The first thing I noticed about the favela were houses mounted one on top of another. Arriving at the house, a petite older woman greeted us, waving her hand and smiling from ear to ear. As I stepped out of the car, I felt like I was at home. The favela reminded me a lot of my community in the Dominican Republic. However, because of the way I was dressed, the people I was with, and even the way I introduce myself, we stood out as outsiders. Everyone could tell that we were not from that area. It was a strange sensation, but I never felt uncomfortable. The home was really small, and the kitchen and living room were one room. From the moment I came in, I smelled the delicious food cooking, and I couldn't wait to try it.

We were prepared traditional Brazilian home food by a Brazilian family. My favorite plate was carne con batata, which means potato with meat. This may not seem like something out of the ordinary. In fact, I make this plate all the time. However, every country has a different way of cooking food, and in Brazil, they use different spices and even serve food differently.For example, I eat yellow bananas with rice and beans. Do you eat that combination of foods? At the favela, we also ate pasta with a special sauce that had corn in it, and it was pretty good. At the end of the meal, we had sobre mesas, which is dessert. The dessert was a maracujara (passion fruit) mousse. It was so good that it would have fit in fine at an expensive restaurant.