29 October

The past week saw

Slovaks.

A couple, 30 and 27, who have been traveling around South America, mostly Peru and Argentina, and arrived here in Salvador, staying in the small hostel section the capoeira school maintains. They have apparently been doing capoeira in Bratislava for a good three years. They weren't here for too long, but those of us doing capoeira on a daily basis got to know them well enough to not want to see them go. Very nice people, and with very competent English that lead to plenty of stories and conversations. (I learned a bit about what it is like to grow up in a town of 25,000 built solely for the purpose of housing workers in a gigantic aluminum plant.) They went with the capoeiristas and 6 of we UC students on a (free!) trip to Cachoeira last Saturday. Cachoeira is on the recôncavo (coast of the Bay of All Saints) an hour and half or so by bus north and west. (Salvador is at the eastern tip of said recôncavo.) It was a major center of the sugar economy, but nowadays it is rather sleepy. The main thrust of the economy now seems to be historical tourism and cultural events. (The side of the bus that the Municipality of Cachoeira sent to pick up the capoeiristas describes the city as “heroic.”) The event this particular Saturday was a batizado: literally a baptism, but in this case the conferring of capoeira belts. The kids receiving the belts had a wide age range; 4 to 14 wouldn't surprise me. It was apparently the one year anniversary of this youth capoeira program that the Ginga Mundo in Cachoeira, with help from its affiliate in Salvador (the school I've been going to) and some Ministry of Culture money. The downside of such a small town is that when some sort of Christian group gathers in a town square at 6:30 or 7 AM to shoot off fireworks for Christ (or however they excuse their behavior) there is a good chance the sound will reach your residence there. The upside is that a walk around town feels safe, and can lead to some very odd sights – a man washing his car at the river, backgrounded by another man doing the same on the other side of the river. Clara, O Diretor, describes Cachoeira as boring, and has therefore organized a intra-UC EAP talent show to pass the time on our two-day trip coming on the 10th of November. Those of us who have already been should have plenty of things to explore, however – and we still have an argument to settle over just how far away that bridge is...

Traveling with the capoeiristas revealed that they have the same amount of energy at just about all times – too much to keep up with. We met Saturday morning at the school and then walked about 15 minutes to where the bus would meet us – berimbau played all the way. When we arrived, the bus wasn't yet there, so they started an impromptu roda (circle of people inside of which one plays) on the sidewalk. When we got on the bus, they immediately started singing, clapping and drumming, not stopping for the entire voyage. It wasn't much afterwards that they were back in a roda for the events of the first night, occasionally starting sidewalk rodas until the early hours of the morning, playing berimbau immediately upon rising, and then everything again for the actual batizado in the afternoon. Then singing the entire length of the bus ride back – until we stopped at the site of a car crash on the side of the road, to which they immediately rushed to help. I wasn't aware of what was occurring until after the crash was already crowded by those assisting and spectating, but those who did see it up close seemed very affected by it. It was an odd crash, involving only one car; one girl was thrown clear and scalped in the process, three were trapped in the crushed back. We heard upon arriving back in Salvador (I don't know through what channels) that two or three had died. It left everyone in an odd mood to end a weekend on. While I (I think, in the end, fortunately) avoided any grisly sites, I was left with the somewhat surreal image of a helicopter landing on the freeway some 15 or 20 feet in front of me.

Enough of that, and back to the real point of this entry: talking too much about capoeira and capoeira-related events. Although this one could also be filed under Slovaks or Favela. The Slovaks' last night here coincided with a dinner at the capoeira school for more capoeira children and their family. The food was not the main attraction – acararu, a concoction based largely on okra, and therefore very slimy – but there was an interesting musical experiment involving the combination of berimbau and fiddle and berimbau and guitar, (the second being perhaps more successful) a room full of the children's drawings, (the same room had rope swings for the children – this combination did not aid the drawings in staying attached to the walls) and, after the dinner, a completely mad benefit bazaar of unwanted items that had been brought in. The style of salesmanship employed was a mixture of shouting, banging on things, making ridiculous exaggerations and pretending to be mother to various dolls. I purchased (for a mere one real, which honestly didn't seem to be enough for a benefit) a yellow t-shirt,100% polyester, as is the unpleasant and much too hot Brazilian style. The back seems to indicate that it was a football jersey, likely for a youth club, but the front is emblazoned simply with the words “PASB'S MOTHERS.” It may have rocketed to the top of my t-shirt collection in terms of strangeness, although it may still have competition from Jakey's Middle School Computer Club Candy Sale shirt. After a bit of clean up, we headed to the house of one of the younger capoeiristas – we didn't know at the time just how far into a favela it was. However, I would say it was a good experience, as I went somewhere I would never walk if I wasn't in a large group lead by residents of the area – somewhat imposing ones at that. The residence to which we arrived did, it has to be said, fit a number of Brazilian stereotypes we have been told of. While the area immediately outside was dominated by dirty concrete, various crumbling features and idling chickens, the inside was quite well up kept. It was also entirely free of furniture – it did, of course, have a decent television set. (This ended up playing salsa and a concert DVD of the South African reggae star Lucky Dube. I saw the same DVD elsewhere later; I am guessing it has experienced a spike of popularity after his recent unfortunate death.) The capoeiristas were, of course, nice enough to accompany us to hail a taxi to return us to our homes. Shockingly, many taxis will not stop for groups of 9 people standing directly outside of favelas!

We started the third “module” of the culture class recently. Our new professor is an interesting character; originally from Barcelona, his accent at times sounds Scottish. He began his academic career in literature, but then studied media in the U.S., leading eventually to video ethnography in Bahia and West Africa and a PhD at the School of Oriental And African Studies at the University of London and an Adjunct Professorship at the Universidade Federal da Bahia. Module 3 is concerned with Afro-Brazilian religion, which largely means candomblé. An all-group trip to a candomblé temple (terreiro) is planned next week, and I should be taking a smaller group trip on the 7th as well.

This weekend, when looking for the nearest TAM Airlines office, I finally got close to an architectural wonder I had only spied for afar. It is possibly one of the ugliest buildings in the world, and it achieves this in a simply marvelous way. Glass boxes lined in red, sticking out seemingly at random, compose this wondrous tower, giving the appearance of a skyscraper built entirely out of 4x2 lego bricks by an 8-year old who has not gone to Architectural School. Most of these boxes are also covered in overgrown “decorative” foliage, as if those who created it, upon realizing what they had wrought, abandoned it forevermore. It seems to be home to a sort of Chamber of Commerce for the state of Bahia.