Never Stop Walking_A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World

by Christina Rickardsson

  I remember the first time I was introduced to my future class. The teacher’s name was Barbro. She was calm and gentle. She told my future classmates that they would be welcoming a new girl to their class that day. Her name was Christina Rickardsson and she was from Brazil, and the children should be nice and considerate. I remember the feeling before I opened that door to face my new classmates. Make a good impression. Don’t let them see that you’re nervous or scared—they’ll eat you alive. Smile, look happy. I opened the door and stepped decisively into the frightening room, wearing the biggest smile I could muster, my back straight. My heart was pounding extra hard, and I said hello to all the kids in the best Swedish I could manage.

  All the kids looked at me, some stared, others smiled, everyone looked curious. Suddenly, one of the boys opened his mouth and told the teacher and the rest of the class, “But, teacher, that’s not a girl. That’s a boy.”

  I remember how my eyes hardened and how I stared at that boy, Christopher, and I understood that he was the one who was going to make things hard for me. I knew my short, Afrolike hair was different from that of the other girls in Vindeln. They all had long, straight hair. And thus began a new period of my life. I got into a lot of fights.

  One thing I learned quickly was that Swedish children were not as good at fighting as I was. The girls basically had no idea how to fight. And the boys had not had the same training as I had. Then came the attempts at bullying. That same kid who’d called me a boy also called me the N-word on the playground at recess in front of all the other kids. I punched him, and then I informed him that I was not black, I was Latina, and that if he wanted to call me anything, he ought to stick to the facts.

  I was summoned to the principal’s office because I’d punched that kid and knocked the wind out of him. My dad had to come to the school. We sat there in the principal’s office, and my dad listened to what had happened and how I’d behaved. Girls don’t behave that way. My father, who very clearly did not like that other children were calling me the N-word, told the principal that his daughter was right to defend herself and that it was a good thing I knew how to do that.

  I was involved in a lot of fights and quite a few dustups in the beginning, but I stood up for myself. I fought, and I was not bullied. I had hung out with tougher kids and run in tougher circles. More than anything, I wanted to be accepted, to be one of the gang, to have friends and fit in.

  Maybe that sounds simple, but it wasn’t. Every time someone used a racial slur, it hurt. It was the intention behind the word that hurt. What they were saying was that I wasn’t one of them, not worth as much. And that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be one of them, because I was always going to have brown skin and black eyes and nappy hair.

  I never showed the children my pain. I never cried in front of them, and I fought back until they understood that I was not going to be bullied. I decided that the life I’d had in Brazil was not going to follow me here. In Brazil, people used to spit on me and say I wasn’t worth as much as they were. These early months in Sweden were a time when I questioned many things and when I had to find answers and solutions on my own. The teachers at the school were fine, but no one knew what was going on inside me. I was split in two, and even though I had a lot of wonderful girlfriends, I wasn’t big on playing doctor or pretending little plastic horses were real. I wanted to climb, build little huts, do sports. At recess, the boys played sports in the school yard, and I wanted to play with them. I understood the importance of having female friends, but I was happier with the boys. Not just because sports were more fun and easier for me to understand, but also because the social code was different with the boys. Their behavior was so different from the girls’. They said what they thought and what they liked, and that made it easier for me. If a problem came up, we fought and then it was resolved. With the girls, I could be playing and then suddenly realize that they were all exchanging these weird looks. Then I would know that I’d said or done something that wasn’t right, but no one would tell me exactly what I’d done. I remember wondering how in the world I was going to learn right from wrong if they wouldn’t tell me what I’d done wrong. I understood that there were a bunch of unwritten rules that I needed to learn. If I mastered those, I would fit in better. So, I made sure to learn the social norms. I changed who I was, and over time I gradually fit in with my peers. I became one of them. They came to see me as Swedish. They might have stopped seeing me as Brazilian, but I hadn’t.

