The Temptations of a Young Brazilian in a Favela
HAVANA TIMES – Fernando has been working as a butcher for 5 months. He is my coworker. I still remember that when he first started, he was happy to have a source of income, even though it was only 1,600 reais, a figure very close to the minimum wage.
“I live alone. This money is a blessing because it covers my rent and allows me to eat. So I thank the company for hiring me,” he would say.
I don’t know much about his past. I only know that he sold clothes at a flea market and that, many years ago, he lost his family.
Fernando is an intelligent and sensitive guy, hardened by the blows of life. At 27, he rejects any possibility of getting married, and for some reason I don’t know, he came to live in Parolin, where organized crime sets the pace of life in the community.
The dynamics inside a favela are very different. The role models of success are the top criminals and the lifestyle that drug trafficking allows them. Luxury cars, gold chains, unlimited spending, women, parties.
It can’t be easy to resist these temptations, but this young man does. “Yesterday they came to my house and offered me a job as a seller. I told them that I was very grateful, but that I wasn’t interested,” he told me one morning.
In that environment, the standards of a normal society lose their validity. Rodrigo, another coworker who also lives in the favela, asks me: “Why study?”
After starting to work at the supermarket, Fernando became a kind of community leader, serving lunches that he pays for with his salary to the neediest families.
After his sudden popularity, he began to have occasional partners. Women who lived with him for a month or two, then made space for the next one.
The most recent one made a living as a professional in pleasure. He was seen as being in love. She had stopped working in the “profession,” and everything seemed so good that they even considered the possibility of leaving the favela. But then she confessed something to him that apparently changed everything.
The young woman has cancer.
After a few days, they had an argument, and it seems like they will separate. It’s something that even hurts me, but I can’t judge because I’m far removed from the situation.
It’s easy to think that if he separates from her, it would be because of cowardice, lack of commitment, or simple selfishness, but Fernando has already suffered significant losses.
Living in a favela is having destruction just one step away. Now, without a common life plan with the woman he loves, Fernando will continue living in Parolin, grateful for having a job, a roof over his head, food to eat, and with the will to resist the temptations.