fun in the sun, and futebol

I haven't posted in a while, mostly due to a lack of internet connection, so I will divide the past month or so in 3 posts. 

After Morro, we had 2 weeks of class left. It felt as if class was flying by, I literally had never had a semester with fewer class. Even with that, I got sick, so the time flew by, just reading in my room for a couple of days, waiting for the cold to pass. 

We had a fun little expedition to Ilha de Mare. This is a scenic island in the bay of Salvador. Many of the host moms came out to play too, so on our large motorboat, snacks were provided for. We had a break at a isolated beach, and basically had the beach to ourselves, a stark contrast to the crowded beaches in salvador where you have to struggle to find a place to put your things down. The seawater ground had a lovely mulch feeling to it, as there was a thick and persistent layer of seaweed on the ground. After cavorting around in the water for a while, we went to the beach, I practiced handstands, and Ray made a sand drawing on my back (I had no idea what he was doing, I just made the ground rule of no penises), and it turned out to be a mini model of the ship.

Me with a boat on my back

It was a beautiful day

We had some awesome food, a buffet including this thing called moqueca, which is a delicious seafood dish, and then continued on to an activity learning about the community of Ilha de Mare. Ilha de Mare is a quilombo, or in other words, a place where runaway slaves congregated. The people there told a rather riveting account of how the slaves swam for hours to escape their masters in salvador. We also learned that there was a fair amount of inbreeding that had occured in this island, mostly due to lack of alternatives. It was cool to see that despite the poverty, the people there seemed happy. I felt equally happy when they gave me a large coconut to drink. It really makes me feel like I live in paradise when I gaze over the sunny beach with palm trees blowing and the sweet elixir of coconut easing down my throat.

Then we were on the way back. The boat back had a rudder or some device to steer back, and the captain let us have turns steering it.

We went back to a beautiful sunset

I was sick on the last week, which was kinda a drag.

Of course, knowing me, I still went to jiujitsu because I really wanted to participate in this newfound community of mine for the last time. I feel like jiujitsu is one of the major interesting facets of my life, because my routine has gotten more set whereas jiujitsu was capable of changing up that routine a little. Generally, they have morning practices, but one practice had a potluck at the end. During the potluck, the leader of the jiu jitsu group, Grimauldo, invited me to this other jiu jitsu thing in the afternoon, merely telling me to swing by at 330. I did, expecting a normal practice, but practice was anything but normal. Five people piled into a car, and off we went. Where to, I hadn't the faintest. After the car had driven for about an hour, and I had managed some conversation with the group in Portuguese, we arrived at our apparent destination. 

The mat was huge, and was entirely full. It was somewhat reminscent of an athletic meet, everyone warming up, stretching. It turned out that this was the conglomeration of multiple different dojos, each sending about 5 people. As often happens in Jiujitsu and other martial arts, there was the obvious need for honorifics and observing certain customs (like shaking hands with all 60-70 people there) and introducing each of the 15 or so blackbelts present. After a lot of time, we finally got to fight, and I noticed quickly on the side that the mosquitos were swarming, and I have definitely noticed that in general, mosquitos target you if you are still. Well, there are solutions to this, especially in an athletic forum. To escape from the mosquitos, I kept moving and moving, rolling against as many different experienced people as I could, because this place was a veritable gold mine of talent. I ended up getting back at about 8, and the next day, my body felt like it had been run over by a train.

Two other notable things that happened in Jiujitsu: I advanced a few levels, and there was a goodbye ceremony. Each belt has tape stripes to signify the level of progress on the belt (and advancing a belt in jiujitsu generally requires significant quantities of time). I was shocked and quite pleased when at the end of my practice, Grimauldo announced that I was advancing three stripes. I was also shocked, and perhaps a little less pleased when Grimauldo announced that per stripe, I would have to run the "Corridor" there and back. Let me explain this for a second. The corridor is a gauntlet esque thing, one that consists of everyone lining up with their belts in hands, whipping the back of the person running through. I made a pretty sight by the end, sprinting by with my nose running and my back stinging.

The other notable thing that happened in jiu jitsu was me leaving. I had a regular practice, somewhat exhausting, but pretty normal. And then I mentioned to Grimauldo that it was my last practice. That changed things. He had the entire dojo line up, and one by one, I had to face all the people. They would barely wait for me to finish before they jumped on my back, choking me. I made it through, but I was exhausted by the end.

Footeball

This is basically the national sport of Brazil, they are all obsessed about football. I went and enjoyed myself, mostly due to the people watching then the actual game. The team I was rooting for lost, which while I didn't care too much,certain fans rather did.

Action shot

The refs need protection sometimes from angry fans

The sky was purple

And then was dark purple

And some fans were not very excited about the end result of the game.

With the football game, I was ready to set off for two weeks of excursions!!