  I remember the first time I saw snow. It had been a dark, rainy fall, and I had noticed that the darkness made me more tired. One night it snowed. That morning, I woke up as usual and walked into the kitchen where Mama had made oatmeal and hardboiled eggs. That was what I ate every morning. I looked out the big kitchen window and to my astonishment it wasn’t dark and rainy. It was white. Everything was white. It was as if we were in a cloud. A beautiful, thick, untouched blanket of white powder covered the grass, the trees, and the street. I was completely beside myself and raced outside, wearing only my underwear. From somewhere, I heard Mama yelling my name, but I didn’t care. I threw open the front door and rolled in the snow on the lawn.

  It took my brain a few seconds to realize that the beautiful whiteness called snow was as cold as the dickens—bitingly cold, painfully cold. Ow, ow, ow! I popped back up and ran screaming up the stairs toward the front door where Mama was waiting, trying hard not to laugh. She tossed me into the shower and sprayed warm water on me. After my body finally warmed up and after she literally pried the showerhead out of my hands, she insisted that I get dressed and go to school. I told her I was not going back out into the cold, but Mama said that all children do. I responded that all children most assuredly did not. The children in Brazil sure didn’t. Mama smiled and said that we were in Sweden and Swedish children definitely did. After I put on snow pants and a coat, my classmates and my friend Sara and I all walked to school.

  When the bell rang for the first recess, all the children were up in a flash and out in the snow. By the time I got out onto the school yard, I saw that the children were playing in the snow and ruining it. It made me feel anxious to see them building snowmen and snow lanterns and running around and ruining the beautiful snow. My anxiety turned to panic when I realized that if I didn’t save any of the beautiful snow, the children would wreck it all. I feverishly scanned the playground and spotted an area to my right where the children hadn’t had a chance to ruin the snow yet. I ran over and drew a big circle in the snow and positioned myself right in front of the ring, and then I yelled to the other kids that that snow was mine. What I did not understand was that I had apparently yelled, “Drop what you’re doing and come take my snow!” Because that was exactly what the children did. They saw it as a game, but to me it was dead serious. They all started running over to take my snow. I got so mad, I was practically sobbing. The children were running around, trying to take my snow, and I watched the beautiful snow that I was trying to protect being ruined. I, former street child that I was, reacted the only way I knew how or could. I ran around hitting the children who took my snow while at the same time screaming, “My snow! It’s my snow!” It didn’t matter whether the children were the same age as I was or whether they were three years older. They all took a licking.

  I was summoned to the principal’s office. Principal Gunnar explained that the snow belonged to everyone. I sat directly across from him with my arms crossed, thinking, How dumb can you be? Nothing belongs to everyone.

  One Day in the Favela

  2015

  Brasilândia is one of the world’s biggest favelas and São Paulo’s largest slum, where about 4.2 million people live. Today, Rivia and I are going there. I wake up with mixed emotions on this sunny but not especially warm morning in São Paulo. It feels exciting, and I know that it’s the adventurous, Swedish side of me that feels this way. Slums are a completely different world, a world you see only on TV and in the movies.

  Then the other side of
me rears its head. I remember my own life there. I see that little girl running and playing in the mud with what she has found in the trash. I picture Camile, Santos, and myself making kites out of bamboo, old plastic bags, and string. I remember the joy and love I felt for both of them. I smile as I see us running as hard as we can, trailing the kite behind us. I hear us laughing. We’re barefoot as we run, and it’s hot. I remember how we swim together and how we take care of one another when one of us gets sick. But I also see the lonely, hungry, sad girl, the girl who’s running, not only when she’s playing but also when she needs to escape, the girl who is also me. Suddenly I see a completely different world than the one on TV and in the movies, a world that is a part of my history, a part of me.

  It is not safe to enter these neighborhoods without a guide, and since I don’t speak the language anymore, it doesn’t feel like an option at all. Brian, who has helped us with so much down here, has contacts in Brasilândia, and he has requested permission for us to enter.

