The rain let up a little on Saturday, so I headed out to Pirajá for a meeting with the Cinco Mulheres (5 Women), and hoping to be able to attend a Festa de Candomblé in the evening. These things happened, but in the midst of a laid-back, fun-filled Saturday afternoon.
A couple of women were celebrating birthdays this weekend, so Fabricio's grandmother hosted a festa (party) at her house. When I arrived, Joelma was grilling steaks on the front porch. Beers had already been opened. They immediately sat me down and started filling a glass for me. Over the next couple of hours, lots and lots of other folks showed up. They were almost all related to the birthday girl, Paulinha, either by blood or by marriage. It turns out that Paulinha is married (?) to Bola, who was one of our keepers during Mutirão 2004. They have a son, Iago. The party spread to the back yard (yes, she has a back yard!) and to the moderately sized living room. In other words, just like a party in the U.S., it spread to all parts of the house. One of Fabricio's aunts had made a lovely cross-stitch/crochet, and asked Fabricio to draw her a new design and trace it on fabric. He was occupied with that for a couple of hours. The kids played in the midst of the party, occasionally stopping by a grown-up (any grown-up) for a little rest and affection. Hugo has definitely taking a liking to me. By mid-afternoon, quite a lot of beer had been consumed. Isabel's brother apparently insulted one of Joelma's friends and they got in a fight. Others jumped in quickly to keep it from becoming physical. Fabricio's grandmother was mortified that there was a fight at her house while I was there. I told her not to worry. Joelma is really a piece of work. It turns out she isn't flirty with just me. She is just an intensely emotion-driven person. Whether she's hugging and kissing, posing her voluptuous body, or arguing with someone, she's always ultra-passionate.
Luciano Paru showed up. He looks quite different. He's let his hair grow out and has it in short braids. He also has braces. He and Fabricio have grown apart because Luciano isn't really interested in helping the Quilombo anymore. He's focused on his own goals and interests, primarily capoeira (which he does professionally), African drumming, and trying to get to the U.S.
Across the street, Bruno, Casilda's oldest and brother of Gigo, Caique, Tio, and Jamele, was washing motorcycles. Apparently this is one of the odd jobs he does to contribute to the family coffers. The boys had music turned up quite loud, and occasionally broke into dance moves that they've seen in videos. These boys can really dance! Back in 2007, Caique and Tio brought roars of applause at our ITEBA samba party by being the first people on the dance floor. It was interesting that although these neighbors all know each other well, they keep an artificial distance between them which seems to be based on family relationships. In an odd way, it reminds me of an Indian caste or clan system, where extended families live amidst other extended families, but they always respect the dividing line separating the clans.
In the late afternoon, while the party was still rolling along, a group of us went to Isabel's house to have the meeting about project costs at QZ. Attending were Isabel, Casilda, Jocelita, Fabricio, Luciano, and a couple of young women who gave me the impression that they were interested in helping run things at QZ. I later learned that they were both "graduates" of QZ, having attended while it was still up-and-running as a day care facility in other temporary locations. The meeting was quite lively because of course we had all had a bit of beer. It was truly community democracy in action. Jocelita sort of ran the show, because she was the one who had gathered information about getting power and water hooked up. (Plastering the upstairs was delegated to Daniela, who wasn't able to come to the meeting.) First of all, they told me they didn't need to be paid a minimum salary for two months, that they'd rather use that money for getting things up and running at QZ. (At least, this is what I think they said. They glossed over it quickly and I didn't fully understand. Jocelita speaks incredibly fast.) Earlier, at the party, Jocelita and Fabricio had a "discussion" with the person who would do the electrical work. It was close to an argument, because he was trying to say the buidling needed a couple of electrical boxes, and furrows had to be made in the bricks upstairs to run the wires. Jocelita and Fabricio disagreed, because, naturally, at their houses wires just run willy-nilly wherever they have to go, without recognition of any type of code or safety feature. The gist of the discussion was that they wanted the installers to give them a list of all the materials we need, and WE would go together to buy the materials. This will save money because they installers won't mark up the prices. It's a dubious plan, in my thinking, but they're in charge.
The dynamics of the meeting were incredibly impressive to me. They expressed themselves quite honestly, and when there were differences of opinion, they worked through those differences until there was consensus. At times, everyone spoke at once. When someone had something important to say which the whole group need to hear, they would shush the others to restore order. I'm not sure why the way they ran their meeting impressed me so much. I guess its because I have always been under the prejudiced perception that cooperation and planning among a group of people required skills obtained through formal education. It's clear, however, that the education my friends have received in the neighborhood, having to resolve disputes and find ways to co-exist peacefully, is just as effective as learning how to discuss things in a classroom. Perhaps it is better, since the things they deal with are "real" and directly affect their lives.
Around 6:00 pm we went out to find the Candomblé festa. It was just around the corner in someone's house. The house was bigger and nicer than those of any of my friends. Apparently, they had already done the "ceremony," but were willing to give us a taste of things. I was introduced to Exu (an orisha), who was inhabiting (?) a roguish-looking fellow in his mid-20s with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. We took seats, and he started moving around the living room singing candomblé songs. Everyone accompanied him with rhythmic clapping. Copious amounts of beer and liquor, cigarettes and marijuana were being consumed by Exu and those he interacted with. Songs began and ended suddenly and (to me) randomly. Exu started hounding one fellow in particular. I say hounding, because the guy didn't want to participate. He tried to leave, and Exu blocked his way. I started to feel uncomforable, because the fellow was clearly distressed. He was a little bit effeminate, so it almost seemed like he was being teased by Exu because of his sexuality. Then, suddenly, he just sat down with his head in his hands in resignation. At that point, the women took him into another room. He emerged dressed in the garb of an initiate. From that point on, he was the primary singer along with Exu.
I must say, the whole experience was extremely bizarre to me. I've been to candomblé ceremonies in terreiros (houses of worship) where all the elements of the religion are clear, from the sacrificed animal to the central pole around which people dance, to the instruments, offerings, clothing, and colors. What I witnessed in this house came across to me as a "wannabe"version of a candomblé ceremony, a "slummed-down" version where lowlifes could use it as an excuse to get drunk and high. My perceptions are incorrect, of course. The owners of the house were responsible elderly people. One young woman was taking pictures to commemorate the occasion. Everyone behaved just as they were supposed to in the context of candomblé ritual. The orisha Exu is the African god who is most misunderstood and disrespected by non-practitioners. He is the trickster, the prankster, the pimp, the whore. He is often depicted as the devil in the Christian community because he does not behave well. He brings out all the repressed or sublimated emotions in the people around him, including alternate sexual identities and lust. Naturally, Joelma showed up and played the part with Exu, but she didn't really have her spirit in it, just her body. She took turns with Exu drinking liquor from the bottle, trying to outdo him and show him up. In my opinion, this is really dangerous, because one can't outdo a "god."
Around 8:00, we left so I could catch the bus back to Rio Vermelho. I hope this was my time on the long trip for a while. I should be moving out to Pirajá Tuesday or Wednesday. The women insisted that I move out there as soon as possible to help with the purchasing. I will stay in the guest room (yes, she has a guest room) at Fabricio's grandmother's house until the water and power on installed. Hopefully, this will only be a few days. In that time, I will also have to buy a bed or cot, chair, lamp etc. I'm a little apprehensive, but I'll feel much better about it after I know I have internet access. I'm going on Monday afternoon with Sergio to buy the cellular modem for my computer.
A few other random memories of the day:
Fabricio wants to bring together Mestre Batata, Junior Amorim, me, and others to create a new hybrid type of orchestra, and make a CD.
I learned that Joelma has twins, that her husband committed suicide a few years ago, and that she's going to Spain for six months in June. (*sigh of relief*)
Monday, May 25, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Ah, the Humanity!
(Written Tuesday, May 19, 14th day in Brazil)
I caught the bus mid-morning to go out to Pirajá. This was my first trip out there by myself, and it went very quickly. All the connections were quick, there were few passengers, and we hit mostly green lights. Coming back in the evening was a different story! Jocelita and Fabricio joined me for the ride to Rio Vermelho so they could participate in the farewell program/party for the Yale group, which leaves early tomorrow morning. But there was a traffic jam on the highway (BR-324). The trip ended up taking 2 1/2 hours. Luckily, we had seats. Some folks were standing the entire time, as the bus lurched foreward a couple of feet at a time. The other side of the coin to our predicament was the fact that thousands of people standing at bus stops along the road had no buses to catch, because they were all caught in traffic. Ah, the humanity! It is quite something to see such massive crowds suffer in silence, day after day, just to get where they need to go to make a living for their families.
Fabricio was napping when I arrived, because he had participated in a soccer game at 5 a.m. His older brother, Claudio, stopped by while I was waiting for him to get ready. Claudio (about whom I had forgotten, I'm ashamed to say) lives a few houses away.
Fabricio and I went to the store so I could buy a pair of work gloves, which were more like knitted kid gloves than work gloves, but they were better than nothing. We took the big garbage bags down to QZ and started cleaning up. My goal was to pick up all non-biodegradeable material from around the outside of the building. What a mess! It was truly, truly disgusting. The neighbors, knowing that the QZ facility was unoccupied most of the time, have gotten in the habit of throwing their garbage over the wall. Cleaning up was like digging through a landfill. There was layer after layer of plastic bags full of rotting garbage, plastic bottles, old clothes and shoes, and many many things completely unidentifiable. Also, despite being biodegradeable, I decided to break down and carry out the large sheets of "madeira compensada" (plywood) that was so rotten it could be folded in half like a piece of paper. If there was anything good to come out of the garbage, it was the fact that a few seeds from leftover fruits and vegetables had taken root and were growing into very healthy plants. Fabricio pulled up one carrot which was bigger than most of the ones you get at the grocery store in the U.S. We were careful to leave a nice big eggplant vine alone so it might yield something in the future. We didn't work long, but we worked hard. We filled 5 large bags with garbage and hauled it out to the street, just in time for the garbage truck to come by (they look the same as in the U.S.) While we worked, we were joined by Edilson, Jocelita's oldest boy, as well as Gigo and Willian. The guys all felt that it would be better to finish the cleanup job in a "mutirão"-type effort with Fabricio's capoeira group. This made some sense to me, but of course meant we weren't going to finish the job today. Before we broke for lunch, Edilson ripped out some of the vegetation growing on the retaining wall buttresses and destroyed a very large termite mound built on top of the concrete wall. We tried to burn the debris, but it was too wet.
About termites: When you see how these creatures prosper in this climate, you come to understand why everything is made of concrete. Although there is very little wood in the QZ structure, there is some–the rafters for the roof, the door, etc. The termites build these meandering tubes all along the brick walls until they find something made of wood. You can easily scrape off the a section of the tube and see termites busily running back and forth inside. They're fascinating little insects, but they have to be monitored all the time.
Back at Fabricio's house, Isabel had fixed a nice (and, thankfully, small) lunch. She really is a good cook. I want to get her recipes to give to the Sisters. Rather than going back to work after lunch, we hung around and listened to music and rested. He introduced me to a new (old) group that's been around forever, Roupas Novas (New Clothes). Monalisa told me her favorite artists were 50 Cent, Beyoncé, and Chris Brown.
Eventually, Jocelita and Nilzete showed up and we had a meeting about the youth trip planning. Unfortunately, I was being particularly inarticulate during the meeting. When confronted with complicated things to say, I get all my verb tenses mixed up. They helped me along, finishing most of my thoughts for me.
I conveyed our hope that QZ could be up and running for a month in advance (June) of the Mutirão. We will pay one minimum salary per person for June and July to get things going. If they want to stretch that money out so things can be sustained for a longer period, all the better. I expressed that OUR goal (which I acknowledged is not necessarily their goal) is to have this two month period serve as seed time/money for something that might be self-sustaining.
There is no shortage of ideas for what the space can be used as. They know a woman who needs a space to rent for her creche (day-care), and the downstairs is perfectly set up for that. Fabricio brought up his idea of using the space for imprinting t-shirts. (The women didn't seem real keen on this idea.) Later, on the bus, Fabricio and Jocelita were brainstorming/fantasizing about having a computer room (what they call LAN) set up in QZ. I told them I'd check on whether anybody in the U.S. had old laptops they would donate, which could be brought down in carry-on bags. Interestingly, Fabricio has been using the building to hold meetings of a support group of young people who would like to have homes of their own but are unable to afford them and must live with their families. This is, in my mind, a perfect activity to be held at QZ.
