I wade through the flooded streets of the favela and enter the grounds of a church crèche, where women are waiting to pick up their children. I am about to meet the priest to discuss doing some research in the area. For some reason, I am drawn to a woman with luxuriant long hair and a tiny baby. She is in the midst of an animated conversation with three other women. I approach the circle. Their conversation is very rapid, and interspersed by screams of laughter. I catch snippets: a dispute over paternity, a curse, a murder, and a ‘golden bum’ competition. Clearly the long-haired woman is the expert. I watch, fascinated. Noticing my interest, she volunteers some information: they are discussing the latest Brazilian soap opera, or telenovela. She says she watches them all. Her name is Francisca. She is 18 years old. Over the next year we would spend many hours watching soap operas in the cramped, windowless room where she spends her time, caring for her four children. Like most of the women in this slum, she is unemployed and has little formal education. Yet Francisca is the undisputed authority on the glamorous, melodramatic world of the telenovelas, with their tales of love, loss, betrayal and inevitable final feliz (happy ending). Francisca never knows whether her partner will make enough money for food or washing powder, but she can rely on the telenovelas to be on all day, every day.