A week of madness....

1-17-06

Only three days have passed in Brazil, and I already feel that I have so much to write about. I feel I have been lax in my discipline, and that I may never catch up with the incredible vortex of states piling in around me. It hurts me to bypass events, to script selective occurrences, discarding moments not indelibly burned into my mind. But I find my time limited, and am constantly pulled by other challenges and opportunities of daily life.

Now I must admit that it is entirely strange to be in a new world such as this. It’s like some giant being grabbed a hold of the globe, and with tremendous force, shook things up enough to turn customs and traditions in disarray. Some things remain the same, namely objects and actions most rooted and entrenched in all human beings. Cultural constants one might call them. But everything else, including the way people speak, the food they eat, the manner in which they dress, their outlook on life; these things have fallen askew. I find myself traversing a playground of unfamiliarity. Ordering food, using the street telephone, such simple things present untold amount of difficulty. And to compound the problem, I have lost my ability to relate to this strange world, blind in a sea of unrecognizable sounds.

Despite these barriers, I have come to assume an adapt or die mentality, and I think thus far I have been doing pretty well for myself. My solitary Portuguese study in the U.S. has helped greatly. No one in my host family speaks a word of English, so I am forced to rely on the few words and phrases that I learned before my trip. We are constantly running to get the dicionairo, to try and get a point across, but I think our misunderstandings have been relatively minor, all things considering. And my teachers at the language school keep complementing me on my conversation ability, which is encouraging. I’ve only been here for a few days, but can on occasion carry out moderately rational speech.

On Saturday, this last weekend, Silvia (my host mother), Jackie, Emily, Diego, and a whole slew of other people, took a ride to the outskirts of Salvador, to visit Silvia’s mother and father for lunch. It was my first trip out of downtown Salvador—out of the little apartment and Graça neighborhood. My first observation was just how green everything is here. A living corridor of tropical flora bends over the cobblestone avenues and highways, accentuating the few open spaces in the city.

As we made are way out of the downtown area, I began to catch a glimpse of the poverty so endemic to Brazil. The favela shanty towns stretched for miles in each direction, built on hills and other undesirable landed zones. In many cities, these slum neighborhoods are devoid of basic governmental services, and are often controlled by criminal gangs who build their territorial success on the drug trade. They are dangerous places, where life is cheap, and where people scramble to eek out a living.

The Libirio family house, while not in a favela necessarily, was definitely in a neighborhood most outsiders would consider poor. The roads are narrow, winding, and chaotic; the houses built of brick and mortar and painted in subtle pastels. I rode with Marhlee—a super energetic Brasileira with a penchant for breaking out in song. She kept telling me that I was beautiful, and that I needed to find an amorada (girlfriend) in Salvador. Like many of the older women I have met here, she is a single mother, a mãe forte, apparently divorced or left to fend for herself by her husband. From what I gather, this is a rather common occurrence here.

The ride in her car was as crazy as any car ride I have taken in Brazil. Here, drivers run red lights, speed excessively, and pay no attention to pedestrians trying to cross the road. The danger of street travel was well illustrated to me when we arrived in the Liborio neighborhood. We turned onto a side street, just blocks away from our destination, and came upon a crowd hovering over something on the side of the road. The subtle mix of curiosity and quiet respect on peoples face alerted us to an accidente that had just occurred. A long pool of blood still lingered on the street, leading grotesquely to a body covered over with a white sheet lying on the side of the road. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t a pretty site—probably a quick and brutal discorporation. I was rather taken aback—by the blood, by the crowd—but everyone else in the car seemed to act as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

When we arrived at the Liborio household, I was treated to a large dose of Brazilian hospitality. As always, I was seated at the head of the table, and fed the largest portions—be it rice, beans, or meat—of the meal. Generally, the rules of cordiality pressure me into eating far more than I would normally. I think secretly that these Brazilians are trying to fatten me up, to create a living example of how a guest should be treated.

On Monday, I started my first round of Portuguese classes at the Escola Idioma in the Barra district. Although you can’t really tell from the faded concrete exterior of the building, the school is pretty nice, with white tile floors and six or seven separate classrooms. I paid for three months of group instruction; about 20 hrs per week. Luckily, there are no students who are currently at my comprehension level, so they have put me in a one on one class until others arrive. This is generally much more expensive, but I get to forgo the extra charges for now. My current teacher, Ione, is probably about my age, and real fun to study with. I consciously mess up her class routine, flirting with her whenever a new word presents me with the opportunity.

Yesterday after class, Kazu (a tall Japanese guy with thin silver glasses) accompanied me to the old colonial district, Pelourinho, in search of a good Capoeira group to study with. Kazu has become the perfect study partner for me. We often go out after school, to the beach or some other marvelous place, speaking Portuguese the entire way. He has been in Salvador for six months, speaks rather good Portuguese, and a bit of English as well. This is really perfect because he doesn’t know enough English to want to converse in the language, yet has the ability to correct me when I misspeak in Portuguese.