Tropical Paradise

We went to morro de sao paolo for our spring break and that was literally a tropical paradise. I has slacked for sifnificant portions of time in terms of getting the actual place, so I delegated that duty to someone else, and so I really had no idea what the lodgings would be like.

Almost all of the class had decided to go to Morro or some similar tropical paradise, so we told our professor and managed to get thursday off. Planning on this, we and by we I mean, Fiona, Natalie, Ray, Arissa, Meg, and Pericles decided to meet at campo grande, a central neighborhood of Salvador, at 530 in the morning. I set all my alarm clocks and everything, but getting out of the door that early is quite difficult for me, so I was a bit late. Worried, I took a cab, as I figured that would obviously get me to the meeting spot faster. Wrong. Often times, I know the directions to a place walking that don't really work while driving. Case and point, I told the cab driver to go the wrong way a couple times because there are streets that only go one way, a phenomenon that had hardly affected me as a walker. So after winding the wrong way for a while, we are driving in a highly unfamiliar neighborhood, and I tell him UFBA, the name of our school, because I know how to walk to the meeting point from there. Unbeknowest to me, there are multiple UFBA's, so he successfully drove up to one, and declared triumphantly, UFBA. In a totally random area at about 5:30 in the morning, I had all my bags and no idea where I was. Asking fervently random people around me, I eventually huffed up a hill that might be the right one, and trudged to the meeting spot, which was empty when I arrived. The other people in my group had apparently not really slept that night and instead staggered in from late night partying (early morning). 

We made our way to the ferry, and found ourself watching the sunrise in a very long line. But the line moved fast, so before long, I found myself on a ferry boat, and soon after that, I found myself with a significant creak in my back from sleeping on said ferry.After a bus, another bus, and then another ferry, we were finally there. We had a native Brazillian helping us by the name of Pericles, and he knew exactly how to get from point a to point e. 

the dawning sun as we stood in the ferry line

another group of sit people cooincidentally  on the same boat

bye salvador

hello paradise

And after walking along the beach with some very heavy backpacks, we finally made it to the cottage that turned out to be ours, which was in the middle of nowhere. The host of the cottage was certainly without a question one of the most singular personalities on this trip so far. He went by many names among us from Gizmo, to Gazmo, to Gauzo, but I believe his real name was Gauzo. He is a really short man, but also one of the most incredibly ripped men I have met in recent memory, thus earning our moniker, the mini hulk. 

The one and only gauzo!

 We hung out on the beach for the first day, as that is what you do on tropical paradises. There was a famous clay pit, so we went and rubbed the clay all over us, as it is supposed to have an exfoliating effect. While we may have looked slightly weird with yellow covered clay covering our bodies and faces, I also felt quite soft afterwards. It took us a while to get mobilized, what with hammocks etc to distract us, but eventually we decided to walk towards the main town. It felt like the Brazilians kept stalling, and then all of a sudden, they were like, let's go. Puzzled, we walked along the moonlit night along the shore. I noticed that the sand was wet where we were walking, but I didn't think much of it at the time. It was a long walk (about 45 minutes), but the beauty of the austere rocks that looked like they were from a set of star wars and the myriad stars kept us pacified. We met up with several people from our group, relaxed more, and then I met me.

I know, that sounds strange, but I met someone who was virtually me, with all the same preferences, about the same size, with a beard, someone who was solo traveling, someone who went to a liberal arts private school and was the same age. It was weird because that doesn't happen to me too often, so we spent a while chatting and further confirming that we were the same person. 

But the night eventually was winding down, so it became time to return. I met up with the rest of the group that was staying in Gamboa with Gauzo, and we started the walk home. And that's when it clicked. You know that feeling when you have a lot of signs of something, but you don't really put it together until later? Yeah, that happened to us. The return path was engulfed in water. The wet sand, the moonlit night (as tides are more extreme on moonlit nights), the insistence of the Brazilians to leave at certain times, all these clues were trying to tell me, but I ignored them. We then walked back to Morro, all with the, "well now what" look on our faces. Some people in our group graciously agreed to host us, so we went to sleep at 4, sneaking into their hostel and taking the extra beds. I awoke at 730 to hands shaking me, telling me to get up. Apparently we had to go back to 1 avoid the manager and 2 to walk when the tide was back out. Staggering home in a tired daze, we eventually made it, and slept for another hour or two on the hammocks.

There was a cute little dog that we spent an iordinate amount of time with

And another day of paradise began. We spent more time on the beach, and Ray and I decided to go to the Morro beach. We went swim suit shopping, and he bought this thing called a tsunga, which is basically a tight loincloth speedo contraption. I went on the safer side, and bought myself a regular bathing suit. We played paddle ball on the beach, hung out in Morro for the day, and returned to a delicious dinner. It was something called moqueca, and it was probably my favorite meal in Brazil, simply sumptuous. We went out after that, some of the group went skinny dipping randomly, and we slowly made our way to the sunrise party on the top of a big hill. The group was straggling, so Ray and I decided to forge ahead, and the club was absolutely dead, with our group composing the majority of the patrons. As the sun started to rise, we mobilized and got on the 6 am ferry back.

