Trust No One

I was exactly who you would not expect to see at night in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
Skinny and wearing a sleeveless shirt, I was 18-years-old with dirty blond hair and white skin on a stubborn mission not to tan.
But there I was on my way back to my hostel from the grocery store with my arms weighed down with four bulging plastic bags of food.
My hostel, the Rio Surf n Stay, sat next to a favela – a reputable type of impoverished neighbourhood found throughout Brazil, generally controlled by gangs.
In the favela that I walked through, some families ate dinner in view of the street through massive holes in the sides of their houses, and it was unclear whether some of the children I saw laying on the narrow, unpaved sidewalks earlier that day were sick, abandoned, homeless or any combination.
As I walked, night began to crawl in before I admitted I was lost. In my gut I did not fret, but my brain told me I should be worried and I could be over my head if I didn’t find my way soon.
Total blackness quickly set in as I tried to recall my route back, and people began to stare me down as I passed. I heard nearby fireworks, which I knew were used to warn of police presence and announce gun shipments coming and going.
I started to long for a familiar street corner.
A phone booth became visible down the street on the left, and so did a black Fiat on the opposite side, its passenger door open.
I approached the phone like a scavenger coming up on a watering hole in the wild, lock-eyed with my nearby potential predator, a black Fiat. Hesitantly I dropped my grocery bags so I could retrieve some pocket change.
As soon as I set down the bags the car door slammed shut and the electric locks shot into place with a hollow thud.
My chest released as if with a sedative. Smirking, I put the money in the phone and speedily jabbed the number keys.
Notoriously undependable in that city, the payphone didn’t connect and I had to just continue down the road. Ten minutes later I realized I was only a few blocks from the hostel. Ecstatically I kept a steady pace all the way there.
The favelas in Rio de Janeiro are not areas to be caught in at night, as many locals will tell you.
But my experience made me shake my head in disappointment at the reciprocity of fear amongst peacemakers. And I wondered when we would be able to come out of our Fiats – at my home in Ontario or in the most turbulent places on Earth.