Eventually, Kazu and I found ourselves climbing four flights of stairs, to a Capoeira studio near Pelourinho. Capoeira is a beautiful dance like martial art, sparked in the slave quarters of new world Brazil, and in the fighting traditions of Angola. It requires extreme athleticism and acrobatics from its participants, and is a truly beautiful art form to watch. Salvador, also known as the Black Rome, is a city saturated with the traditions of Africa. Capoeira is practiced all over Brazil, but is most at home in the city of all saints. I figured there would be no better way for me to stay in shape then to, as I told Kazoo, “Pratica em o dojo do Brasil.” He wasn’t that interested in the sport, but when we visited the “dojo”, he met a cute Japanese girl who used to live in Tokyo. Now he is all keen on returning, which is cool by me; I’d love to have someone to practice with.

* * *

If you ever get bored, and want to give your brain a real shock, try this: Move to a fazenda in Oklahoma for six months, where your only fun involves tipping over cows and thinking up imaginative ways to bend barb wire. Then, after sufficient sensory depravation, move immediately to a city of THREE MILLION PEOPLE. Move to a place where your personal space becomes negligent, where there is a constant hum of buses and cars, and where a thousand moving shapes and tones color your every waking thought.

Salvador is this. Salvador is crazy.

The city was first christened in 1501 by Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci, who was so enchanted with the surrounding waters that he dubbed the place All Saints’ Bay. In a few years time, Salvador had peaked the interest of the Portuguese empire, which was expanding its vast trade network over the better part of the known world. At the heart of the Brazilian coast, Salvador became an “El Dorado for adventures and a principal stopover for East-West trade routes”, and it was picked as an ideal location to seat the colonial government. Large ramparts and military forts were constructed, and the city grew rapidly. With the rise of the sugar trade, Salvador became the principal port of entry for hundreds of thousands of Africans, pilfered in chains across the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Salvador remained a principal trading port for the Portuguese empire. Sugar barons grew rich off their ‘white gold’, building ornate baroque mansions throughout the city. Churches of every type arose to proclaim the faith of the people, be them the isolated terreiro Candomble temples, where worshipers sing praise to the Yoruba and Nago gods, or the magnificent edifices of the Catholic faith. Together, the city began to gradually assume a syncretic flavor, now witnessed in the endless stratum of colors displayed by the people. While poverty still slides to the darker end of the spectrum, no one shade inhabits a strict corner of society. Mixed race and mixed heritage is the favored and frequent norm.

For me, in just this last week, Salvador has been a firestorm of activity. Every night I have gone out, on some new adventure, pulled into a strange world of street lamps and bar music, where the night is often brighter than the day. Salvador boasts a constant parade of festivals, celebrating saints and African deities, with a steady stream of local bands showcasing their tunes. On Tuesday night, I hit the AeroClub (kind of like an outdoor mall) with a couple of older gents, one who looked and spoke just like Juan Claude Vandam—the French martial arts movie star. Juan was a too cool for school sort of guy, who kept making fun of the ways Brazilians say Americans words (Hip Hop = Hippy Hoppy, McDonalds = Miccy Donalds, etc.). We saw Axè, a local favorite played all over Brazil, and a number of other well known artists.

On Friday night, Kazu and I walked the old cobblestone streets of Pelourinho, meandering our way through dense tourist infested crowds. Percussion groups played in the wider avenues, giving the old colonial town a pulsing heartbeat and rhythm. I narrowly escaped a couple of pick pockets, lustily eyeing my bulging gringo cash. Eventually we made our way to a small restaurant away from the larger old town square, and sat down for an incredibly overpriced, but deliciously produced dish of Carne do Sol. We drank two bottles of Skol, the widely popular macro beer, and talked about women and life in general.

Tomorrow I’m off to buy some clothes for my Capoeira lessons, which I’m hopping to start next week. I’ve gotten in touch with a fellow Michigander, a girl who also graduated in anthropology, and who similarly wanted to vacation in Brazil, and we’re probably going to head down by the beach after hitting the large Shop Barra mall.

Let me publicly shout out some props to my mother, who recently pulled me out of a dangerous monetary situation. Visa had put a block on my card, due to the strange out-of-country activity, and I had no way to pull out more cash. Thanks to her, my pockets are once again renewed, after her call to the bank and subsequent threats to the credit card company.

After a weeks worth of new incursions, my head is ready for bed. Sleep is like massage therapy for the mind, and I’m in dire need of some relaxation. Before I go, let me remind you of the little comment button just to the bottom right of this post. As much as I like talking to myself, I much prefer to know that other eyes are out there. Do me a favor and let me know you are alive.

(language school hallway)

(Bahiana serving me Acaraje and some Skol)

(Barra light house....gorgeous no?)

(city view near the apartment)

(feeling popular and tall!)

(yes it's me)