RIO DE JANEIRO — “What’s going to be left behind is debt,” says Daniel Ferreira Campos. Once a chef, he’s frying garlic and chicken in his kitchen and discussing the Olympic Games. As a resident of the Vila Uniao favela in Curicica, he lives 10 minutes away from the Olympic Park but he hasn’t seen any events.
Bad health means Daniel, 72, hasn’t been working recently and Brazil’s recession is a worry for him. Rio de Janeiro state has debts of billions and that only looks set to increase next year.
“The Olympics has just been one bad thing after another for me and my family,” he says. “The money that it brought in won’t be distributed among the population. There are still going to be schools without teachers and hospitals without enough doctors.”
The Games cost an estimated $12 billion, though that includes some infrastructure that will remain in place. Supporters of the Games say the infrastructure built for the event will imbue new vitality into the city, while critics say the benefits are at best uneven, not filtering into the favelas, the poor communities around the city.
Daniel lives alongside the new Transolimpica expressway that was built for the Games, but his community saw 300 evictions as a result. Building the expressway caused cracks to appear in the walls of the homes of those who stayed.
Despite the arrival of the new Metro Line 4 and new roads, traffic remains a daily headache for “cariocas,” as Rio’s residents are known. Throughout the Games, impromptu holidays were declared to get cars moving, and visitors complained of long, exhausting travel times between venues. A study earlier this year found the city had the fourth-worst traffic in the world.
Many here have conflicting emotions about the Olympics: fearful of the financial cost while defending Brazil when it has been lampooned internationally over chaotic organization of the Games, booing crowds and threats such as high crime and the Zika virus. When are we going to get a warning about traveling to Miami because of Zika, a Brazilian journalist asked.
[READ: No end in sight for Brazil’s economic, political crises]
The saga of Ryan Lochte, his U.S. teammates and their invented story of robbery by men dressed as police seemed to crystalize the conflicting emotions for many cariocas. It was one crime that didn’t happen, yet it garnered the most headlines. The swimmers’ readiness to pin the blame of their own actions on Rio’s violence and its much-criticized police force stirred local anger. Many here already believed that the international media was too ready to believe a story that had always sounded fantastical to those who live in Rio. “Do you lie a little or a Lochte?,” said one popular meme. “They disrespected us, as if we were nothing, I was very upset,” said Rio resident Janne Chipelo.
For many in Brazil, hosting the Olympics — which by its end was seen to be a success — was about national self-esteem. That feeling was on display beginning with the Opening Ceremony and its emphasis on the country’s rich and distinct culture, and continued with the medals won by athletes such as Rafaela Silva, who was born in the favelas and won Brazil’s first gold medal in judo.
[READ: Olympics reflect Brazil’s boom-bust cycle]
But the empty seats at most Games were a telling sign that this was a very different beast compared to the carnival festivities that Rio annually hosts. Expensive tickets, including travel on the Metro to arrive at the venues, meant many could not afford to participate in the party they were forced to host. By contrast, free events such as the music shows and big screens at the Olympic Boulevard in the city center were routinely packed. The lower attendance provided a feeling of anti-climax to some sports. At one boxing event, the arena was about two thirds full, but that emptied to almost nothing some time before the medal ceremony, perhaps because no Brazilians were winners.
Those that didn’t join the party will still get the hangover. The big spend on sport during hard economic times may mean higher electricity bills for the coming year, as residents learned this week. A revenge victory over Germany for the gold medal in men’s football (soccer to North Americans) might seem a distant victory in a short while.
It’s time to face the political realities, too, with a president facing an impeachment trial and an unpopular interim president in charge who was booed at the Opening Ceremony. Protesters calling for him to leave managed to get their signs on display throughout the games. Still other protests during the Olympics focused on security. The Fogo Cruzado (Crossfire) app developed by Amnesty International reported at least 18 deaths by gunfire during the Games, lives lost some distance and a world away from the main venues and the tourist circuit.
[READ: Rio’s tortured war on violence]
The party isn’t over just yet. It’s now time for the Paralympics, an event which has steadily grown in scale over previous Olympics, and now looks threatened by a diminished budget in Rio. Whether that is a success remains to be seen, but once the cameras have left town it’s the people of Rio who will be left with the task of cleaning up.
More from U.S. News
Olympics Reflect Brazil’s Boom-Bust Cycle
Are the Olympics an Empty Promise for its Hosts?
Rio’s Tortured War Against Violence
Buoyed by Olympics, Rio Returns to Reality originally appeared on usnews.com
