Many times it's easy to forget that we live in a slum here. We have a nice house, trees in the garden, even a swimming pool. Of course, we sometimes hear the crazy loud music, have kids jumping the walls and at times hear gunfire in the middle of the night.
Dave has had more experience of the reality of the slum in his many walks and talks in the community, but I have had a more sheltered experience here. Even when the drug traffickers here have been at war with the neighbouring slum (which is happening now), we have heard about what is happening, sensed the fear, but continued the same.
However, last night was the first time I felt afraid. At 1.50am a helicopter arrived, quite a strange time for a helicopter. The police send helicopters when they are looking for someone in particular. Normally, they pass over the whole favela and circle in a few places. Last night, they were incredibly low and circled mainly around our area of the community center. It really felt like they were going to land here. This circling continued for 25 minutes, which felt like an incredibly long time as we were lying there, wondering why they were here. Had a bandit jumped the wall to find refuge here? This is one of the best grassy areas here and has great places for hiding. I began to hope that our dog wouldn't notice anything, because if he started to bark, what should we do? Normally I send Dave out to have a look, but I didn't want to send him out to meet a nervous armed bandit on the run from the police. Would the police want to enter here? When would it end? Even after the helicopter left I couldn't sleep, wondering what had actually happened.