We discussed activities for the youth group. There is a lot of work to be done. Jocelita is going to do the research to find out how much it will cost to install wiring and hook up the water. They have a friend who will donate the actual wires. All that would be left is to get Sergio to help facility tapping into the electric grid. Jocelita is also going to ask a local mason for a quote to plaster (reboca) the upstairs. It would be great if we could actually bring enough to get these three projects done. Our students could help with the plastering, mixing the ingredients and hauling them in to the professionals, building the passive solar water heater (aquecedor de agua), and perhaps making a sign for the front and doing some landscaping. Programmatically speaking, we will probably have a musical instrument building workshop with kids, some simple language games, capoeira and/or ju-jitsu, and soccer. Plus the t-shirts. I think this is all probably too much, but we can sort things out over the next couple of weeks.
Before hopping on the bus for the LONG ride back to Rio Vermelho, Fabricio made me a Nevada, which is a type of alcoholic drink. He sent Monique out on the errand to collect the necessary ingredients: vodka, sweetened condensed milk, limes, ice, and a blender. I have begun to realize that although their house is tiny, the residents of their little corner of the neighborhood function more like a family compound, where they borrow and lend items among themselves. Need ice? Run to grandma's where there is a freezer with some ice trays. Need a blender? Whistle over to the next door neighbor (vizinha). Also, I began to realize that family life is very different here. When you're "stuck" in such a small house, you learn to cooperate and play with each other. Privacy is non-existent. I imagine that after 15 years of never having any private time or space, a teenager with raging hormones would do almost anything to find (or make) a magical moment with the opposite sex. If an opportunity for alone time came along, it might seem as though it were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Here's a very short clip of us sitting around in the living room listening to music.
Back at the Casa, the carnival group Os Negões (a relatively new and young bloco afro) made one last appearance for the Yale farewell celebration. I should qualify that by saying six people from Os Negões performed. There are 300 musicians in the group, and during Carnival, approximately 2000 march with them through the streets of Salvador. In the clip, notice the young kid playing the bass drum in front. He's only thirteen and he's got all the right moves. When he plays, it's as if every beat of the drum gives him new joy.
I caught the bus mid-morning to go out to Pirajá. This was my first trip out there by myself, and it went very quickly. All the connections were quick, there were few passengers, and we hit mostly green lights. Coming back in the evening was a different story! Jocelita and Fabricio joined me for the ride to Rio Vermelho so they could participate in the farewell program/party for the Yale group, which leaves early tomorrow morning. But there was a traffic jam on the highway (BR-324). The trip ended up taking 2 1/2 hours. Luckily, we had seats. Some folks were standing the entire time, as the bus lurched foreward a couple of feet at a time. The other side of the coin to our predicament was the fact that thousands of people standing at bus stops along the road had no buses to catch, because they were all caught in traffic. Ah, the humanity! It is quite something to see such massive crowds suffer in silence, day after day, just to get where they need to go to make a living for their families.
Fabricio was napping when I arrived, because he had participated in a soccer game at 5 a.m. His older brother, Claudio, stopped by while I was waiting for him to get ready. Claudio (about whom I had forgotten, I'm ashamed to say) lives a few houses away.
Fabricio and I went to the store so I could buy a pair of work gloves, which were more like knitted kid gloves than work gloves, but they were better than nothing. We took the big garbage bags down to QZ and started cleaning up. My goal was to pick up all non-biodegradeable material from around the outside of the building. What a mess! It was truly, truly disgusting. The neighbors, knowing that the QZ facility was unoccupied most of the time, have gotten in the habit of throwing their garbage over the wall. Cleaning up was like digging through a landfill. There was layer after layer of plastic bags full of rotting garbage, plastic bottles, old clothes and shoes, and many many things completely unidentifiable. Also, despite being biodegradeable, I decided to break down and carry out the large sheets of "madeira compensada" (plywood) that was so rotten it could be folded in half like a piece of paper. If there was anything good to come out of the garbage, it was the fact that a few seeds from leftover fruits and vegetables had taken root and were growing into very healthy plants. Fabricio pulled up one carrot which was bigger than most of the ones you get at the grocery store in the U.S. We were careful to leave a nice big eggplant vine alone so it might yield something in the future. We didn't work long, but we worked hard. We filled 5 large bags with garbage and hauled it out to the street, just in time for the garbage truck to come by (they look the same as in the U.S.) While we worked, we were joined by Edilson, Jocelita's oldest boy, as well as Gigo and Willian. The guys all felt that it would be better to finish the cleanup job in a "mutirão"-type effort with Fabricio's capoeira group. This made some sense to me, but of course meant we weren't going to finish the job today. Before we broke for lunch, Edilson ripped out some of the vegetation growing on the retaining wall buttresses and destroyed a very large termite mound built on top of the concrete wall. We tried to burn the debris, but it was too wet.
About termites: When you see how these creatures prosper in this climate, you come to understand why everything is made of concrete. Although there is very little wood in the QZ structure, there is some–the rafters for the roof, the door, etc. The termites build these meandering tubes all along the brick walls until they find something made of wood. You can easily scrape off the a section of the tube and see termites busily running back and forth inside. They're fascinating little insects, but they have to be monitored all the time.
Back at Fabricio's house, Isabel had fixed a nice (and, thankfully, small) lunch. She really is a good cook. I want to get her recipes to give to the Sisters. Rather than going back to work after lunch, we hung around and listened to music and rested. He introduced me to a new (old) group that's been around forever, Roupas Novas (New Clothes). Monalisa told me her favorite artists were 50 Cent, Beyoncé, and Chris Brown.
Eventually, Jocelita and Nilzete showed up and we had a meeting about the youth trip planning. Unfortunately, I was being particularly inarticulate during the meeting. When confronted with complicated things to say, I get all my verb tenses mixed up. They helped me along, finishing most of my thoughts for me.
I conveyed our hope that QZ could be up and running for a month in advance (June) of the Mutirão. We will pay one minimum salary per person for June and July to get things going. If they want to stretch that money out so things can be sustained for a longer period, all the better. I expressed that OUR goal (which I acknowledged is not necessarily their goal) is to have this two month period serve as seed time/money for something that might be self-sustaining.
There is no shortage of ideas for what the space can be used as. They know a woman who needs a space to rent for her creche (day-care), and the downstairs is perfectly set up for that. Fabricio brought up his idea of using the space for imprinting t-shirts. (The women didn't seem real keen on this idea.) Later, on the bus, Fabricio and Jocelita were brainstorming/fantasizing about having a computer room (what they call LAN) set up in QZ. I told them I'd check on whether anybody in the U.S. had old laptops they would donate, which could be brought down in carry-on bags. Interestingly, Fabricio has been using the building to hold meetings of a support group of young people who would like to have homes of their own but are unable to afford them and must live with their families. This is, in my mind, a perfect activity to be held at QZ.
We discussed activities for the youth group. There is a lot of work to be done. Jocelita is going to do the research to find out how much it will cost to install wiring and hook up the water. They have a friend who will donate the actual wires. All that would be left is to get Sergio to help facility tapping into the electric grid. Jocelita is also going to ask a local mason for a quote to plaster (reboca) the upstairs. It would be great if we could actually bring enough to get these three projects done. Our students could help with the plastering, mixing the ingredients and hauling them in to the professionals, building the passive solar water heater (aquecedor de agua), and perhaps making a sign for the front and doing some landscaping. Programmatically speaking, we will probably have a musical instrument building workshop with kids, some simple language games, capoeira and/or ju-jitsu, and soccer. Plus the t-shirts. I think this is all probably too much, but we can sort things out over the next couple of weeks.
Before hopping on the bus for the LONG ride back to Rio Vermelho, Fabricio made me a Nevada, which is a type of alcoholic drink. He sent Monique out on the errand to collect the necessary ingredients: vodka, sweetened condensed milk, limes, ice, and a blender. I have begun to realize that although their house is tiny, the residents of their little corner of the neighborhood function more like a family compound, where they borrow and lend items among themselves. Need ice? Run to grandma's where there is a freezer with some ice trays. Need a blender? Whistle over to the next door neighbor (vizinha). Also, I began to realize that family life is very different here. When you're "stuck" in such a small house, you learn to cooperate and play with each other. Privacy is non-existent. I imagine that after 15 years of never having any private time or space, a teenager with raging hormones would do almost anything to find (or make) a magical moment with the opposite sex. If an opportunity for alone time came along, it might seem as though it were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Here's a very short clip of us sitting around in the living room listening to music.
Back at the Casa, the carnival group Os Negões (a relatively new and young bloco afro) made one last appearance for the Yale farewell celebration. I should qualify that by saying six people from Os Negões performed. There are 300 musicians in the group, and during Carnival, approximately 2000 march with them through the streets of Salvador. In the clip, notice the young kid playing the bass drum in front. He's only thirteen and he's got all the right moves. When he plays, it's as if every beat of the drum gives him new joy.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Rain Rain Go Away
Monday, 12th day in Brazil
Not much has been going on the past couple of days. Sunday I sat around all day and studied Portuguese. After just a little while, it really doesn't do much good to study. The only way to really KNOW the stuff (and those of you who teach languages know this) is to HAVE TO use it in a conversation. I think the combination of need plus frustration plus grasping at whisps of memory help me remember vocabulary and syntax better than any solitary studying. Sorry, Rosetta Stone!
Today, I had planned to go out to Pirajá to work at QZ cleaning up for a bit, and to have a conversation with the Five Women (hereafter known as FW and includes Jocelita, Isabela, Casilda, Daniela, and Nilzete) about planning for the youth group trip in July. But it rained in torrents all day, and was not conducive to work, nor to travel on a bus. I'll try to go tomorrow instead.
Tonight, I joined the Yale group for a presentation at ITEBA in the evening. Marlene and Dr. Emily Townes both spoke about their respective institutions (ITEBA and Yale Theological Seminary). Marlene spoke about the 22 year history of ITEBA, of its gradual shift away from its IPU roots towards womanist theology and leadership, and especially of her passion for YAMI. There is a new course they are trying to get off the ground which I won't comment on until I can get a brochure about it and describe it accurately. She spoke quite directly and bluntly about the circumstances last year when Djalma was elected President and tried to "change the face of ITEBA." In this telling, the students, faculty, and staff rebelled against his efforts because he was trying to move ITEBA away from what has become the heart of the institution: a place for poor, Black women to write their own theology through their own stories.
Dr. Emily Townes gave a brief history of Yale, and told us about the current seminary, which offers a Masters of Divinity, Masters of Arts in Religion, or a Masters of Religious Art (Fine Arts). They also have students from the African American Studies Department. I didn't take notes, but their program sounds challenging and tumultuous. Yale likes to tout Dr. Townes as the first African-American, woman Dean of the Theology School, but, as she said, they don't want to "go too far" in advertising their diversity by mentioning that she is also a lesbian. A traditional place like Yale has its conservative faction, as well. Dr. Townes politely implied that it was sometimes difficult to get along with her colleagues.
Dr. Townes had some very interesting things to say about Womanist Theology. First, she said, it is more of a methodology than a discipline. This seems obvious to me, because it is first and foremost about questioning old assumptions. As soon as new answers are found, they must necessarily be questioned themselves. It never has the chance to become a "discpline," as such, because it never has time to coalesce. That would mean stagnation in the methodology. Some of the ITEBA students asked very pertinent questions. But the most interesting question to me came from one of her own students. He asked if it were possible for a white male to be a Womanist. She replied it is was perhaps possible, but only if that white male "figuratively and literally" became a black woman. (I think she only meant figuratively, because she never mentioned anything about plastic surgery!) She said if a white man actually lived with and walked beside black women and allowed himself to learn from the inside what their spirituality was about, then PERHAPS he could call himself a womanist. But Dr. Townes immediately disagreed with herself, suggesting that it might just have to be enough for white men to "get out of the way" and let womanists be self-determining and self-actualizing.
My own feelings on this go back to my days in Baltimore when I was part of the Baltimore Men's Anti-Sexist Collective. We had a habit of calling ourselves PRO-feminists, not Feminists, because (although mostly a matter of semantics) we were NOT women and therefore were incapable of truly understanding their perspective. All we could do was allow ourselves to follow their lead and support their cause. In the same way, I think it is possible to be PRO-Womanist, and lead (other men) by being a follower and a listener, by acknowleding that even if I "walk beside" women of color for a day or a week or a month, I still will not have EXPERIENCED their history, nor their future. I can, and will, leave their world behind when it suits me. I, therefore, cannot presume to be an insider among Womanists, no matter how much I WANT to believe I know where they've been.
This does not negate the efforts I, and others, make with our friends at ITEBA or in Pirajá. It just makes it ever more clear that the definition of leadership, in this situation, must be turned on its head. As some people (who I usually make fun of) like to call themselves "Christ-Followers" instead of Christians, we must, if we are to to do mission as Christ would have us do it, substitute them for Him. In other words, allow the poor, Black women to show us a Way; allow them to "be" the Christ that we are proud to follow.
