Brazil: I am from the slums
- Linda Chen
- Feb 3, 2019
- 7 min read
We were told to wear long jeans in São Paulo's 35-degree weather without an explanation. It was not until halfway through the class the professor told us that we are going to visit a favela today. I actually guessed that, but what I did not expect was we are visiting a company inside the favela.
We arrived at a recycling station inside of oldest favela of São Paulo. I have seen a recycling station 12 years ago in Japan. And this place that is in front of me now, I'd like to call it "the factory of garbage" because I think it fits better.
I remember our operation professor once taught us, the simplest method to access a factory was to ask yourself: will you buy this factory. Thinking of that, I look up to the ceiling of the factory. Wow, this really looks like a spider-web museum.
In front of us, there are two very old and dirty looking conveyor belts. The one that is closer to us is just lying there without running. Different kinds of recyclable garbage scattered on the conveyor belt. If no one explains, you would have thought this conveyor belt is also a piece of garbage that some factories have thrown away.
The second conveyor belt at the back is running, with 10 women, 5 on each side, are working beside the conveyor belt. One of the women stops and raises her right arm to wipe out the sweat on her face. Yea, it is 35 degrees outside now and there are only fans in the factory. I can see on everyone's faces, they all felt like being roasted. Eliene, our program coordinator whispered her complaint: "they work here?!"
A blue plastic bag that is filled with garbage is being delivered on the conveyor belt, the women who just wept her sweat tore the bag apart and threw the blue plastic bag in a big grey bin standing beside her.
All the garbages inside now poured to the conveyor belt. Water bottle goes to this bin, chip bags goes to that, old clothes go to the other... She sorted the garbages without any hesitation, as if it was her second nature to do so.
I went to the bathroom in the factory because I cannot hold on any longer. The bathroom looked like changing rooms in gyms with lockers and all female employees' belongings inside. I opened the door of a toilet, surprisingly, not five-star hotel standard but it is cleaned. And I would say better than some toilets at Tsinghua. Not that I can tolerate this every day but better than I expected, I thought to myself.
A woman walked into the bathroom humming some upbeat rhythm that I am not familiar with. Sounds like someone is in a good mood. I saw her as I walked to the sink to wash my hands. I seemed to catch her by surprise. I smiled and she smiled back with a shy look on her face.
I rejoined the rest of my classmates on the other side of the factories.
Cris, the owner of the factory pointed to a TV monitor screen at the back which I did not notice before. He explained, this screen normally displays the production output of each worker and beside the name of each worker, it shows a happy face/sad face/ angry face that displays the mood of the workers each day. The monitor is not on today because the weather forecast says it will get windy in the afternoon and rain. When the weather is rainy, the factory would be flooded.
Then Cris continues to explain the factory to us. "At the back, there is a daycare center for the employees. In Brazil, you need to line up for 2 or 3 hours (or longer? I cannot remember the exact number now) to get your health check every year. However, they have a doctor come in every year to do the health check for their employees."
One of my classmates asked about the growth or the future of the company. He told us about how he wanted to upgrade his machine next year and the projected a 75% growth in the next decade.
Another of my classmates asked more about the workers. So he gave more information.
"Workers can work in flexible hours since many of them here are single moms. Therefore, the factory opens 24 hours before; now, it opens from 8am to 9pm. Workers are paid based on their production quantity."
I looked to the women who are working on the conveyor belt. They are passing and throwing bottled waters to each other now with some laughs. I thought of the woman that I heard her singing while I was in the bathroom, single moms... life is never as easy as it seems, I thought.
"There is also a policy of no layoff in the factory and underprivileged workers are being considered first in jobs application. Workers on average have stayed with the company for 8 years."
"Basically, the rule is, the type of workers that big companies try to avoid the most will be considered having priority in this company," Professor added his comment with a funny face and we all laughed.
Cris says he also conducts employee satisfaction survey every year even though there are only three questions.
Employee satisfaction survey...? A phrase that is mentioned to business school students hundreds of times, but a phrase I have never heard outside of school other than from international corporates. I wasn't sure I heard that correctly.
Cris continued and say that there are also various training that concern with workers' mental health issues being provided by the company. They also have an English class once a week. Because the female workers were complaining that they are getting fat since all they do is to stand there all there, therefore, Cris made a small gym in another building so that employees can do some work out there.
I now switch my glance from observing the workers to Cris. Am I listening to a person from favela now? or am I listening to some MBA graduates? So I raised my hand and asked where did he get all these knowledge/concepts from.
He looked back, pointing to the garbages and answered casually: "well, people throw away their books. We had about 200 books collected by the factory here. So I just picked out those business books and read them."
I was astonished. ... what?
Cris seemed to have misunderstood my astonishing face. He continues to explain as if he wants to prove he actually read those books: "as we can see, there is still a lot they can improve in the factory. There are many other things he has read about and wanted to implement but he just does not have the resources now. Nonetheless, they are all in the back of his head and he will continue to make those things happened."
Oh, and I forgot to mention one thing. Cris actually started his factory under a bridge. When he had enough money to rent this factory, he filed his request to start a company to the government but was turned down 15 times because the government does not believe people from the favela can achieve anything. The factory was only given to them for 6 months at first.
Maybe now you can understand better why he has the gut to do an employee satisfaction survey with a factory that looks like a spider-web museum with ugly pigeons flying all over.
There aren't any decorative things in the whole factory except a huge graffiti on the wall at the back of the factory. It is a graffiti of the favela in colorful paints with a hashtag: #soufavela.
It means in Portuguese: I am from the slum. This actually reminds me of a painting that I saw in the Toyota factory in Ontario. It was a huge painting of their workers doing their hobbies.
Cris told us that some executives of a nice company (excuse my memory with names) wanted to hire him to run their recycling factory but he turned it down.
He said he is going nowhere until he achieves what he wanted to achieve here (the slums). His goal is, he hopes one day, the recycled cups that we use, the recycled tins that we buy, are from him, from this company, from this slum.
It is almost 3 pm now. The sun seemed to be less wicked outside. We started to walk to the slum.
This slum is the oldest slum in São Paulo and I could tell the professor was nervous about this trip. We were told, absolutely no one walks in front of him and Chris and no one behinds Eliene.
We did not make a huge tour in the slum. we walked for about 10 mins and we stopped in front of the church inside the slum. This is a church that everyone can come to pray, regardless of the religion.
The streets of the favela are like the streets of the old city in Varanasi, narrow streets and not very modern, and small houses, except the vibes there is much less energetic than Varanasi where you have cows, animals, tourists, bars and restaurants.
Here where I am standing, I see one convenient shop and some locals going around. Kids are playing soccer in front of the church (it is Brazil haha) and looking at us curiously.
Cris told us that right here where we are standing, 5 kids died last year. I was shocked and confused, so I asked, "why?". He shrugged, looked away, put his hand like a gun as a gesture and said: "It was shot by the police."
I continue to look shocked and confused and seeking an explanation. Cris looked at my professor. My professor looks down to the ground, seems like struggling to explain the situation. All three of them, Cris, Eliene, my professor have a: "It's complicated" look on their faces.
Finally, Professor says quietly: yea, it happens in the favela. The rest of the two nodded.
From here, I started to have my first taste of the bitter relationship between the underprivileged people in Brazil, and the government; started to have my first glace into the history and issue of a familiar but yet very foreign term, the mafia.
[to be continued..]
-- Feb. 3rd. 2019 @ my 6-month home in São Paulo, Brazil
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