Brazil: "It's Portugal with a few more cowboys."
Trip Start
Jan 15, 2005
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8
10
Trip End
Apr 28, 2005
Salvador, Brazil
Thursday, April 7, 2005
Salvador is a historic city in Brazil, the former capital it served as the main port for the slave trade. Brazilians are a mix of indigenous peoples, black slaves, and Europeans. The courtyards and streets feel like Europe, everything is open and bathed in sunlight. Portuguese graced the signs and we sighed in relief, a romance language was a welcome break from Vietnamese and Hindi.
Four years ago I took intensive Portuguese for five weeks and now I suddenly had an opportunity to scrape together the remnants of my knowledge. The language was my favorite part of the port, all the flare of Spanish with some of French's soft liaisons. There are some bizarre pronunciation cues. "R's" are pronounced as "h's" and "-te" becomes a "-che." Thus, the word "restaurante" is said as " hestauranchay." It makes even the most mundane questions interesting.
Our first day there our group was split into two sections. Half of us had been able to get tickets to the state championship soccer game that afternoon. They proceeded to don jerseys and prep for a Brazilian national pride fest. The rest of us set out to do some shopping and explore Salvador. We soon discovered the concept of "Domingo." In English it means Sunday, in Brazil it means nothing is open. This combined with the soccer game meant that all we saw were people everywhere ignoring their jobs to gather around the nearest television. Gas stations had counters crowded with men who were all straining to see the five inch screen. Every once in awhile a cheer would go up on the whole street; Bahia had scored.
We were able to find a Japanese restaurant and enjoyed some incredible sushi. It was a bit challenging to order Japanese dishes from a Portuguese menu. I was pulling out every word I knew.
Day Two: Cortejo Afro
The next morning I packed up and headed out for a SAS trip to Cortejo Afro. This is a community outreach that promotes the arts in one of Salvador's favelas. So we drove out of the city and into the poor, sprawling suburbs that surround it. Urban migration is a huge problem in Brazil, rural communities offer no chance for advancement so everyone flocks to the city. The result is an unsupportable population and the city overflows, leaving people in the crime ridden favelas. Drugs have wrecked these communities and without a guide they are unsafe for tourists.
We stopped in one of these communities and headed into a condamblé temple that also houses the community outreach. Condamblé is Brazil's main religion, it combines Catholicism with some African tribal influences. Personally, I think it's a bit spooky and I wasn't too interested in visiting a service or anything. The temple was an simple room that was open so the air could circulate. The thatched roof was draped with white fabric to "allow the bad spirits to get out."
During the week the building is filled with youths from the community. They gathered to show us some of what they've learned. First, there was a drumming performance that filled the place with pulsating rhythms. Brazil has a love for life that is intoxicating. The spirit of Carnival lurks in their drums and when they play it is with elated vigor. I was quickly caught up in the polyrhythmic celebration and lost myself in its whirling beat.
It got better though. The maestro asked the Americans if we wanted to try. The first shift of Americans was drafted and I watched in jealousy as they learned how to play. I felt bad for the Brazilians, we were pretty bad. The beat dragged as we tried to imitate their natural talent. They decided to switch groups and soon I was being pulled towards one of the hugs bass drums in the back. At this point I was facing two great challenges. First, the drum was half my size and I didn't see how I was going to get it strapped on without falling over. Second, I struggle to clap on time so in terms of a natural sense of rhythm I'm seriously lack. However, there was another factor that gave me the courage to try. I have, in that world of fantasies, always dreamed of being a drummer. So, I strapped the bulky thing to my waist and prepared to lose all pride.
My job was simple, I kept a tick-tock type beat as the rest of the drums hit out different rhythms around me. To make it even simpler, I had an instructor right in front of me nodding his head vigorously to insure I kept the beat steady. It was intoxicating and the communal joy of the music washed over me. For an hour I refused to give up my drum and played until I could keep the beat without the help of my teacher's bouncing body. It started to rain, as if our beating had made the pregnant clouds tremble. We headed into another thatched roof building and played as the rain streamed down the gutters.