I doubt any of this makes much sense. Anyway, after the talk, Sydney and 3 of the 12 menbers of his Reggae band played a few songs for us with just a guitar, calabash, and singer. Here's a clip.
Not much has been going on the past couple of days. Sunday I sat around all day and studied Portuguese. After just a little while, it really doesn't do much good to study. The only way to really KNOW the stuff (and those of you who teach languages know this) is to HAVE TO use it in a conversation. I think the combination of need plus frustration plus grasping at whisps of memory help me remember vocabulary and syntax better than any solitary studying. Sorry, Rosetta Stone!
Today, I had planned to go out to Pirajá to work at QZ cleaning up for a bit, and to have a conversation with the Five Women (hereafter known as FW and includes Jocelita, Isabela, Casilda, Daniela, and Nilzete) about planning for the youth group trip in July. But it rained in torrents all day, and was not conducive to work, nor to travel on a bus. I'll try to go tomorrow instead.
Tonight, I joined the Yale group for a presentation at ITEBA in the evening. Marlene and Dr. Emily Townes both spoke about their respective institutions (ITEBA and Yale Theological Seminary). Marlene spoke about the 22 year history of ITEBA, of its gradual shift away from its IPU roots towards womanist theology and leadership, and especially of her passion for YAMI. There is a new course they are trying to get off the ground which I won't comment on until I can get a brochure about it and describe it accurately. She spoke quite directly and bluntly about the circumstances last year when Djalma was elected President and tried to "change the face of ITEBA." In this telling, the students, faculty, and staff rebelled against his efforts because he was trying to move ITEBA away from what has become the heart of the institution: a place for poor, Black women to write their own theology through their own stories.
Dr. Emily Townes gave a brief history of Yale, and told us about the current seminary, which offers a Masters of Divinity, Masters of Arts in Religion, or a Masters of Religious Art (Fine Arts). They also have students from the African American Studies Department. I didn't take notes, but their program sounds challenging and tumultuous. Yale likes to tout Dr. Townes as the first African-American, woman Dean of the Theology School, but, as she said, they don't want to "go too far" in advertising their diversity by mentioning that she is also a lesbian. A traditional place like Yale has its conservative faction, as well. Dr. Townes politely implied that it was sometimes difficult to get along with her colleagues.
Dr. Townes had some very interesting things to say about Womanist Theology. First, she said, it is more of a methodology than a discipline. This seems obvious to me, because it is first and foremost about questioning old assumptions. As soon as new answers are found, they must necessarily be questioned themselves. It never has the chance to become a "discpline," as such, because it never has time to coalesce. That would mean stagnation in the methodology. Some of the ITEBA students asked very pertinent questions. But the most interesting question to me came from one of her own students. He asked if it were possible for a white male to be a Womanist. She replied it is was perhaps possible, but only if that white male "figuratively and literally" became a black woman. (I think she only meant figuratively, because she never mentioned anything about plastic surgery!) She said if a white man actually lived with and walked beside black women and allowed himself to learn from the inside what their spirituality was about, then PERHAPS he could call himself a womanist. But Dr. Townes immediately disagreed with herself, suggesting that it might just have to be enough for white men to "get out of the way" and let womanists be self-determining and self-actualizing.
My own feelings on this go back to my days in Baltimore when I was part of the Baltimore Men's Anti-Sexist Collective. We had a habit of calling ourselves PRO-feminists, not Feminists, because (although mostly a matter of semantics) we were NOT women and therefore were incapable of truly understanding their perspective. All we could do was allow ourselves to follow their lead and support their cause. In the same way, I think it is possible to be PRO-Womanist, and lead (other men) by being a follower and a listener, by acknowleding that even if I "walk beside" women of color for a day or a week or a month, I still will not have EXPERIENCED their history, nor their future. I can, and will, leave their world behind when it suits me. I, therefore, cannot presume to be an insider among Womanists, no matter how much I WANT to believe I know where they've been.
This does not negate the efforts I, and others, make with our friends at ITEBA or in Pirajá. It just makes it ever more clear that the definition of leadership, in this situation, must be turned on its head. As some people (who I usually make fun of) like to call themselves "Christ-Followers" instead of Christians, we must, if we are to to do mission as Christ would have us do it, substitute them for Him. In other words, allow the poor, Black women to show us a Way; allow them to "be" the Christ that we are proud to follow.
I doubt any of this makes much sense. Anyway, after the talk, Sydney and 3 of the 12 menbers of his Reggae band played a few songs for us with just a guitar, calabash, and singer. Here's a clip.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Um outro bom dia!
Saturday, May 16, 2009: tenth day in Brazil
Today was a good day! Fabricio, bless his heart, came all the way to Rio Vermelho to pick me up and go right back to Pirajá on the bus. The one-way trip takes 2 hours, and is incredibly crowded the whole way. Ultimately, he traveled 8 hours on a bus today, because he insisted on accompanying me on the way home, as well. By the way, bus fair is R$2.20, a reasonable price to us, but to an unemployed twenty-four year old, is a lot of money.
Just as we arrived in Pirajá, it started to pour down rain. Luckily I remembered my umbrella, but being so small, it really didn’t do any good. Also, the (very) steep street quickly became a river.
We took shelter in a local grocery story so I could buy a bottle of water. As we waited, I watched whole trash bags full of garbage wash down the street, along with pebbles and an incredible amount of mud. There are NO storm drains in the favelas!! Honestly, I don’t know how they manage to keep things up and running in these poor neighborhoods with all this rain. This was just a little 15 minute shower, and it looked like they should have called in the national guard!
We got tired of waiting and ran the rest of the way to Fabricio’s house, via his grandmother’s house. She was prepared to give me a room to stay in for the night, but I insisted on returning to the Casa, mostly because I wasn’t prepared for an overnight visit—no extra clothes, no toothbrush, etc. At Fabricio's, just a few houses down and behind his grandmother, I found the whole family hanging out in the house while it rained—Isabel’s (pictured at left) current husband (who I don’t know), Willian, Monalisa, Monique, Anaclara, Hugo, and one of Monalisa’s friends. Isabel had cooked a really nice meal for us (me), including boiled beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, ocra, caxixi (like a small cucumber), and cabbage. Also pot roast and a sausage, and a staple starch whose name I don’t know, probably made with cassava or corn. It was all really good, and I’m not lying! I even ate the beet.
After lunch, we sat around for a while in the living room and Fabricio played some music for me. First a mix CD of samba. Then a little of his “gospel” music. He loaned me the CDs to copy, and wrote down the names for me. As I was sitting there, I contemplated the life they lead. The total square footage in there house, for 8 people, was about 250 square feet. Fabricio sleeps in the same room (60 sq. ft.) with his brother and oldest sister and his son. They have two small couches and two small stools in the living room with a small table in between. At one end of the living room is their entertainment center, and I don’t put that in quotes because it is an honest-to-god entertainment center. They have a flat screen TV, a state of the art CD/DVD player, a nice amp, and really nice speakers that would suffice for a house 10 times the size of this one. Heaven knows why they have a flatscreen, since they don’t have cable or satellite, and only get a very fuzzy analog broadcast picture. (I won't discuss the cliché of poor people with expensive toys. Suffice it to say, it is a complicated sociological phenomenon that crosses all cultural boundaries.) The bathroom is, needless to say, very small, and has no door, but rather a curtain draped across the opening. It is next to the kitchen. Their refrigerator is large, but 100% covered in rust. Their stove is very small, and pots and pans stay on the top or in the oven. There is a (relatively) large kitchen table with two chairs. Fabricio and I ate in the kitchen while the others ate in the living room. Outside was a tiny covered sidewalk separating their house from the house next door. It, in turn, led to the slightly bigger alley which is their street (Avenida Petrolina), In this outside, yet covered, area, was their washer—basically a tank for handwashing clothes. All water emptying from the house goes into a gully directly behind the house and then down the steep hillside. The view from their house is genuinely beautiful. After the hard shower, looking out on St. Bartholomew’s park with steam rising from the trees was lovely.
Willian, Monique, and
Hugo(pictured at left) joined me and Fabricio on the walk over to old Pirajá, which is separated from the Pirajá I know by a canyon. On the way, we passed by Joelma’s house. Joelma is the girl who begged to become one of my friends in Orkut. After resisting for a while, I finally let her. I shouldn’t have. In her mind, she is already married to me! She came up and gave me a HUGE, TIGHT hug, like we were long lost lovers. Our little group had to pause while she flirted with me for a while. She offered to drive me (actually, offered for her brother to drive me) back to Rio Vermelho later in the day. I looked behind her and there he was, coyly listening in while he worked on his car. He gave me a not-so-subtle nod and raised his eyebrow as if to say, “Take my sister, please!” I politely declined, despite being called crazy by everyone for wanting to take the bus back. She started pouting and we continued on our walk.
When we crossed the tiny bridge across the stream at the bottom of the canyon, I found it hard to imagine the torrent that must happen every time it rains. People live right next to the stream, and, I guess luckily, it recedes as quickly as it rises.
We arrived at the public school where Mestre Batata and visiting Mestre Samuraye were in the midst of capoeira class/rehearsal for their capoeira school/group, called Mundo Capoeira. Mundo Capoeira is a trademark of Mestre Dendê, who lives in Belgium. Apparently there are a few Mundo Capoeira schools in Europe, and others across Brazil. According to Fabricio, they are all in areas like Pirajá. This leads me to believe it is non-profit foundation, or something like that, meant to give kids in the poor areas an activity. According to Batata, no one pays for these Saturday classes (although he has courses in the evening during the week which come with a fee.)
The ages of the students ranged from about 6
years old up to, I would guess, mid-twenties. Mestre Samuraye lives and works in the interior in a place called Conceição de Ciaté, about a three hour drive away. Once every month or two, he comes to Pirajá to join Batata in his teaching for a few days. The space they were using was quite spacious and cool from a cross-breeze. When I arrived, Batata had them stop what they were doing and they did a traditional African dance from the slave era, including dancing with sticks in a manner similar to calinda stick fighting in Trinidad. (The sticks seem to be a common element in capoeira peroformance—Luciano’s group in Pelourinho used them at the climax of their show.) It’s all very rhythmical, yet not so difficult that very young children would be in danger of getting hurt.
After the short demonstration, they began their capoeira rehearsal, forming the typical roda (circle).
Jeiias (Fabricio’s close friend) played berimbau and sang most of the time, but danced a some (pictured at left). He's really good! Batata and Samuraye, I noticed, danced mostly with the youngest children to encourage them to try new things. Almost always, they would end each pairing after about one minute by allowing “accidental” physical contact with one of their capoeira moves. The physical language of capoeira is well-documented; how capoeira moderna differs from traditional capoeira is something I’ll have to learn in an interview with Batata, or through comparison between Luciano’s group and this one. One of the other capoeiristas, I later learned, was Batata’s son. Although it was mostly boys, there were a couple of girls. The racial mix was quite diverse, with a couple of kids looking as if they could have come from a farm in Iowa. It was easy to recognize the more experienced people even without watching them dance because they had ropes tied around their wastes. One starts as a novice, and doesn’t receive a rope until well into the intermediate level. Jeiias, who was fantastic, still is at the second intermediate level. Fabricio is still at the first intermediate level. They’ve both been doing capoeira for about 8 years.
One thing I noticed is the strong attitude of friendship and mutual support among the students. The typical “sparring” session starts with the two “combatants” kneeling in front of the musicians. They do a kind of sideways high five, then enter the circle with some flashy cartwheel or handspring or spin. When they finish “sparring,” they always embrace or shake hands. At that point, the emotional connection between the “combatants” is strongest. They’ve just shared a “battle” and survived, feeding off each others’ energy and improvising each move based on the move of their opponent. Capoeira is a martial art, no doubt. But it is also a great way to teach sportsmanship, cooperation, and musicianship, and love for one’s neighbor.
They had started their practice around 1:00. We arrive around 2:30, and they finished around 3:30.
After rehearsal, Samuraye, Batata, and several others joined us to walk back over to “new” Pirajá for a look at Quilombo Zeferina. During the rehearsal, Fabricio had gone to get his other son, Marcello, who is between 1 and 2 years old, and is very quiet, unlike his half-brother Hugo. I was touched at the way Willian and Monique and Fabricio’s friend Jeiias took turns looking after the babies.
