 motivational self-help style figure. I'm imagining that this is not a very common story in Brazil. No, it's not. Yes, in fact, she grew up in a favela. She talked about it all the time. She grew up in the city of Belém in the Amazon rainforest region in the north of the country. She was quite poor. Her father had a serious problem with alcohol. She said that sometimes she didn't have enough food at home.