I could have died happy right then but we weren't done yet. We put our drums down and the Capoeira maestro came in to teach us the dancing martial art. It emerged among the slaves when fighting was outlawed. So they practiced capoeira to stay in shape in case of a rebellion. Imagine doing karate to music and you'll be close, quite frankly this is just hard to describe.
I found myself surrounded by flexible Brazilians trying to stretch my body and my jeans as I imitated the maestro's movements. I was kicking and doing cartwheels with a serious lack of grace. If the Brazilians where gazelles then the Americans were a troupe of hippos, desperately trying to appear light-footed. By the time we finished I was equally sweaty and sore, ready for some air conditioning and lunch.
But we had one more activity, a complete surprise to me. The outreach sponsors a float each year in Salvador's Carnival. The costumes for this festival are elaborate and they are made at the center. I was thrilled to see the designer printing fabric for the next carnival. He explained how they design it and then let us each make a print. This quilter was yet again thrilled to add another international piece to her fabric collection.
Day Three: Me gusto Estados-Unidos!
Since Kenya I had been painfully missing children and the few professor students on ship were getting weirded out by my enthusiastic ventures of friendship, so I signed up for a kindergarten visit in Salvador. The school was also a favela outreach, providing an enriching environment for children of ages 2-7 before they are of school age.
At first it was a bit awkward, we all filed in and started taking pictures of the two year old classroom. I had to laugh as the small children stared at us blankly, we did look rather silly. I was frustrated by the crowding and the teacher who was droning on about the school. So, I broke free and sat down next to Phillipe, a two-year old with a devious look in his eye. He was quick to smile and even quicker to steal the other kids toys. We began playing a basketballish game where he had to throw the blocks in between my legs. Unfortunately, this soon disintegrated into Phillipe randomly pelting objects and kids in the room. He was a classic knixnutser.
The room was cramped though and I was beginning to get looks from the teachers since I wasn't really promoting classroom peace. So, I headed upstairs and found a room full of boisterous five-year olds. I was a main attraction for two reasons: the flip screen on my camera and the sheets of Hershey stickers I had brought with me. All the kids loved seeing themselves on my camera screen as I filmed them. It was humorous to watch them running around, Nutrageous and Payday plastered to their faces.
I passed out blank sheets of paper and they all started coloring pictures for me. We were conversing in Portuguese, don't ask me how. Basically, I knew ten solid words. To round this out I would speak French with a Spanish accent and they normally got the gist of what I was saying. They liked to laugh at my inability to speak and started teaching me new words for things around the room. One kid kept getting frustrated with me as he spouted out a long story and I stared back blankly. Luckily, a friend of his chimed in with "She speaks English, stupid" or something along those lines. Then she said " I speak some English. Dresses." It was the one word she knew, not particularly useful but oh well, she's 5.
The afternoon slipped past and before I was ready we were being packed back into our bus. I had firmly resolved that somehow I would find kids again in Venezuela.
Day Four: "Don't sneak up behind me."
After a day of shopping we headed out to find some Brazilian cuisine. Luckily we brought Marisol with us; she's our Puerto Rican friend who's conveniently fluent in Spanish. She was able to find us a restaurant and get us a bunch of appetizers so we could sample a bunch of different things. At one point we messed up and ordered fish balls instead of cheese balls, a big disappointment. But in general the food was zesty and we topped it all off with some great ice cream.
Afterwards we walked on the beach and watched the waves come in. I picked a fight with Dave and we were having fun kicking sand on each other. He was decisively beating me so I decided a surprise attack was in order. First, I formed an alliance with another friend Katie Boyle. I told her that on the word "bananas" she was to spring her attack from the side. Meanwhile I fell behind and prepared to pounce. With a brief "The fruit sure was great in Vietnam, I really miss the bananas," I started running. Unfortunately, despite all this planning I had forgot one crucial factor. Dave is trained in judo.
I'm not sure what exactly happened. All I know is that I had barely touched him before the horizons were shifting and then there was loud thud. I was lying on the sand. My head ached and Dave was spazing above me. "Kayte, are you o.k?!" I assured him I was fine and we both agreed that surprise attacks were not a good idea. On the bright side, I'm not so worried about being mugged when Dave is around.
