curitiba is the coldest city in Brazil!).

What do I want now?
To move. Even though it will be hard to leave Rio, the favela, the beaches, and my kids (ill be working with them from afar).

To start fighting. Ive been at Nova Uniao for a year and half with no results.

To get my money up. Its time to get paid and get some major sponsors for the project. I dont want the work that Terere has started in the Cantagalo Favela to end when we are both gone! I want to go home this year, with some kids from the social project, to visit my family and compete.

In short:
Grinding is agonzing but gratifiying.
If you want to live the dream you have to expect a few nightmares now and then.