The moqueca....so good

When we woke, we realized that one of our members, fiona, hadn't yet made it back yet. It was 10 am, she had forgotten her phone, and we were at home, so we had one of two assumptions, that either she was staying with some of the other group in Morro, or that she was with a guy. As the time wore on, we were less steadfast in those assumptions. Then it was 11, and then it was noon, and we started to send texts to other people within our group, seeing if she was with them. No, no, no, eventually the answers poured in, and the time ticked on, 1, 2 , and at 3, genuinely worried now, we decided to go searching.

 We walked along the beach, in case she was stuck somewhere, and then without success, made it to Morro. Someone had the stroke of brilliance to check the health center, and we found out that Fiona did in fact have a record there. The nurse said that Fiona had arrived badly battered, with a broken arm and multiple cuts and bruises. Fiona had been there that morning, but had been transported across the bay to another facility. This facility kindly sent her back to Gamboa when they found she didn't have an ID. When we heard she was back in Gamboa now, we raced over there, and as if to mirror our moods, it started to pour rain.

Sprinting along the beach, we arrived huffing to Fiona, and although we were very much tempted to hug her, we desisted. And then commenced her story.... remember how sunset party was on top of a hill... well the hill was rather steep at points. Three people within our group fell, and Fiona fell the worst. She was unfortunately separated from the group, so after falling, Fiona remembered only waking up at the bottom of a cliff at about 1030 am. She looked up at the sheer face of a cliff that was at least 50 ft high, and found herself in the middle of a jungle. Taking assessment of herself, she found that she had a deep cut on one arm, and as she tried to raise herself, she felt the bone shifting in the other. Stuck, isolated, and without a phone, she had no other recourse but to plunge through the jungle, searching for civilization. Arousing many looks, she made it to the health post, and then it was the same as we heard from the nurse.

Fiona decided against going out, but insisted that we did if we so wanted, so as we had already bought tickets to the party, we went out. Gauzo had us do a workout before we did though, and we had some pullups to get the blood pumping. 

me and the brazilians casually working out, 

me!!

We walked along the beach, with Gauzo offering us some of the water, which we all fervently refused. We got to the foam party, and for the first bit of the foam party, there was absolutely no foam, which made me feel silly in my bathing suit. There was a lot of dancing, and then at about 3 am, there was a little stage of sorts where a fire dancer went at it. At about 4 am, the foam came down, and totally changed the dynamics of the party. The foam mounted, and I literally had to lift a rather short girl from our program out of the foam. It rained too, and while it was a pretty cool moment, I was getting cold and wet. I decided to seek shelter from the rain at the covered bar.

There was a girl also trying to keep dry, watching the crowd, and in portuguese I intimated that it was rather cold. We continued talking, and then we started dancing, and then we started kissing. We stayed in the bar for a while until it was just getting light, and I asked her if she wanted to get out and watch the sunrise. I had to forge into the foam party to get my shirt, and we walked hand in hand to some bluffs overlooking the rising sun. With slanted rays and a sky full of illuminated clouds, we watched the sunrise. I gave her a massage as we did, and thought, yup, paradise.  

paradise

I walked her back to her hostel, speaking in portuguese all the way, and gave her a goodbye kiss, knowing that I would likely never see her again (she lives in a different state in Brazil). I walked back to the ferry, got back to the house, and slept for about 3 hours, until it was time to go to the beach again. Gauzo showed off some of his capoeira moves, and soon it was time to leave, as the transportation route is rather convoluted. The return route took substantially longer than the way there, with everyone trying to go back at the same time. We spent a good 3 hours waiting at one bus station, another 3 hours waiting in one of the longest lines of my life in the ferry building. People there were getting so impatient that the military police had to intervene. Finally arriving at 11 pm, I was ready for bed.

.

Cachoiera

I mentioned before that the graffiti was really cool in Salvador: 

And then I was off to a rural area called Cachoeira. With a quick 3 hour bus ride, we were there in Cachoeira. The first night we didn't really do that much. After the traveling, and the waiting and the lack of lunch, I was pretty hungry. I got out of the bus to this riveira place of sorts and there happened to be a bowl of fruit on the table... and there happened to be someone telling us we could eat it, and then there happened to be a ripe mango in my hands. I devoured several pieces of fruit, and still hungry, went at the watermelon with a knife. We had an afternoon relaxing and even got a little kid band to serenade us before we went off to meet our host families. They were surprisingly good, with a little 8 year old in the center rocking out on the saxophone. 