We we got to QZ, I found myself in the position of having to describe the history of the place to Samuraye, who was seeing it for the first time. This was odd, yet in a way gratifying. I was surrounded by people who COULD have told the story, but they wanted me to do it. I get the genuine feeling that they consider me “part of the family/neighborhood.” This was confirmed later, as Fabricio and I rode the bus back to Rio Vermelho. He said I should always feel at home in Pirajá, and that it will be very safe for me there, because the whole neighborhood looks after its own, including me. Given the headache of the bus ride, I’m having “third” thoughts about living at QZ. I think I will have to go out there, at least for the month of June after the electricity and water are hooked up. Besides being closer to my “informants,” I will also have a lot more fun. I can’t wait to sit around with the gang at night and play dominoes, using refrigerantes (sodas) as bets.
Left to right: Mestre Samuraye, Hugo, Me, Marcello, Fabricio, Mestre Batata.
Today was a good day! Fabricio, bless his heart, came all the way to Rio Vermelho to pick me up and go right back to Pirajá on the bus. The one-way trip takes 2 hours, and is incredibly crowded the whole way. Ultimately, he traveled 8 hours on a bus today, because he insisted on accompanying me on the way home, as well. By the way, bus fair is R$2.20, a reasonable price to us, but to an unemployed twenty-four year old, is a lot of money.
Just as we arrived in Pirajá, it started to pour down rain. Luckily I remembered my umbrella, but being so small, it really didn’t do any good. Also, the (very) steep street quickly became a river.
We took shelter in a local grocery story so I could buy a bottle of water. As we waited, I watched whole trash bags full of garbage wash down the street, along with pebbles and an incredible amount of mud. There are NO storm drains in the favelas!! Honestly, I don’t know how they manage to keep things up and running in these poor neighborhoods with all this rain. This was just a little 15 minute shower, and it looked like they should have called in the national guard!We got tired of waiting and ran the rest of the way to Fabricio’s house, via his grandmother’s house. She was prepared to give me a room to stay in for the night, but I insisted on returning to the Casa, mostly because I wasn’t prepared for an overnight visit—no extra clothes, no toothbrush, etc. At Fabricio's, just a few houses down and behind his grandmother, I found the whole family hanging out in the house while it rained—Isabel’s (pictured at left) current husband (who I don’t know), Willian, Monalisa, Monique, Anaclara, Hugo, and one of Monalisa’s friends. Isabel had cooked a really nice meal for us (me), including boiled beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, ocra, caxixi (like a small cucumber), and cabbage. Also pot roast and a sausage, and a staple starch whose name I don’t know, probably made with cassava or corn. It was all really good, and I’m not lying! I even ate the beet.
After lunch, we sat around for a while in the living room and Fabricio played some music for me. First a mix CD of samba. Then a little of his “gospel” music. He loaned me the CDs to copy, and wrote down the names for me. As I was sitting there, I contemplated the life they lead. The total square footage in there house, for 8 people, was about 250 square feet. Fabricio sleeps in the same room (60 sq. ft.) with his brother and oldest sister and his son. They have two small couches and two small stools in the living room with a small table in between. At one end of the living room is their entertainment center, and I don’t put that in quotes because it is an honest-to-god entertainment center. They have a flat screen TV, a state of the art CD/DVD player, a nice amp, and really nice speakers that would suffice for a house 10 times the size of this one. Heaven knows why they have a flatscreen, since they don’t have cable or satellite, and only get a very fuzzy analog broadcast picture. (I won't discuss the cliché of poor people with expensive toys. Suffice it to say, it is a complicated sociological phenomenon that crosses all cultural boundaries.) The bathroom is, needless to say, very small, and has no door, but rather a curtain draped across the opening. It is next to the kitchen. Their refrigerator is large, but 100% covered in rust. Their stove is very small, and pots and pans stay on the top or in the oven. There is a (relatively) large kitchen table with two chairs. Fabricio and I ate in the kitchen while the others ate in the living room. Outside was a tiny covered sidewalk separating their house from the house next door. It, in turn, led to the slightly bigger alley which is their street (Avenida Petrolina), In this outside, yet covered, area, was their washer—basically a tank for handwashing clothes. All water emptying from the house goes into a gully directly behind the house and then down the steep hillside. The view from their house is genuinely beautiful. After the hard shower, looking out on St. Bartholomew’s park with steam rising from the trees was lovely.
Willian, Monique, and
Hugo(pictured at left) joined me and Fabricio on the walk over to old Pirajá, which is separated from the Pirajá I know by a canyon. On the way, we passed by Joelma’s house. Joelma is the girl who begged to become one of my friends in Orkut. After resisting for a while, I finally let her. I shouldn’t have. In her mind, she is already married to me! She came up and gave me a HUGE, TIGHT hug, like we were long lost lovers. Our little group had to pause while she flirted with me for a while. She offered to drive me (actually, offered for her brother to drive me) back to Rio Vermelho later in the day. I looked behind her and there he was, coyly listening in while he worked on his car. He gave me a not-so-subtle nod and raised his eyebrow as if to say, “Take my sister, please!” I politely declined, despite being called crazy by everyone for wanting to take the bus back. She started pouting and we continued on our walk.When we crossed the tiny bridge across the stream at the bottom of the canyon, I found it hard to imagine the torrent that must happen every time it rains. People live right next to the stream, and, I guess luckily, it recedes as quickly as it rises.
We arrived at the public school where Mestre Batata and visiting Mestre Samuraye were in the midst of capoeira class/rehearsal for their capoeira school/group, called Mundo Capoeira. Mundo Capoeira is a trademark of Mestre Dendê, who lives in Belgium. Apparently there are a few Mundo Capoeira schools in Europe, and others across Brazil. According to Fabricio, they are all in areas like Pirajá. This leads me to believe it is non-profit foundation, or something like that, meant to give kids in the poor areas an activity. According to Batata, no one pays for these Saturday classes (although he has courses in the evening during the week which come with a fee.)
The ages of the students ranged from about 6
years old up to, I would guess, mid-twenties. Mestre Samuraye lives and works in the interior in a place called Conceição de Ciaté, about a three hour drive away. Once every month or two, he comes to Pirajá to join Batata in his teaching for a few days. The space they were using was quite spacious and cool from a cross-breeze. When I arrived, Batata had them stop what they were doing and they did a traditional African dance from the slave era, including dancing with sticks in a manner similar to calinda stick fighting in Trinidad. (The sticks seem to be a common element in capoeira peroformance—Luciano’s group in Pelourinho used them at the climax of their show.) It’s all very rhythmical, yet not so difficult that very young children would be in danger of getting hurt.After the short demonstration, they began their capoeira rehearsal, forming the typical roda (circle).
Jeiias (Fabricio’s close friend) played berimbau and sang most of the time, but danced a some (pictured at left). He's really good! Batata and Samuraye, I noticed, danced mostly with the youngest children to encourage them to try new things. Almost always, they would end each pairing after about one minute by allowing “accidental” physical contact with one of their capoeira moves. The physical language of capoeira is well-documented; how capoeira moderna differs from traditional capoeira is something I’ll have to learn in an interview with Batata, or through comparison between Luciano’s group and this one. One of the other capoeiristas, I later learned, was Batata’s son. Although it was mostly boys, there were a couple of girls. The racial mix was quite diverse, with a couple of kids looking as if they could have come from a farm in Iowa. It was easy to recognize the more experienced people even without watching them dance because they had ropes tied around their wastes. One starts as a novice, and doesn’t receive a rope until well into the intermediate level. Jeiias, who was fantastic, still is at the second intermediate level. Fabricio is still at the first intermediate level. They’ve both been doing capoeira for about 8 years.One thing I noticed is the strong attitude of friendship and mutual support among the students. The typical “sparring” session starts with the two “combatants” kneeling in front of the musicians. They do a kind of sideways high five, then enter the circle with some flashy cartwheel or handspring or spin. When they finish “sparring,” they always embrace or shake hands. At that point, the emotional connection between the “combatants” is strongest. They’ve just shared a “battle” and survived, feeding off each others’ energy and improvising each move based on the move of their opponent. Capoeira is a martial art, no doubt. But it is also a great way to teach sportsmanship, cooperation, and musicianship, and love for one’s neighbor.
They had started their practice around 1:00. We arrive around 2:30, and they finished around 3:30.
After rehearsal, Samuraye, Batata, and several others joined us to walk back over to “new” Pirajá for a look at Quilombo Zeferina. During the rehearsal, Fabricio had gone to get his other son, Marcello, who is between 1 and 2 years old, and is very quiet, unlike his half-brother Hugo. I was touched at the way Willian and Monique and Fabricio’s friend Jeiias took turns looking after the babies.We we got to QZ, I found myself in the position of having to describe the history of the place to Samuraye, who was seeing it for the first time. This was odd, yet in a way gratifying. I was surrounded by people who COULD have told the story, but they wanted me to do it. I get the genuine feeling that they consider me “part of the family/neighborhood.” This was confirmed later, as Fabricio and I rode the bus back to Rio Vermelho. He said I should always feel at home in Pirajá, and that it will be very safe for me there, because the whole neighborhood looks after its own, including me. Given the headache of the bus ride, I’m having “third” thoughts about living at QZ. I think I will have to go out there, at least for the month of June after the electricity and water are hooked up. Besides being closer to my “informants,” I will also have a lot more fun. I can’t wait to sit around with the gang at night and play dominoes, using refrigerantes (sodas) as bets.
Left to right: Mestre Samuraye, Hugo, Me, Marcello, Fabricio, Mestre Batata.
Friday, May 15, 2009
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...
(Written May 14, 8th day in Brazil)
Finally, back at the Casa and a normal day! I joined the Yale group for a late departure to Pirajá. I found myself getting more and more excited the closer I got to this familiar setting. Upon arriving, I soon bumped into most of my friends. First, I saw Daniela, who was walking up the hill to open her school. About two years ago, she had to close it down for a reason I’m not sure of. But since January, she has had the school open again. It is a very cute little place for 3 – 10 year olds. Thank God for this, since most children don’t get started in public schools until they’re ten. I’ll have to go and watch her in action some day to see what and how they teach. She doesn’t have any teacher training, as far as I know, but I’m sure that anything she does is better than nothing.
I headed back down the hill and stopped by Casilda’s house. I first saw Caique, but thought he was Gigo because he’s grown so tall. Then I saw Gigo. He has changed a lot since 2007—more manly-looking and he has a great hairstyle of porcupine spikes in a mohawk. Also there was Morillo, who said he lives with them and is their brother, but I think must be a cousin. Jamele (and her baby) was somewhere else.
Walking back down the hill, I caught up with Fabricio who was ready to do the up-coming demonstration. I saw our young mentally handicapped friend Melque. And sitting on his stoop as usual was Marcos, who is very handsome and manly, although from appearances underfed. He seemed to be in a good mood, smiling more and interacting with the others more than last time we were here. Across the street at Jocelita’s barracha, I found Tio, who also is going through a growth spurt suggesting he’ll be just as big as his brothers, Gigo and Caique. Isabella (Fabricio’s mom) and a friend whose name I can’t remember were grilling skewers of meat for our lunch. They had quite a spread laid out for us, including a really delicious vegetable salad and kick-ass pimento (salsa). I saw Monalisa and Monique with a little boy and girl. Monalisa is looking mature and dutifully takes care of all the little ones running around. The little boy and girl turned out to be Hugo (Fabricio’s son) and Anaclara (Fabricio’s youngest half-sister), who of course I didn’t recognize because they had grown so much. Both of them are extremely outgoing and talkative. Hugo seemed to know me already, like I was his uncle, which was ingratiating. Also there was Sergio and the shy boy Naia, sitting up in a cocoa tree. He threw me down a cocoa pod in greeting when I went to say hello.
It was a festive atmosphere as we all ate lunch together. Jocelita was serving beer to the Yale students. I abstained, not wanting to dehydrate even more in the heat of the day. Morillo, Gigo, Caique, and Tio were all hungry, but wouldn’t get their own food because they didn’t know if they were allowed. I filled up several plates for them. I think these growing boys could have eaten the whole spread!
Most gratifying of all was the fact that I could more-or-less talk with any of my friends for the first time.
After lunch, the whole group went across the street for a tour of Quilombo Zeferina. I was anxious to see the state of things. It was very clean and neat inside, with the exception of a couple of areas where stuff was being stored. The paint job downstairs has held up well. The worst thing to see from an aesthetic p.o.v. was the horrible mess around the outside of the building. I think this will be a good project for me to do once or twice a week until it’s cleaned up. I took several pictures so we can start prioritizing the work our FPC/W&J kids will do, plus the work we may pay professionals to do, such as plastering the upstairs portion of the house. I really hope we can soon get the process started to get the license to install electricity and water. They have a tank for the water, which is in good condition, and the conduits and pipes for wires and water are all installed and ready. Even a toilet is installed.
