06 November

Last Wednesday I was unoccupied in the evening, so I called up 59,000 of my closest friends and we decided that it would be great fun to all go attend a football match. Bahia (one of Salvador's two club teams, betwixt which there is a great rivalry.) just so happened to be playing a team from São Paulo that night.

The insanity began on the bus ride to the stadium. The bus wasn't exceptionally crowded, but it was being jostled up and down forcefully by the number of Bahia fans jumping up and down and belting out football chants. (Those social divisions in brazil which are not created by outrageous wealth disparities seem to largely defined by the preferred reason for clapping and sanding.) We got off some distance from the stadium itself and navigated by following the steady stream of people in red-and-blue Fiat-sponsored jerseys. On the way we purchased tickets to the game from the healthy population of ticket scalpers. R$12 each, from what I heard this was only R$2 than a directly purchased ticket would have been...however one could actually accomplish this. When we reached the stadium an hour or so before kick-off, several thousand of those previously mentioned acquaintances of mine were relaxing in the adjoining street or in front of the WalMart. (Well, Bompreço, owned by everyone's favorite global retailer) The fact that, while WalMart had secured a space that would be so well-frequented twice a week, the space in front of the store itself was tightly packed with independent vendors of foodstuffs felt like a small victory.

It does seem very Brazilian that one thing which would be exceedingly egalitarian would be a football match, and a ticket to the match does allow one to sit in any seat still found open, from the first row to the nosebleeds. (If one takes the small step of averting one's gaze away from the luxury/executive/glass/ boxes.) We plunked down near the right side of one of the goals, eight rows up. Bahia took the lead in the first half, and took a 2-1 lead with a dramatic penalty kick (on our side of the stadium!) Infelizmente, the São Paulo team scored a quick, anti-climactic goal in the last few minutes of the game to leave it a draw. Leaving the stadium was a rather claustrophobic affair, to say the least. In inching forward with the high-density crowd, one does almost adopt the basic one-two step of the samba. Coincidence?....Yes.
Sidenote: the peanuts are roasted but the popcorn is covered in coconut.

5 of we students made some delicious middle eastern food one Saturday evening (after another round of bike rental at the park), under the general direction of a fellow UCSB student who grew up in Israel. A Berkleyite took the lead on latkes while another Israeli made strong Turkish coffee for us to drink during the preparation. I personally have never grated so many potatoes in such a short time. The rest of the meal was made up of falafel, the requisite hummus, an Israeli avocado salad, another salad of tomatoes, mixed greens, parsley and lemon, along with exquisitely spiced chicken and plenty of pita bread. Dessert was less culturally authentic, consisting of that same pita bread covered in Nutella – there's never really a bad time for the stuff. We shared our creation with four less culinary active students, fellow UCSB student's host mother and the maid/empregada who showed us around the kitchen and helped us with some of the steps, especially the chicken. The host mother, at least, seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. More surprising was how much she liked the instrumental hip-hop that was being played in the background – she asked who it was, and later asked her aforementioned host student where she could get it. A nice evening, and it was very satisfying to be able to contribute directly to the best meal I had in brazil.

On Wednesday, around 15 ACBEUistas went to see a Candomblé ceremony at Ilê Axé Opo Afonja, a terreiro dating to the 1910s or so. It lasted several hours. A long bit of dancing counterclockwise in a circle, during which some of the participants are possessed by orixás. These dancers then become the center of the rest of the ceremony, as they dance the moves particular to their orixá and are hugged and offered flowers and money.

It really was quite a reminder of how often religion converges with theatre. I'll root for Candomblé against Pentecostals any day of the year, however. Pentecostalism has its megachurches, Candomblé has its houses decorated with white paper streamers and pink paper cut-outs of Oxossi's sword. Pentecostalism has TV sermons, while Candomblé houses are giving out free meals at each ceremony, attracting a poor and hungry crowd, some of whom eventually become more intimately involved.