After that, we headed to a capoiera demonstration of sorts, where the kids had a capoiera circle going. Then a man whose pants were falling off of his ass decided to join in. He was badly sunburned to the point where I don't know if he had ever heard of sunscreen, but he had some moves. The capoiera circle took it in stride, incorporating him in. We got called one by one to embrace our host families, and it kinda gave off the feeling that we were getting chosen for a team. I had the one man, and we had one of those moments where one person goes in for a hug (me) and one person goes in for a handshake (him). Great way to make a first impression.  

We had to wait a little bit after that, and as some residual little kids were around so of course we played  capoiera with them, with me trying to remember my latent skills from elementary school. And finally, it was time to go to the homestay and knock out. I found that I was sharing a room with my host father, and while he offered me the big bed, I was content with a bed in general.

One of my favorite things about rural life is the inherent safety that comes with it. I feel safe running at night, I feel safe bringing my camera out, and this means this post actually has some pictures to accompany it.

The next day, we headed out to a health post to check out how the health care system actually functions, and especially how it works in a rural context. We piled into vans and off we went.

This is probably one of my favorite photos of my trip so far. This one features Sierra and her afro.

\

At the health post, there was a waiting area full of predominantly women. I guess men did not deign to go to the health post. There was also an adorbale little girl above that was slightly distracting my attention. The nurses took advantage of the captive audience, and gave a lecture about water. They were more aware in some senses than we in the United States are. They acknowledged the potential to run out of water, and told how important it is to have clean, sanitary water. Then we were placed with a man named Glaucio, a community agent in charge of health on the front line, checking with individual people and making sure that everyone is ok. This is one of the major facets of the SUS (the brazilian health care system); they emphasize prevention over emergency room care, something we can take a lesson from. We did some hiking through the area, going to individual houses and Glaucio knew everyone. He was distributing these things called bolsa familias reminders, basically making sure people check in and get their welfare.

the scenic skyline of cachoeira

kitty!!

Trash was just littered everywhere. We could see the degree of unhealthy eating, the wrappers of junkfood scattered.

Yum!!

living like a boss

Stand by moment, we crossed the bridge, and we really hoped that a train wouldn't come at just the wrong moment... 

We spent some time interviewing the local personnel, but I wouldn't want to bore you with too many details.

In the evening, we went to this casa de farinha, which is this place where they make tapioca. The women offered to let some of us participate me, and hopefully by now you know me, I am very much an experiential learner, so I jumped on the opportunity. The things they make with tapioca are kinda amazing. Everything from these cracker things, to butter dough balls to this warm tapioca drink.

I took the opportunity to run in the morning, and the way I usually don't get lost is that I mark places that I have been to, noticing certain patterns etc whenever I make turns. I tried that approach on my run in Cachoiera, and I marked a straight road, a line of palm trees, and a blue bus sign. I figured that was enough, but turns out, not. I ran down several roads, and it was a true testament to my portuguese that I got back safely.

For the day activity, we got to explore an apiary (a place where they make honey)

honey

and the place that makes it, the bee is coming out as I take the picture

After interviewing a Candomble healer, we headed back to a waning sun. We also interviewed a benzedor, which is a dying art. Apparently, all the benzedores have to find young apprentices, but the young ones of this generation aren't so into this idea, so only a few benzedores still exist.

These are my meninas (girls). They stayed with me and were essentially continually adorable.

Probably my best story from cachoeira was my longest run yet far in Brazil. I set out at about 8 and with a trusty headlamp and 10 reais, I set off into the darkness. Water or lack thereof tends to be my biggest problem, so I bought two waters, and ran along the highway, listening for the sounds of engines as they went roaring around the corner. It might be hard to understand, but running can be very tranquil at times, a way to process past events and plan new ones. At other times, it can be less so. After running for 40 minutes in one direction, I decided to turn around. On my way back, I noticed  some dogs barking at me and didn't think much of it. I did think much of it when they streamed across the highway and came quite close to me, barking. Staring them down, I slowly edged away, and with my adrenaline fully engaged, I ran my way back home.

 We explored the open air market, and sampled some of the wares while we were there.

We also had the chance to go samba dancing, and learn from some of the people that created Brazilian samba as we now know it, which was pretty fun. It is always cool to see old people rocking out, putting us young ones to shame.

I played so much tag while I was there. It was awesome, a harkening back to my childhood. I had forgotten how much I love playing with kids, and especially, being the older person who has some measure of responsibility but is at the same time looked up to. In some ways, while my portuguese might be lacking, I am realizing that there are some fundamental languages that humans speak that do not necessarily need to be spoken. For instance, lifting kids, playing with kids, dancing to music (and gangnam style----yay globalization), all these can be done essentially without speaking. I felt that through these languages and my limited control of portuguese, I really bonded with the people there. 

And as quick as I had come, I had to leave....