Fabricio introduced me to Professor Batata, his capoeira instructor, and Jane, the administrative leader of the group. I think they would dearly like to combine forces with Quilombo Zeferina to have a more comprehensive capoeira school. They don’t really have much of a source of income, but teach for the love of the kids and the sport. Fabricio also introduced me to his (closest) friend Jaué.
After a bit of explanation by Professor Batata, the group performed. They do what he calls Capoeira Moderna, a novel style of capoeira being developed by him in the tradition of Mestre Dende, his teacher. Mestre Dende lives in Belgium. Jane and Batata have both lived and worked in Belgium and have traveled extensively. It’s great that they’re now here in Pirajá. They will make great informants for me. I plan to attend their rehearsal on Saturday. See the 6’40” clip here.
Before the group departed, I had a chance to see Casilda and Nilzete. Everyone seems excited to know I’ll be around for a few weeks.
Finally, back at the Casa and a normal day! I joined the Yale group for a late departure to Pirajá. I found myself getting more and more excited the closer I got to this familiar setting. Upon arriving, I soon bumped into most of my friends. First, I saw Daniela, who was walking up the hill to open her school. About two years ago, she had to close it down for a reason I’m not sure of. But since January, she has had the school open again. It is a very cute little place for 3 – 10 year olds. Thank God for this, since most children don’t get started in public schools until they’re ten. I’ll have to go and watch her in action some day to see what and how they teach. She doesn’t have any teacher training, as far as I know, but I’m sure that anything she does is better than nothing.
I headed back down the hill and stopped by Casilda’s house. I first saw Caique, but thought he was Gigo because he’s grown so tall. Then I saw Gigo. He has changed a lot since 2007—more manly-looking and he has a great hairstyle of porcupine spikes in a mohawk. Also there was Morillo, who said he lives with them and is their brother, but I think must be a cousin. Jamele (and her baby) was somewhere else.
Walking back down the hill, I caught up with Fabricio who was ready to do the up-coming demonstration. I saw our young mentally handicapped friend Melque. And sitting on his stoop as usual was Marcos, who is very handsome and manly, although from appearances underfed. He seemed to be in a good mood, smiling more and interacting with the others more than last time we were here. Across the street at Jocelita’s barracha, I found Tio, who also is going through a growth spurt suggesting he’ll be just as big as his brothers, Gigo and Caique. Isabella (Fabricio’s mom) and a friend whose name I can’t remember were grilling skewers of meat for our lunch. They had quite a spread laid out for us, including a really delicious vegetable salad and kick-ass pimento (salsa). I saw Monalisa and Monique with a little boy and girl. Monalisa is looking mature and dutifully takes care of all the little ones running around. The little boy and girl turned out to be Hugo (Fabricio’s son) and Anaclara (Fabricio’s youngest half-sister), who of course I didn’t recognize because they had grown so much. Both of them are extremely outgoing and talkative. Hugo seemed to know me already, like I was his uncle, which was ingratiating. Also there was Sergio and the shy boy Naia, sitting up in a cocoa tree. He threw me down a cocoa pod in greeting when I went to say hello.
It was a festive atmosphere as we all ate lunch together. Jocelita was serving beer to the Yale students. I abstained, not wanting to dehydrate even more in the heat of the day. Morillo, Gigo, Caique, and Tio were all hungry, but wouldn’t get their own food because they didn’t know if they were allowed. I filled up several plates for them. I think these growing boys could have eaten the whole spread!
Most gratifying of all was the fact that I could more-or-less talk with any of my friends for the first time.
After lunch, the whole group went across the street for a tour of Quilombo Zeferina. I was anxious to see the state of things. It was very clean and neat inside, with the exception of a couple of areas where stuff was being stored. The paint job downstairs has held up well. The worst thing to see from an aesthetic p.o.v. was the horrible mess around the outside of the building. I think this will be a good project for me to do once or twice a week until it’s cleaned up. I took several pictures so we can start prioritizing the work our FPC/W&J kids will do, plus the work we may pay professionals to do, such as plastering the upstairs portion of the house. I really hope we can soon get the process started to get the license to install electricity and water. They have a tank for the water, which is in good condition, and the conduits and pipes for wires and water are all installed and ready. Even a toilet is installed.
Fabricio introduced me to Professor Batata, his capoeira instructor, and Jane, the administrative leader of the group. I think they would dearly like to combine forces with Quilombo Zeferina to have a more comprehensive capoeira school. They don’t really have much of a source of income, but teach for the love of the kids and the sport. Fabricio also introduced me to his (closest) friend Jaué.
After a bit of explanation by Professor Batata, the group performed. They do what he calls Capoeira Moderna, a novel style of capoeira being developed by him in the tradition of Mestre Dende, his teacher. Mestre Dende lives in Belgium. Jane and Batata have both lived and worked in Belgium and have traveled extensively. It’s great that they’re now here in Pirajá. They will make great informants for me. I plan to attend their rehearsal on Saturday. See the 6’40” clip here.
Before the group departed, I had a chance to see Casilda and Nilzete. Everyone seems excited to know I’ll be around for a few weeks.
Next the group went to a terreiro out past Itapuá, near the airport, in the midst of the beautiful white dunes. This area has really grown up quickly over the past few years. Its Mãe de Santos, or high priestess, spoke to us about her Casa de Condomblé, which is devoted to the god Ogun. Her mother had been Mãe before her, and at that time it was devoted to Oshossi. The Yale students, of course, asked lots of detailed theological questions. She could have talked with the group all night and not even begun to really answer the questions thoroughly. Perhaps the most interesting thing of all was when two young initiates entered and prostrated themselves in front of Mãe, crawling up to her on their bellies, kissing her hand, and receiving her blessing in return. They always kept their heads bowed and never made eye contact with her out of deference to her status. Pictures are attached for an idea of her lovely dress and the paintings around the space.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Solitary Confinement Continues
(Written May 12, seventh day in Brazil, second day in hospital)
Picking up where I left off yesterday is hard. There is such a mix of things I want to say: my feelings about being here; my observations of the place, the people, and the process; my thoughts on Brazilian television; my frustration with my memory and the language. I guess I’ll proceed in that order.
There’s no doubt that I am locked up. I have a “guard” who is a nurse in the ante-room all the time. Of course, he or she is always at my disposal if I need anything, and they are incredibly friendly, but nevertheless, they won’t let me leave. It’s hard for me to be out of touch with family and friends, although Jennifer called last night, so at least I know that they know how to get in touch with me. Tanya, Fabricio, Marlene, Sergio e Ana, and Marilene each called and are worried about how I feel being locked up in the hospital. I think they must expect me to be more distressed than I actually am. I do have moments when I feel quite frustrated, and sometimes a little bit scared in case the doctors or nurses get something wrong, or misplace my tests, or just decide to let me rot in here. Since I have been misled (scratch that, since I have misunderstood) so many times during this little adventure, I sometimes wonder if the realities of Brazilian red tape will strangle me. But those moments are few and far between. Since I’m really a loner, being cooped up in here really isn’t all that different from what I experience normally, except that I don’t have the distractions I would have if I were at home. I guess I worry most about what others are feeling for me. I would like to say to them that this experience is going to be worth thousands of tellings over the years and will allow me to feel like a superman to those uninitiated into the perils of foreign travel. Of course, you all know how much fun I’ve gotten over the years retelling my stories from my trip around the world. Not to mention that I might be able to get a lecture to the pre-health society out of it. Another way I’m trying to deal with it emotionally is to imagine that God made this happen so I would be sequestered and forced to study language harder. If I had stayed at the Casa, I would have spoken mostly English over the past few days with the group from Yale, and what good would that have done me? George always likes to say that “god always gets you back.” Well, in my case, “God always gives dentention to those who haven’t done their homework!”
My observations are best made in the form of a list. My format will be to list first the things that I see that seem different (and perhaps wrong) around me, things we take for granted in the U.S. health care system. Next I will list those things that make this place sufficient for its purpose, and perhaps even better than what we have at home.
So-called “deficiencies”:
• Open electrical boxes and exposed wiring.
• Rust stains all over the floor from the steel equipment/furniture.
• A plywood bed with a piece of plastic as a mattress (it has a little foam inside, but collapses and doesn’t support the body.
• A flat, short, metal bed with no pillow and no way to sit up except against the hard metal head rail.
• A cardboard box (albeit clearly marked) for hazardous wastes.
• A door that will not shut all the way.
• “French” door to a balcony that will not shut all the way.
• An air conditioner (which I love!) above that door which has about a six inch gap on three sides with no insulation. It drips water on the floor in the room, and they insist I keep one side of the door open so it doesn’t get too cold in the room. I guess the temperature controls can’t be adjusted.
• The door to the balcony opens to another door of steel bars, which more than anything make this place feel like a prison.
• The only light is overhead fluorescent. I have to get out of bed to turn it off.
• Standing water on the balcony. I don’t know if mosquitoes can reach up to the fourth floor to breed, but since I’m in a ward devoted to the treatment of infectious diseases (there were posters warning about dengue fever all down the hallway), it is ironic nonetheless.
• No baseboard molding. Tile walls meet a linoleum floor. The crack between seems like it would be a breeding ground, as water is regularly swished around the room with a mop and from the air conditioner.
• This morning, my nurse asked me for some basic information—parent’s names, birthdate, home state, etc., which he wrote on a napkin with my pencil and, presumably, took to a bookkeeper somewhere.
• They don’t use iodine for sterilization. My i.v. needle was inserted after only a few swishes with alcohol.
• When they took away the drip, leaving the i.v. in my hand, the nurse used a syringe on the tube, then set it down on the bed next to my leg while she did something else. It was at least a one-use syringe and ultimately went in the cardboard box.
• The drip was sometimes fast and sometimes slow. After a while I started controlling it myself so I wouldn’t have to pee so much.
• There’s no tray table for food, and the food is brought either on flimsy styrophone plates, in a plastic bag, or in an aluminum tv tray. I have to eat in bed because…
• There is no chair!!!
• The bathroom is between my room and the anteroom. The toilet is next to a space where there is a showerhead and a (broken) drain in the floor. (I’ve never seen a floor drain in Brazil that wasn’t broken. They’re all made out of plastic! For a country that exports the most aluminum of any country in the world, except perhaps Australia, Brazil sure doesn’t seem inclined to use it.)
• No place for the toilet paper except on top of the paper towel dispenser, which is directly under the shower. It didn’t matter, because I didn’t get toilet paper until the second day anyway.
• No hot water anywhere. There is an “on demand” water heater on the shower head, a typical method for providing tepid water in “winter.” The wires to the device (remember this is ON the showerhead) are exposed.
• No place to hang clothes or towels. (I did receive a towel on the second day, along with a gown that would have worked for someone half my size and half my height.)
• The cleaning products—a bucket and a wooden T with a rag that serves as a mop—are kept in the bathroom below the sink.
• If I need a nurse, I have to knock or yell. There is no call button.
The “good stuff”:
• I have air-conditioning and a TV, neither of which I have in my room at the Casa.
• There are sanitary soap dispensers in both my room and in the bathroom.
• There is a sanitary paper towel dispenser in both the bathroom and in my room. (No trash can in the bathroom though. I’ve been flushing my paper.)
• They check on me every three hours or so, but are very nice to let me sleep in within reason. Each time the nurse comes in, they are very friendly. By the way, I have two male nurses and two female nurses on different shifts. They always check my blood pressure, take my temperature, and let me know the results. They always make sure I have plenty of liquids (bottled water and CocoMania coconut water which is used as a natural way to stop diarrhea). Also, I get lots of delicious fruit smoothies and juices of various sorts, which, unlike in the U.S., aren’t sweetened with anything—just juice, just fruit.
• A healthy and substantial lunch of chicken (awfully dry, though), rice, mashed potatoes, and veggies. Dinner is a bun and a piece of chicken. Breakfast is a toasted bun and a little container of jam, juice, and yogurt. I get bananas and water every time they check on me.
• The TV is on a cart, so since there is no remote and no cable, I can adjust the rabbit ears and change channels and volume easily enough from bed.
• Doctors and nurses alike are very sympathetic to my situation, and are encouraging.
• NUMBER ONE GOOD THING: All this is costing me nothing!
