Rio on Fire

Carnival in Brazil is not just fun. It’s an industry that creates more than 300.000 jobs and pumps $500.000 dollars into the city’s economy annually. Not counting it’s an absolute national passion. Millions of citizens, usually from least benefited areas, put their heart into it throughout the whole year, sewing costumes, building floats, creating sculptures and composing new samba songs.

This week, Rio cried. On Monday, a fire destroyed a huge area of ‘Cidade do Samba’: the warehouse where Samba groups store their material. With the Carnival big parade set to begin on the 4th of March, it hurt to see people involved among ashes of their own creative work.

What impressed me was that less than 24 hours after sad event, the venue where Grande Rio, one of the samba groups, rehearse was on fire. This time, a different kind of fire, thank God. It was completely full of people dancing, playing the drums, shouting the theme lyrics. ‘I have nothing, but when I look at this crowd I feel I have everything’, said Grande Rio’s director, who promised, no matter how, everyone will have a costume for the big day in March.

I do not know where this people take so much strength from.