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.