As a non-professional in the medical field, I am curious as to what American health experts would say about the lists above. Which items are really bad, which are innocuous, and which are improvements over our own health system? Clearly, because the Brazilian system is a public system, they don’t have the money for niceties like lounge chairs and remote controls. But is it really worth the crazy health insurance system we have in our country just to have a few niceties? Of course, some of the “bad” things above may reflect poor training of nurses and a lack of oversight (e.g., electrical/building/health code enforcement), but perhaps our preoccupation with these kinds of things are simply a result of the U.S. being such a litigious society. There is a remarkable absence of attorneys in Brazil as far as I can tell. I have seen only ONE law office as I’ve been riding around town. Obviously there are more than that, but where? I can only presume that there aren’t hoards of university graduates hoping to get into civil litigation because no one is inclined to sue over things like open electrical boxes or the absence of a pillow. This has really made me think a lot about the value of a public health system versus a private health system, and I’m not sure how I would come down on the issue. I’ll have to think about it some more.
Brazilian TV…what can I say. It is remarkably free of irony and seems extremely earnest. There is an abundance of news, religious programming, and issue-based interview talk shows (more like McNeil-Lehrer or Charlie Rose than Oprah). The religious programming is either straight-and-narrow Catholic dogma or megachurch “enterpreachment” or “preachotainment”. One program was almost like a religious stand-up comic. Most of the mega-church programs, one of which comes out of Ilheus of Jorge Amado fame, include a portion where healing is performed. The news is not as sensational as it is in the U.S. In other words, it still seems to be trying to report, not to sway or influence. The format is similar, with top stories such as the flu (which included me, although not by name!!), damage from the rains, interviews with politicians and government officials, reports of crimes, weather, and sports. An interesting item I’ve seen on two news programs is a listing of job openings around the city such as receptionists and other low-level professional jobs. If I were to total the number of jobs listed on TV, it would probably amount to 20-25 positions. This, of course, is an absurdly low number in a city that has an overall unemployment rate of, I would guess, between 25 and 50%. Just like in America, commercials are loud and annoying. They aren’t as sophisticated in terms of production and design. In other words, they still focus on the products themselves. Lots of the products being advertised on TV are for items that the vast majority of people could not afford, such as big screen TVs, fancy bathroom fixtures, etc. There are a lot more public service announcements on Brazilian TV than in America, and lots of focus on what’s coming up in the world of the arts. There’s no doubt that “high art” (modern dance, drama, symphonic music) are readily available here in Salvador, but I haven’t figured out where to see them. I am torn between wanting to see this stuff, which I would do for my own entertainment, and focusing on the “people’s art” (samba, arrocha, copoeira, etc.) which I need to do for my career. The final word on Brazilian TV—last night I watched American Pie 5 with Portuguese closed captions (all profanity dubbed with the word "drugs!) It was impossible to even follow their talking even with the words right there on the screen. Which leads me to…
…my continuing frustration with language. I wish I had started keeping track of how many times I look up certain words. I would say that probably some words I’ve had to look up 100 times since the year 2002 when I first started attempting to learn Portuguese. Even when I’ve JUST looked at a word in my flashcard program, used it in a sentence, tried it out in different contexts imagining that I’m talking to friends, I can STILL forget it within a period of five minutes. As I’ve said before, speaking can be done more or less easily because one can make oneself understood with a 500 word vocabulary. But listening and understanding is still SOOOO hard, and I really despair sometimes of ever really being able to do it.
Finally, a word about how I’ve been passing my time. It is really interesting that, despite having NOTHING ELSE TO DO, I still feel like I don’t accomplish as much in a day as I would like, whether in terms of writing, studying, or reading. What does this say about me? I guess I’d have to admit that the problem is NOT that there are too few hours in the day, but rather that I have unrealistic expectations of what I can accomplish in a day. I’m a strange person in that I LOVE to laze around (in Portuguese: preguiço), but don’t allow myself to place value on simple relaxation.
So, into a third day of imprisonment. Before I leave, I need to learn the name of this place, so I can mark it on Google Maps as my home for three days.
(Found it!)
Picking up where I left off yesterday is hard. There is such a mix of things I want to say: my feelings about being here; my observations of the place, the people, and the process; my thoughts on Brazilian television; my frustration with my memory and the language. I guess I’ll proceed in that order.
There’s no doubt that I am locked up. I have a “guard” who is a nurse in the ante-room all the time. Of course, he or she is always at my disposal if I need anything, and they are incredibly friendly, but nevertheless, they won’t let me leave. It’s hard for me to be out of touch with family and friends, although Jennifer called last night, so at least I know that they know how to get in touch with me. Tanya, Fabricio, Marlene, Sergio e Ana, and Marilene each called and are worried about how I feel being locked up in the hospital. I think they must expect me to be more distressed than I actually am. I do have moments when I feel quite frustrated, and sometimes a little bit scared in case the doctors or nurses get something wrong, or misplace my tests, or just decide to let me rot in here. Since I have been misled (scratch that, since I have misunderstood) so many times during this little adventure, I sometimes wonder if the realities of Brazilian red tape will strangle me. But those moments are few and far between. Since I’m really a loner, being cooped up in here really isn’t all that different from what I experience normally, except that I don’t have the distractions I would have if I were at home. I guess I worry most about what others are feeling for me. I would like to say to them that this experience is going to be worth thousands of tellings over the years and will allow me to feel like a superman to those uninitiated into the perils of foreign travel. Of course, you all know how much fun I’ve gotten over the years retelling my stories from my trip around the world. Not to mention that I might be able to get a lecture to the pre-health society out of it. Another way I’m trying to deal with it emotionally is to imagine that God made this happen so I would be sequestered and forced to study language harder. If I had stayed at the Casa, I would have spoken mostly English over the past few days with the group from Yale, and what good would that have done me? George always likes to say that “god always gets you back.” Well, in my case, “God always gives dentention to those who haven’t done their homework!”
My observations are best made in the form of a list. My format will be to list first the things that I see that seem different (and perhaps wrong) around me, things we take for granted in the U.S. health care system. Next I will list those things that make this place sufficient for its purpose, and perhaps even better than what we have at home.
So-called “deficiencies”:
• Open electrical boxes and exposed wiring.
• Rust stains all over the floor from the steel equipment/furniture.
• A plywood bed with a piece of plastic as a mattress (it has a little foam inside, but collapses and doesn’t support the body.
• A flat, short, metal bed with no pillow and no way to sit up except against the hard metal head rail.
• A cardboard box (albeit clearly marked) for hazardous wastes.
• A door that will not shut all the way.
• “French” door to a balcony that will not shut all the way.
• An air conditioner (which I love!) above that door which has about a six inch gap on three sides with no insulation. It drips water on the floor in the room, and they insist I keep one side of the door open so it doesn’t get too cold in the room. I guess the temperature controls can’t be adjusted.
• The door to the balcony opens to another door of steel bars, which more than anything make this place feel like a prison.
• The only light is overhead fluorescent. I have to get out of bed to turn it off.
• Standing water on the balcony. I don’t know if mosquitoes can reach up to the fourth floor to breed, but since I’m in a ward devoted to the treatment of infectious diseases (there were posters warning about dengue fever all down the hallway), it is ironic nonetheless.
• No baseboard molding. Tile walls meet a linoleum floor. The crack between seems like it would be a breeding ground, as water is regularly swished around the room with a mop and from the air conditioner.
• This morning, my nurse asked me for some basic information—parent’s names, birthdate, home state, etc., which he wrote on a napkin with my pencil and, presumably, took to a bookkeeper somewhere.
• They don’t use iodine for sterilization. My i.v. needle was inserted after only a few swishes with alcohol.
• When they took away the drip, leaving the i.v. in my hand, the nurse used a syringe on the tube, then set it down on the bed next to my leg while she did something else. It was at least a one-use syringe and ultimately went in the cardboard box.
• The drip was sometimes fast and sometimes slow. After a while I started controlling it myself so I wouldn’t have to pee so much.
• There’s no tray table for food, and the food is brought either on flimsy styrophone plates, in a plastic bag, or in an aluminum tv tray. I have to eat in bed because…
• There is no chair!!!
• The bathroom is between my room and the anteroom. The toilet is next to a space where there is a showerhead and a (broken) drain in the floor. (I’ve never seen a floor drain in Brazil that wasn’t broken. They’re all made out of plastic! For a country that exports the most aluminum of any country in the world, except perhaps Australia, Brazil sure doesn’t seem inclined to use it.)
• No place for the toilet paper except on top of the paper towel dispenser, which is directly under the shower. It didn’t matter, because I didn’t get toilet paper until the second day anyway.
• No hot water anywhere. There is an “on demand” water heater on the shower head, a typical method for providing tepid water in “winter.” The wires to the device (remember this is ON the showerhead) are exposed.
• No place to hang clothes or towels. (I did receive a towel on the second day, along with a gown that would have worked for someone half my size and half my height.)
• The cleaning products—a bucket and a wooden T with a rag that serves as a mop—are kept in the bathroom below the sink.
• If I need a nurse, I have to knock or yell. There is no call button.
The “good stuff”:
• I have air-conditioning and a TV, neither of which I have in my room at the Casa.
• There are sanitary soap dispensers in both my room and in the bathroom.
• There is a sanitary paper towel dispenser in both the bathroom and in my room. (No trash can in the bathroom though. I’ve been flushing my paper.)
• They check on me every three hours or so, but are very nice to let me sleep in within reason. Each time the nurse comes in, they are very friendly. By the way, I have two male nurses and two female nurses on different shifts. They always check my blood pressure, take my temperature, and let me know the results. They always make sure I have plenty of liquids (bottled water and CocoMania coconut water which is used as a natural way to stop diarrhea). Also, I get lots of delicious fruit smoothies and juices of various sorts, which, unlike in the U.S., aren’t sweetened with anything—just juice, just fruit.
• A healthy and substantial lunch of chicken (awfully dry, though), rice, mashed potatoes, and veggies. Dinner is a bun and a piece of chicken. Breakfast is a toasted bun and a little container of jam, juice, and yogurt. I get bananas and water every time they check on me.
• The TV is on a cart, so since there is no remote and no cable, I can adjust the rabbit ears and change channels and volume easily enough from bed.
• Doctors and nurses alike are very sympathetic to my situation, and are encouraging.
• NUMBER ONE GOOD THING: All this is costing me nothing!
As a non-professional in the medical field, I am curious as to what American health experts would say about the lists above. Which items are really bad, which are innocuous, and which are improvements over our own health system? Clearly, because the Brazilian system is a public system, they don’t have the money for niceties like lounge chairs and remote controls. But is it really worth the crazy health insurance system we have in our country just to have a few niceties? Of course, some of the “bad” things above may reflect poor training of nurses and a lack of oversight (e.g., electrical/building/health code enforcement), but perhaps our preoccupation with these kinds of things are simply a result of the U.S. being such a litigious society. There is a remarkable absence of attorneys in Brazil as far as I can tell. I have seen only ONE law office as I’ve been riding around town. Obviously there are more than that, but where? I can only presume that there aren’t hoards of university graduates hoping to get into civil litigation because no one is inclined to sue over things like open electrical boxes or the absence of a pillow. This has really made me think a lot about the value of a public health system versus a private health system, and I’m not sure how I would come down on the issue. I’ll have to think about it some more.
Brazilian TV…what can I say. It is remarkably free of irony and seems extremely earnest. There is an abundance of news, religious programming, and issue-based interview talk shows (more like McNeil-Lehrer or Charlie Rose than Oprah). The religious programming is either straight-and-narrow Catholic dogma or megachurch “enterpreachment” or “preachotainment”. One program was almost like a religious stand-up comic. Most of the mega-church programs, one of which comes out of Ilheus of Jorge Amado fame, include a portion where healing is performed. The news is not as sensational as it is in the U.S. In other words, it still seems to be trying to report, not to sway or influence. The format is similar, with top stories such as the flu (which included me, although not by name!!), damage from the rains, interviews with politicians and government officials, reports of crimes, weather, and sports. An interesting item I’ve seen on two news programs is a listing of job openings around the city such as receptionists and other low-level professional jobs. If I were to total the number of jobs listed on TV, it would probably amount to 20-25 positions. This, of course, is an absurdly low number in a city that has an overall unemployment rate of, I would guess, between 25 and 50%. Just like in America, commercials are loud and annoying. They aren’t as sophisticated in terms of production and design. In other words, they still focus on the products themselves. Lots of the products being advertised on TV are for items that the vast majority of people could not afford, such as big screen TVs, fancy bathroom fixtures, etc. There are a lot more public service announcements on Brazilian TV than in America, and lots of focus on what’s coming up in the world of the arts. There’s no doubt that “high art” (modern dance, drama, symphonic music) are readily available here in Salvador, but I haven’t figured out where to see them. I am torn between wanting to see this stuff, which I would do for my own entertainment, and focusing on the “people’s art” (samba, arrocha, copoeira, etc.) which I need to do for my career. The final word on Brazilian TV—last night I watched American Pie 5 with Portuguese closed captions (all profanity dubbed with the word "drugs!) It was impossible to even follow their talking even with the words right there on the screen. Which leads me to…
…my continuing frustration with language. I wish I had started keeping track of how many times I look up certain words. I would say that probably some words I’ve had to look up 100 times since the year 2002 when I first started attempting to learn Portuguese. Even when I’ve JUST looked at a word in my flashcard program, used it in a sentence, tried it out in different contexts imagining that I’m talking to friends, I can STILL forget it within a period of five minutes. As I’ve said before, speaking can be done more or less easily because one can make oneself understood with a 500 word vocabulary. But listening and understanding is still SOOOO hard, and I really despair sometimes of ever really being able to do it.
