It’s January, and a humid evening in Brazil. I have flown in from Sweden, where winter is at its peak, so the welcome in Rio is warm. (Pun intended.)
I spent the first day as part of a jury selecting winners for an Impact Award. By the end, we are all exhausted. Exhausted by some remarkable solutions from across the world, exhausted by our own passion and expertise, exhausted by it all clashing together in one boardroom for more than ten hours over coffee, some snacks and fruit.
I have just returned to my hotel from the event, and after dinner, every inch of my body is looking for my bed. But my heart has other plans. I decide to head out for a short walk to reminisce the memories of my first visit to Rio in 2018. I want to go to the pier across from the hotel and my friend joins me.
The water looks inviting, even though it’s dark. Lights flickering from homes and buildings on top of the hills, and from passing cars, make Rio feel very much alive and busy. In the corner of this whole visual, we can see Christ the Redeemer from afar, tiny, but lit and very much visible, even among the clouds, like a small figurine taken from a church and put in the night sky.
We make our way across the main street towards the waterfront. Streets in Rio are flat but broken, and I scan the way ahead in order to avoid getting my wheels stuck in any potholes. But that still doesn’t stop my excitement from spilling into stories from my first visit. I tell him about the food, the favelas, guaraná, shrimp cakes, samba, and the festival about women where I was invited to speak.
Suddenly, I see the backs of some men gathered under a tree, looking up. I wonder if these grown men are trying to catch a cat stuck in the branches. We pass them, and I casually say, “Olá!” to one of them. He replies, “Olá!” back in a very how do you do, my lady kind of way which is polite and hospitable.
We continue our walk, but then all the men start saying something we don’t understand because of the language barrier. We turn around and realize they weren’t gathered around the tree, they were standing alert, looking in the direction we were headed. It felt like a warning.
We turn back and move closer to them, where the guy earlier makes a sign that definitely doesn’t look like a cat. Wait a minute. That is the sign of a gun—a gun in motion – being fired. So someone on the other side has a gun? As I pay more attention, I see a man coming towards us from the same direction and start to talk to them. Were we just in the middle of some gang activity? There is clearly tension in the air far beyond a cat in a tree or someone having a gun.
I then realise that they are signaling that the gun has been fired and someone has been shot so we better not take that route. We thank them and head in the opposite direction. Those guys were in the middle of conflict yet they were looking out for us. I felt safe, maybe because I am in a wheelchair or in a Hijab and a woman on top of that. I am convinced my friend, a lone male would have been treated differently than the courtesy offered to both of us.
I suddenly stop and look into the distance until I find the sentence I’ve been searching for:
Did I just have an “Olá!”-by-the-murder-scene moment?
Tanzila
(Rio, Brazil — 26th Jan 2026)
