Four o’clock in the afternoon may be called Miller Time or Happy Hour here in the U.S, but in the $50-per-night Rio de Janeiro hotel I was staying, guests knew it was Caipirinha time. From my surprisingly roomy second-floor balcony overlooking the affluent and SoHo-like Ipanema neighborhood, I could almost see the beach two blocks away.

In the next few weeks, Aug. 5-21, the city of Rio de Janeiro is going to host the 31st Olympic Games. Like a mother preparing her home for 500,000 tourists, Rio has swept the city’s poverty under the rug by increasing police and army presence in favelas. As a result, part of the local population isn’t that anxious about the games. Militarized police presence and violence are only some of the issues that have affected the Afro-Brazilian population.

The painful rout of Brazil’s soccer team by Germany may be a metaphor for the deeper political losses that Brazil has experienced in the past year. Last summer students were marching down the streets of major cities like Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Sao Paulo protesting higher transport costs.These demonstrations, coupled with public outcries about the cost of hosting a World Cup and an Olympics in 2016 marked a turning point in the Brazilian success story.