Finally, a word about how I’ve been passing my time. It is really interesting that, despite having NOTHING ELSE TO DO, I still feel like I don’t accomplish as much in a day as I would like, whether in terms of writing, studying, or reading. What does this say about me? I guess I’d have to admit that the problem is NOT that there are too few hours in the day, but rather that I have unrealistic expectations of what I can accomplish in a day. I’m a strange person in that I LOVE to laze around (in Portuguese: preguiço), but don’t allow myself to place value on simple relaxation.
So, into a third day of imprisonment. Before I leave, I need to learn the name of this place, so I can mark it on Google Maps as my home for three days.
(Found it!)
In the Slammer!
(Written May 11, sixth day in Brazil.)Well, coming to Brazil I really didn’t expect to have an intimate look into the Brazilian healthcare system, but alas, here I am, in the slammer, otherwise known as the hospital!
It all started on Saturday night, quite suddenly, when I developed terrible diarrhea and cramps in my abdomen. I quickly became dehydrated and was hurting all over. I couldn’t really sleep because I had to go the bathroom every 20 minutes or so. I developed a fever in the middle of the night, and experienced severe chills and my typical delirious dreams. On Sunday, I was supposed to go to church at Itapagipe Presbyterian. Of course, I was so sick, I just left a note for Marlene and Serio explaining that I just wanted to stay in bed. However, one of the ITEBA professors, Tania, has a day job as the secretary to the Minister of Health, and insisted that I go to the doctor. I obliged, since she was willing to go with me.
We caught a bus for a ten minute ride to what turned out to be a hospital. (Of course, if I had thought about it, I would have realized it had to be a hospital, because it was Sunday, and I could only be seen in an emergency room.) This was a public hospital, which I suppose is what almost every “typical” Brazilian uses. In other words, it’s not a pleasant doctor’s office, but rather resembles what most urban hospital emergency rooms in the U.S. look like—dirty, chaotic, crowded. Tania spoke very briefly with the receptionist and just walked back into the examination area. A few minutes later she came back and out sat with me for just a few minutes before a nice lady came out and asked me to come back. I felt bad because I was skipping over about thirty people who obviously had been waiting a long time.
They took me into what looked like the “receiving” room when getting outpatient surgery. The woman was seated behind a desk and asked me questions about my symptoms and general health. She took my blood pressure and pulse and wrote all this information down. At that point I thought I’d be seen by a doctor in the examination room. We went into the examination area, which was incredibly chaotic. It had 6 beds divided by curtains and was very small. One guy was lying on a table getting oxygen. A kid on the other side had an i.v. drip, but he seemed fine otherwise. There were a couple of young kids/babies who were wrapped up in blankets. There was no exam table for me to use, so I just sat in a chair. After a few minutes, Tania said that we should just wait outside, because I was going to be referred to another place for my tests. Little did I know that I was now on their radar as a suspected swine flu case.
Although I shouldn’t have been, I was astonished at the general appearance of this hospital. Being in a tropical climate, there was a lot of rust on anything made of metal – tables, chairs, doors. The bathroom in the waiting room didn’t lock because the latch was broken. There was no soap in the bathroom. The sinks only ran cold water. Outside, there were just about as many people waiting as inside. A couple of upholstered chairs had been dragged outside, and obviously had been sitting there for a while, because they were soaked from the rain. We sat in them anyway, because otherwise we would have had to sit on the concrete curb or in the waiting room where the smell wasn’t so good. I guess it was the little things, too, that caught my attention. Orderlies came and went through various swinging doors. Everyone seemed to have the run of the place. At one point, a little girl went looking for her mommy and walked right through into another corridor of the hospital. The mother had to run after her.
I sat and waited, sometimes outside, sometimes inside, until I was to be picked up. It took about an hour and a half until a ride came along. I thought it would be Sergio to take me to another hospital facility to have tests done. I (mistakenly?) misunderstood Tania to say that it would take only 20-30 minutes to get the tests, and that would be that. When the ride came, it was Marlene in a car with three other adults and one child, none of whom I knew. The car was about the size of a Civic, but we managed to cram myself and Tania in with the others. Images of clowns in tiny cars came to mind. We went back to the Casa, where I was happy to lie down after sitting in the heat at the hospital. Did I mention, there was no air conditioning at the hospital? This was another startling difference. They had windows open everywhere. Environmental cleanliness seemed not to be much of a consideration. Yet, with our hermetically sealed hospitals and clinics in the U.S., we still seem to have a worse problem with staff infections and such in hospitals. Maybe there’s something to be said for fresh outside air.
Again, I misunderstood Tania to say (perhaps—or perhaps she was just telling me what she thought was going to happen) that I wouldn’t have the tests until the next day. She attended to me sweetly, patting my hand and rubbing my head. By this time, I was feeling much better, although weak because of dehydration and not eating anything all day. At about 6:30, after it was already dark, she came to get me to go for the tests, which, of course, I was surprised about. You can imagine my surprise when I found an ambulance in the parking lot waiting to take me to the hospital! Marlene and Tanya both came with me. While sitting in the back of the ambulance, the EMT immediately gave us all surgical masks to wear. She took my blood pressure again, and took my temperature. Again, an interesting difference.—they still use mercury thermometers, and take the temperature in the armpit.
We arrive at a hospital downtown (I have no idea where it is actually) and were escorted through what seemed to be an empty building. To tell the truth, my first impression was of a prison, because the waiting room at the emergency entrance was open to the outside with bars instead of windows. We took a (small) elevator to the fourth floor. The door to the room I was supposed to enter was locked, so the person had to go looking for a key. She found a key to the room next door, which turned out to be the anteroom to the room I am in now—a private (read: quarantined) room. More b.p. checks. More temperature checks. A doctor (male) came and listened to my chest and heart. He said I would have to be here a while, and I again misunderstood (?) how long. I thought perhaps the tests would take a while because it was nighttime on a Sunday holiday. During the course of the next few hours, I was first hooked up to an i.v. drip, which I was happy to have for rehydration. The only problem was that the i.v. pole is made of steel and doesn’t have wheels, so going to the bathroom is a weightlifting exercise. A young fellow then came in with a portable x-ray machine that looked like something out of the 1950s. It was rusty and cumbersome, made all of steel. He took one x-ray with me in bed, which, by the way, is REALLY uncomfortable. (I just have to keep reminding myself that I slept on logs while hiking the Appy Trail ☺) I wondered what kind of picture he would get, with the film being between me and an uneven mattress. He left for a while (20-30 minutes) then came back with another film. Perhaps the first one didn’t take? Anyway, he made a few small adjustments to the machine and took another x-ray. An hour later, a fellow came in to do swabs. He swabbed both nostrils (which really hurt!) and my throat twice (which made me gag). All this time, Marlene and Tanya were waiting in the other room, where nurses were sitting, as if guarding me. They had taken my passport earlier, and I wondered if it was because they didn’t want me to try and escape ☺
Finally came the real news. I would have to stay here for 48 or more hours under observation. Groan!! Tania kept trying to keep me from worrying, saying I could use the time to study Portuguese. In fact, except, for the mattress, it is more comfortable here than at the Casa, because I have a TV and an air conditioner. But the bed has no pillow, and I have one sheet. No toothbrush. No towel. I asked about those, and they said I should use my cell phone to call and ask for them to bring me mine. In fact, I didn’t have a cell phone, but Marlene had already gone to the Casa to get my medicines and cell phone in anticipation of my imprisonment here.
I watched Snakes on a Plane dubbed in Portuguese.
I perused my dictionary and lamented the fact that I can’t seem to understand anyone’s speech.
They brought me a bun, banana, and some coffee. I ate the banana.
I went to sleep around midnight, feeling better than I had all day.
This morning, Marlene sent a bag with my toothbrush, a towel, a book, a pencil, and my computer. Yay! I’m now in hour number 23, and haven’t gone crazy yet. The view from the balcony (which I can’t access because there are bars on the door!) is lovely. I’ll have to continue the story, talking about today, tomorrow. My battery is running low. I hope Marlene remembers to send my power cord.
Portuguese Language Blues
(Written May 8, third day in Brazil)
Today was all about studying. No one came to visit me. I had nothing on my agenda except to study Portuguese. Of course, one can only learn so much in one day. I should probably be writing this in Portuguese to practice, but that’s not the purpose of this journal.
At breakfast (which I ate rather late, at 9:15), I was the only one. There was a newspaper on the counter, so I brought it back upstairs to practice reading. I read about the storms and the damage being done around the region. I read about the restaurant/bar across the street. Coincidentally, it has recently reopened after a period of renovation, and there was a full-page article about it in the weekend section. I also read a review of the new Star Trek movie which comes out this weekend. I plan to go see a matinee tomorrow after lunch.
Of course, learning a language must be done in increments. I find that if I try to memorize too many words or phrases in one day, it’s useless. And some things, like verb tenses, I have to come back to again and again to remember how to formulate them. Perhaps my haphazard approach will allow me to lurch forward slowly. Of course, I will have to find opportnities to use these words in speech—that’s the only way to really internalize them. And my absolute hardest challenge is understanding speech. The nuns speak so fast, even though they use short phrases, I have a hard time understanding them.
Want to learn a little Portuguese? Do a crossword puzzle!
Today was all about studying. No one came to visit me. I had nothing on my agenda except to study Portuguese. Of course, one can only learn so much in one day. I should probably be writing this in Portuguese to practice, but that’s not the purpose of this journal.
At breakfast (which I ate rather late, at 9:15), I was the only one. There was a newspaper on the counter, so I brought it back upstairs to practice reading. I read about the storms and the damage being done around the region. I read about the restaurant/bar across the street. Coincidentally, it has recently reopened after a period of renovation, and there was a full-page article about it in the weekend section. I also read a review of the new Star Trek movie which comes out this weekend. I plan to go see a matinee tomorrow after lunch.
Of course, learning a language must be done in increments. I find that if I try to memorize too many words or phrases in one day, it’s useless. And some things, like verb tenses, I have to come back to again and again to remember how to formulate them. Perhaps my haphazard approach will allow me to lurch forward slowly. Of course, I will have to find opportnities to use these words in speech—that’s the only way to really internalize them. And my absolute hardest challenge is understanding speech. The nuns speak so fast, even though they use short phrases, I have a hard time understanding them.
Want to learn a little Portuguese? Do a crossword puzzle!
Down To It
(Written May 7, second day in Brazil)
Well, my iTunes collection is several songs richer, with some music that I’d really rather not have! It’s ironic that I’m unable to connect to the internet given that I'm reasonably computer-savvy, yet Fabricio figured out in just a few minutes how to connect his cell phone to my computer via Bluetooth. He has a lot of music on his cell and he wanted to share a lot with me. I tried to take notes as we went along, but they are spotty. Obviously, I’ll have to look into some of this music a bit more.
One of his favorite types of music is a relatively new style (the ‘00s) called arrocha, I presume it’s derived from the noun “arrocho,” which means both a “squeeze” and a “predicament,” and/or the verb arrochar, which means to tighten up. I already know a word for tighten, “apertar,” which is used in the context of lids of jars and such, and a word for squeeze, “espremer,” used in the context of squeezing limes (a process I just completed for my drink!). So I would guess that the style arrocha is a play on words, meaning both a “squeeze” as in “my main squeeze” and/or a “predicament” as in, “I have two girlfriends, what a predicament.” Obviously the lyrics are centered around love and loss, relationships, and the trouble they bring.
Fabricio gave me songs by the following artists:
Vanessa Da Mata
Flavio José (a representative of a more contemporary forró de serra sound)
Ademário Coelho (forró)
Cavaleiros de Forró (a group) – a song called “Espere não va” or “I wish you wouldn’t go”
Lazaro (formerly a member of Olodum, but left the group to do “gospel” music) – a song called “Deus vai fazer” or “God is going to do it”
Aline Barros – song “Recomeça” or “Start over”
And two songs that he didn’t know the artist for:
“Faço um milagre em mim” or “Make a/one miracle in/for me”
“Deus de aliança” or “God of alliance” (but also “God of wedding ring”)
He also sent me a video/song from the Mel Gibson movie, Passion of the Christ. I’m not sure if this song is actually used in the movie, or if clips from the movie are simple used to illustrate the meaning of the song. The song is presumably called “Passion of Christ” but that just might be from where he downloaded it off YouTube.