  When we get into the car to drive there, Brian tells us about a housing project in the favela he’s worked on. The project is to help people who live in the area. They’re replacing the little sheet-metal, wood, and cardboard shacks with tiny brick homes. There are people who want to help, there are things being done, but it’s far from what’s needed.

  The sun is broiling as we drive, and Brian tells us about the situation in Brazil, about the different neighborhoods we pass and about the corruption in the country, what the various presidents have done and not done. We drive past a large soccer stadium with lots of buses parked outside—so many buses but no people. The place is deserted. Brazil invested billions in building big, beautiful soccer stadiums all over the country for the World Cup. Now they’re empty and unused while people live in extreme poverty. Many of the stadiums have become parking lots. Imagine if the money had been used for the needy instead.

  Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world with a population of more than two hundred million, has a tremendous wealth of natural resources, but the nation has not succeeded in reducing the enormous gap between the rich and the poor. The numbers are frightening: 60 to 70 percent of the total assets go to the wealthiest 10 percent, and scarcely 2 percent go to the poorest 20 percent.

  Brian, who likes to talk, tells us funny but tragic stories about how politicians in Brazil line their own pockets. He says it’s become part of Brazilian culture. We read about it in the papers every day. The rich in São Paulo take helicopters from meeting to meeting to avoid the traffic and avoid being robbed in their cars. Everyone knows about the situation, but it seems impossible to do anything about it.

  The car ride passes quickly, and we are approaching the favela now. The city with its skyscrapers is visible in the distance behind us, and now mountains of tiny houses and shanties built on top of one another tower in front of us. We stop the car at the outskirts of the favela and get out. A wide brook runs to the left of the car. I recognize its scent, or rather its stench, immediately. I walk around the car and see that the brook is filled with junk and trash.

  We’re met by a stout, dark-skinned woman, Tatiane J. Silva, who beams at us with a big smile. We hug and exchange greetings, and once again I’m frustrated that I don’t speak the language. If they would at least stop talking both when they inhale and when they exhale, I might have a chance of catching a few words. But they talk fast and generally toss in some arm waving and raise their pitch, which I myself have never done. During this trip, I have laughed to see Rivia flip from a calm Swedish pace to speaking Portuguese, where her tone changes and she gesticulates more and more. Incredibly charming, I think, but obviously it would be more fun if I could understand what she is saying.

  The woman invites us into her little house, which consists of two small rooms. Everything is crammed in. There are two small hot plates, and in the back room there is a very basic toilet. I see that she has a flat-screen TV, and I smile. Memories from when I was little and running around in similar neighborhoods with my street buddies come back to me. How we used to gather around someone’s little cathode-ray TV, which was showing mostly static, to watch a soccer game. We could hardly see anything, and we pretty much followed what was going on in the game based on the reactions of the people sitting closest to the TV.

  We step out of the tiny house and start walking toward the favela. We stop at a kiosk, and I buy a dimdim, an ice cream that I loved when I was little and which Camile and I used to buy when we had the money. This time they have my favorite flavor, coconut, and I buy one for me and one for Rivia. I bite the plastic wrapper open and immediately start sucking up the ice cream. The feeling of being six and seven years old again sneaks over me, and I recognize the taste, which brings back memories of mischievous games and laughter. A man named Leonardo meets us. He says that he’ll be our guide for the day. Brian has had to ask the people “in charge” of the area—the gangs and drug dealers who call the shots here—for permission to bring us in.

  We start our walking tour up the mountain between shacks and brick houses. Here and there, water smelling of sewage flows by. The red dirt, the classic Brazilian red dirt, is redder than I remember it. We walk past plants that I recognize, and one of them has a bunch of little green balls that look like burrs. A lost memory comes flooding back. I picture us kids running around and throwing the little green burr balls at one another, trying to get them to stick in one another’s hair. Whoever has the most burrs in their hair loses. I break off a part of the plant and take it with me on our tour.

