My cousin spent 6 months (off an on) doing research in a Brazilian slum for his masters thesis, landscape architecture from the harvard graduate school of design. He got some grant money and chose to spend it researching slums. Personally I'd've gone Mediterranean gardens. Visited a slum with him once (in some other country, not Brazil). Everything smelled like poo because no plumbing. Just a bunch of outhouses built on top of plank bridges over an open ditch. Our translator said they used it for fertilizer later. They probably sold vegetables on the street. Gross. It was winter too. Can't imagine how it smelled in summer
Probably like hot poo.
600+ families lived there I think. It was also in the (long)shadow of some very expensive high rise apartments at certain times of the day
They had a little bar and little stores. Houses were all coated on the outside with old promotional posters and stuff.