Rounding out this strange mix of music, although not transferred to my computer, were several rap songs by people from here in Salvador. He says they have a radically different style from rap found down south. Then, after we caught the bus to Lapa and were walking the ½ mile or so to ITEBA, he drew my attention to a lot of the music he heard coming from vendors along the road, including a group from Pirajá who are apparently one of the most popular Pagode style groups in the city/country.
We talked a little while about what he considers more important in music, the lyrics or the melody. He definitely favors very melodic (what he calls “sweet” or “suave” music) with a slower tempo, but when asked this either-or question he quickly responded that he pays more attention to the lyrics. In other words, he learns the words and then decides to download the song, which I think is very similar to what most American youth do when they look for music for their collection. (Incidentally, this has always been anathema to me. I personally tend to only pay attention to the non-vocal elements of popular music—rhythm, melody, harmony, etc. It was only after I bought albums, such as the Beatles, Jethro Tull, or King Crimson, that I began to pay attention to their lyrics. I tend to buy a second album by an artist based more on the poetic lyrical language and/or philosophy of an artist, but it almost never comes into consideration in my first impression of songs.
One of the most interesting things we discussed today was his interest in “gospel” music. Gospel, to Fabricio, is what we would call Contemporary Christian music. Almost all of it is keyboard-based, with simple harmonies and flowing melodies. I asked him if anyone else in his family (or his friends) liked this kind of music and he said no. Apparently, he has become enamored with the Igreja do Reino do Christo, which is the infamous mega-church whose founder was indicted on tax evasion charges a couple of years ago. The church is still going strong, and their “temple” here in Salvador easily holds 7000 people. Fabricio’s local congregation (I was surprised to hear he actually attends church) is about 200 or 300 people, still quite large compared to the tiny Presbyterian congregations we’ve encountered here. I told him I would go to church with him sometime, which I’m sure will be a test of my acting ability.
Speaking of ACTING…Today’s conversation has really made me think about the challenges I’ll encounter as I walk beside my young friends here. As a friend, I almost feel compelled to challenge their ideas, especially their religious ideas. However, as a researcher, I must be neutral and not reveal my own prejudices (or proclivities) to my friends who are now my informants. This is going to be difficult, since I already have a high degree of contempt for Contemporary Christian music and mega-churches. There is a battle going on here in Brazil for the spiritual souls of its people. The mainline Catholic church, still the largest in Brazil according to their records, is mostly out of touch when it comes to worship and spiritual growth. However, I must add that they are also the leading force when it comes to social justice. But that’s only because their organization is so vast, even a tiny fraction of the Catholic Church devoted to social justice still outnumber the Protestants. The mega-churches, as exhibited most presciently in the Igreja Universal do Reino de Christo, seem to be focused on feeling good, dreaming about a better life to come, and giving people an emotional high that isn’t really based on biblical understanding or theological ideas but rather is focused on the moment. In other words, it’s like going to a rock concert in the U.S. Personally, I don’t find our mega-churches to be any different. When the mega-churches here join forces with the fundamentalist mega-churches of North America, Brazil better watch out! I think they already have the upper hand, and they are clearly against affecting any actual change in the here-and-now.
Coincidentally, when I was in the Miami airport, I was sitting next to a group of three men who were either ministers or elders in some fundamentalist church. I listened in on their conversation and was appalled at what I heard. First of all, one of the men started bad-mouthing the national organization of the Methodist church because of its “liberal” activist mission office. Along the way, he talked about how the liberation theologists only cared about giving guns to revolutionaries (!!!!) and homosexuals, in attempting to gain ordination equality, were infiltrating world missions with their anti-discriminatory message. Naturally, I really wanted to turn to him and tell him that he was sitting next to a liberation theology adherent and homosexual who was about to spend 10 weeks serving in a community center in a favela of Salvador, and that I’d never held a real gun before. However, I was afraid he might turn me in to the authorities as a rabble-rouser. Of course, he is the ultimate rabble-rouser because he, and his ilk, are ultimately going to destabilize the moderately liberal government of Brazil towards a theocratic, paternalistic government. His language was remarkably strategy-oriented, talking about doing an “end-run” around the leftists in Brazil to do “the real work of the church.” Yikes!!!!
Well, my iTunes collection is several songs richer, with some music that I’d really rather not have! It’s ironic that I’m unable to connect to the internet given that I'm reasonably computer-savvy, yet Fabricio figured out in just a few minutes how to connect his cell phone to my computer via Bluetooth. He has a lot of music on his cell and he wanted to share a lot with me. I tried to take notes as we went along, but they are spotty. Obviously, I’ll have to look into some of this music a bit more.
One of his favorite types of music is a relatively new style (the ‘00s) called arrocha, I presume it’s derived from the noun “arrocho,” which means both a “squeeze” and a “predicament,” and/or the verb arrochar, which means to tighten up. I already know a word for tighten, “apertar,” which is used in the context of lids of jars and such, and a word for squeeze, “espremer,” used in the context of squeezing limes (a process I just completed for my drink!). So I would guess that the style arrocha is a play on words, meaning both a “squeeze” as in “my main squeeze” and/or a “predicament” as in, “I have two girlfriends, what a predicament.” Obviously the lyrics are centered around love and loss, relationships, and the trouble they bring.
Fabricio gave me songs by the following artists:
Vanessa Da Mata
Flavio José (a representative of a more contemporary forró de serra sound)
Ademário Coelho (forró)
Cavaleiros de Forró (a group) – a song called “Espere não va” or “I wish you wouldn’t go”
Lazaro (formerly a member of Olodum, but left the group to do “gospel” music) – a song called “Deus vai fazer” or “God is going to do it”
Aline Barros – song “Recomeça” or “Start over”
And two songs that he didn’t know the artist for:
“Faço um milagre em mim” or “Make a/one miracle in/for me”
“Deus de aliança” or “God of alliance” (but also “God of wedding ring”)
He also sent me a video/song from the Mel Gibson movie, Passion of the Christ. I’m not sure if this song is actually used in the movie, or if clips from the movie are simple used to illustrate the meaning of the song. The song is presumably called “Passion of Christ” but that just might be from where he downloaded it off YouTube.
Rounding out this strange mix of music, although not transferred to my computer, were several rap songs by people from here in Salvador. He says they have a radically different style from rap found down south. Then, after we caught the bus to Lapa and were walking the ½ mile or so to ITEBA, he drew my attention to a lot of the music he heard coming from vendors along the road, including a group from Pirajá who are apparently one of the most popular Pagode style groups in the city/country.
We talked a little while about what he considers more important in music, the lyrics or the melody. He definitely favors very melodic (what he calls “sweet” or “suave” music) with a slower tempo, but when asked this either-or question he quickly responded that he pays more attention to the lyrics. In other words, he learns the words and then decides to download the song, which I think is very similar to what most American youth do when they look for music for their collection. (Incidentally, this has always been anathema to me. I personally tend to only pay attention to the non-vocal elements of popular music—rhythm, melody, harmony, etc. It was only after I bought albums, such as the Beatles, Jethro Tull, or King Crimson, that I began to pay attention to their lyrics. I tend to buy a second album by an artist based more on the poetic lyrical language and/or philosophy of an artist, but it almost never comes into consideration in my first impression of songs.
One of the most interesting things we discussed today was his interest in “gospel” music. Gospel, to Fabricio, is what we would call Contemporary Christian music. Almost all of it is keyboard-based, with simple harmonies and flowing melodies. I asked him if anyone else in his family (or his friends) liked this kind of music and he said no. Apparently, he has become enamored with the Igreja do Reino do Christo, which is the infamous mega-church whose founder was indicted on tax evasion charges a couple of years ago. The church is still going strong, and their “temple” here in Salvador easily holds 7000 people. Fabricio’s local congregation (I was surprised to hear he actually attends church) is about 200 or 300 people, still quite large compared to the tiny Presbyterian congregations we’ve encountered here. I told him I would go to church with him sometime, which I’m sure will be a test of my acting ability.
Speaking of ACTING…Today’s conversation has really made me think about the challenges I’ll encounter as I walk beside my young friends here. As a friend, I almost feel compelled to challenge their ideas, especially their religious ideas. However, as a researcher, I must be neutral and not reveal my own prejudices (or proclivities) to my friends who are now my informants. This is going to be difficult, since I already have a high degree of contempt for Contemporary Christian music and mega-churches. There is a battle going on here in Brazil for the spiritual souls of its people. The mainline Catholic church, still the largest in Brazil according to their records, is mostly out of touch when it comes to worship and spiritual growth. However, I must add that they are also the leading force when it comes to social justice. But that’s only because their organization is so vast, even a tiny fraction of the Catholic Church devoted to social justice still outnumber the Protestants. The mega-churches, as exhibited most presciently in the Igreja Universal do Reino de Christo, seem to be focused on feeling good, dreaming about a better life to come, and giving people an emotional high that isn’t really based on biblical understanding or theological ideas but rather is focused on the moment. In other words, it’s like going to a rock concert in the U.S. Personally, I don’t find our mega-churches to be any different. When the mega-churches here join forces with the fundamentalist mega-churches of North America, Brazil better watch out! I think they already have the upper hand, and they are clearly against affecting any actual change in the here-and-now.
Coincidentally, when I was in the Miami airport, I was sitting next to a group of three men who were either ministers or elders in some fundamentalist church. I listened in on their conversation and was appalled at what I heard. First of all, one of the men started bad-mouthing the national organization of the Methodist church because of its “liberal” activist mission office. Along the way, he talked about how the liberation theologists only cared about giving guns to revolutionaries (!!!!) and homosexuals, in attempting to gain ordination equality, were infiltrating world missions with their anti-discriminatory message. Naturally, I really wanted to turn to him and tell him that he was sitting next to a liberation theology adherent and homosexual who was about to spend 10 weeks serving in a community center in a favela of Salvador, and that I’d never held a real gun before. However, I was afraid he might turn me in to the authorities as a rabble-rouser. Of course, he is the ultimate rabble-rouser because he, and his ilk, are ultimately going to destabilize the moderately liberal government of Brazil towards a theocratic, paternalistic government. His language was remarkably strategy-oriented, talking about doing an “end-run” around the leftists in Brazil to do “the real work of the church.” Yikes!!!!
Off and Running
(Written May 6, first day in Salvador)
What a day! And what an embarrassment of riches I’ve already encountered with regard to studying music culture here in Salvador. I think I would be up all night writing if I tried to record everything, so I’ll just hit the highlights.
I had been here only three hours when Fabricio showed up. We picked up where we left off; I was excited to show him pictures from my Brazil trip with the ITL class up the Amazon, and also anxious to show him a sample of GarageBand. I explained that I would like to live in Pirajá so I could teach kids out there how to use GarageBand and see what they come up with. At the same time, Fabricio was trying to show me his latest favorites on his cell phone. They included a rap artist from Salvador named MV something, plus another hip hop song, plus a samba song from the past Carnaval season, plus a random music video from the movie Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson (!!!) This combination of rap (an imported genre), samba (traditional Brazilian culture) and Christian-themed music is really odd to me, and seems to be a theme among the tastes of many of my Brazilian friends from Pirajá, at least based on what I’ve seen in their Orkut profiles. Even the nuns have interesting musical tastes. During lunch and dinner, I noticed they were playing a CD of classical music remixes—I suppose you could call it easy listening covers—of classical tunes. I recognized Fauré’s Cantique and Mahler’s Fifth, second movement. Sergio and Ana really like rock and roll and American classic rock.
I mentioned that I wanted Luciano to come teach capoeira for our group this summer, and Fabricio seemed a little offended. He said he has his own group (founded by Mestre Dende, like the palm oil). He went on to tell me that there were many musical groups he could set me up with in Pirajá, of all different styles and levels of ability. As I said, an embarrassment of riches.
Then, at supper, I met the woman from Chapada Diamantina, who is a teacher of music and dance attending (or teaching at?) an institute here in Salvador for six months. I wasn’t clear on this, but I think she will stay at the end of her work and become a staff member at the institute. This would be good for me because she is a specialist in traditional styles of music and dance, including indigenous peoples such as the Puré. She rattled off several styles I’ve never heard of, and would love to see her demonstrate or perhaps tease out an invitation to join her at the institute sometime.
There's definitely going to be no shortage of possibilities while I'm here.
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