  We meet various people, and I start to notice that some of them are keeping an eye on us. I ask Brian about it, and he says they’re watching us to make sure we don’t take pictures or film anything that’s not OK. We wander farther and make a few stops along the way so I can “play monkey,” climbing up onto various things to take pictures of the area but also pictures of myself, my arms outstretched like the statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro. Everything is surreal, and a remarkable joy bubbles up in me as I wander up to the top. Leonardo, who lives in the favela with his family, tells us what life is like and how things work in Brasilândia.

  On the way to the top, we run into a gang of kids who start following us. A little girl sees what I’m holding, and she picks her own little green balls and starts throwing them at me, laughing. The child in me wakes up immediately, and I respond by throwing balls at her, but none of them stick in her hair. We run around and chase each other and throw balls at each other. I’m not in good enough shape to keep going and after a while simply have to concede that not only is this little girl able to run farther than I am, but she’s also much better at the game. Rivia helps me pick the burrs out of my hair.

  The boys who were following us from a bit of a distance come closer to us now and start chatting. I try to say a few words to them, but, in the end, Rivia does the talking. They follow us for a long time, and we stop once in a while because they want to tell us something or show us something. When we start approaching the top, one of the boys, who’s named Jonas, gives me his baseball hat and his eyeglasses. I don’t really understand why, but I can tell he wants me to put them on. I put on his leopard-print cap and sunglasses, which are way too small, and then he points to my iPhone and says, “Selfie.” I burst out laughing. Of course the kids in the favela know the word selfie. We take a selfie together. Jonas and his friend look at the picture, nod, and say it’s approved. Then he points to my iPhone 4S and says that his brother has a newer and better iPhone. I smile, am about to ask him how his brother got it, but I’m quite sure that I already know the answer to that question. So, I just say mine’s good enough and tousle his curly hair a little. He pulls back, laughing. They follow us for our whole tour through the slum. They’re happy and mischievous and have so much energy.

  When we reach the top of the favela, there is a little bar—or more accurately a little shack with a white sign with the word “Bar” painted on it in red. A man wearing a Brazilian national team jersey is dr
inking a beer. He seems to be the owner of the bar. He wants to sell us a beer, but we politely decline. We’re not allowed to leave, though, until he gets a hug from Rivia and me. Before we start our trek back down, we stop to photograph the patchwork quilt of little shacks and brick houses that lies before us and extends as far as the eye can see. The thought of 4.2 million people here in one of the world’s biggest slums is completely unfathomable. You’ll find joy and pain here—so many memories for me, so many emotions. We head back to the car, walking between narrow alleys, and I see myself as a young girl running down these alleys, sometimes fleeing, sometimes playing. I look around and take in what I see, the vast patchwork, and far away in the distance, the high-rises of São Paulo, two different worlds in the very same city. Electrical wires that have been strung from shack to shack, completely unprotected; small cars in a variety of colors here and there. One life here and one life in Sweden. They are so different, I think. And yet it feels like joy and happiness are appreciated more here. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t we be grateful and happy in Sweden about how well we’re doing? Or are we like the corrupt Brazilian politicians who only want more and more and forget or lose the ability to appreciate what we have?

  Our guide wants us to meet his family before we conclude the day. Once we reach his “house,” we meet his wife. She’s my age and has four children. They live with her parents. I try to follow the conversation as I tally up the nine people who live in this tiny home. There’s a ton of other children here now, too, and, in the end, I give up on counting and decide there are way too many people living in this little shack. They are incredibly nice and hospitable. They get out the best they have at home to offer, which is popcorn and Coca-Cola. After spending the whole day walking around the favela and touching everything from plants to dirt, I really have no desire to stuff my hand into the popcorn bowl and then bring these bacteria into my mouth. A voice in the back of my head thoroughly chastises me. Here I stand with these fantastic people who are sharing what little they have with me, and I’m thinking about bacteria. I dispatch my right hand into the bowl and scoop up some popcorn, thank them in Portuguese, and eat. I throw in a little prayer to the powers that be that I won’t get a stomach virus or food poisoning or anything else, and hope that those eight years when I ate every conceivable filthy thing I could find have made my stomach immune.