Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was the fourth Thursday in November, which in every corner of my world means Thanksgiving should be celebrated if at all possible. Explaining Thanksgiving to the many people I imposed the holiday upon this year has reminded me that I don't entirely believe in the fable of Indians and Pilgrims clasping hands around an outdoor table in crisp fall weather, BUT I do believe in how nice it is to cook and eat and drink and wash dishes with as many family and friends as we can fit.

So, I was lucky to be invited back to the old Santa Theresa mansion, where many more Americans and Europeans have accumulated since I left a month ago. Every Thursday Naldo, the house keeper guy and most beloved person in Santa Theresa, cooks what probably amounts to an entire cow, and I've continued to go to these little parties even though I don't live there anymore. The house is much nicer when you don't have to take showers there! Sitting out on the terrace with the entire North Zone blinking below and drinking caiparinhas mixed with Maracuyá, Manga, Limão, Mamão, and Abaxi is as good as it sounds. And yesterday was Thanksgiving, so I brought a beet salad. Unfortunately, yesterday was also eventful in Rio for other reasons...BOPE (the special police) invaded one of those twinkiling spots in the North Zone and the city was (still is...?) thrown into a state of alert and alarm. The trafficantes are starting to rebel against the UPP pushing them out of their favelas, and have been setting fires to omnibuses and cars around the city...more than 40 yesterday! Globo, the Big Brother media of Brazil, had non stop coverage of the operation, supplied by their two helicopters which hovered above wherever the traficantes were congregated. We could, and did, watch their every nose-pick and gun-wave for hours all day from every juice bar and gas station. There's nothing like constant helicopter footage of young men hanging out in the mountains with guns to inspire fear in the entire population of a city!

At 9:30 the city stopped the buses, so, for hopefully the last time, I slept in Santa Theresa again. After an all night Wu Tang Clan dance party! A weird Thansgiving.

And, since Parada de Lucas is 3 train stops after Penha, where all of this stuff is taking place, I think I won't go to my second Candomblé ceremony with Neuza. I forgot to write about the first one, which I went to a few weeks ago...well, I have a degree in Latin America and Caribbean Studies, which if for nothing else is at least good for having displayed one or two movies about Candomblé to me. Have you ever seen a documentary about Candomblé? It is a Afro-Brazilian religion that developed in the north. I don't know much about the religion, actually, but it is split between many nations, they believe in many orishas, and the energy of everything. The ceremony I went to was hosted by a house in the outskirts of Rio (my second time outside of the city limits!), in a semi-rural, even more poor than anywhere else I've been neighborhood. We got there around 10 pm, after hanging out at the yard of Neuza's congregation, celebrating her Pai de Santo's 50th. He is an annoying, flamboyant, demanding man. I think that I startled him by being there so almost right after meeting him he invited me to light a candle and make a wish in a dark little room. The room was full of an alter with feathers and candles and other things all over it, and bowels of various substances on the ground, including money, blood and a chicken. I felt a little scared to make a wish here but I did, the most innocent and unlikely to turn on me wish I could think of! When I told the guy my wish, he was a little shocked and said, "That is a good wish. Most people wish for money or a man." Well, I thought about it, but maybe those are dangerous things to wish for in a bloody room, even though it was the nicest bloody room I've ever seen.

Ah, my observations are kind of pointless, because I don't really know what was going on...but eventually we made it to the party, and after a few hours of breezing around there, waiting, it started. Drums and men and women and children dressed in elabrorate skirts and head-dresses or just loose white or African-printed cloth walking/dancing around in a circle. The first to fall into a trance was the Pai de Santo of the house we were visiting. He jerked out of the procession and sort of jumped onto his knees, put his hands behind his back and made a crowing sound. Everyone, the partipants and the observers, started clapping and yelling to welcome the orixá. Then some of the women brought him into a room and he came out later in woman's clothes and a very distinct expression on his face, one eye squinted and his mouth in a kind of grimace-smile. Around the outskirts of the terrace where the people were walking were tables full of alchohol and fruit. He was given a red goblet and a cigarette and started carousing around, sometimes dancing and spinning, sometimes talking to people and greeting us. Others in the circle soon started falling into a trance, every time with jerks and falling onto their knees and crowing. Some people seemed to be resisting, some people seemed to take on the orixá with enthusiasm...it hurt to see one young man jump high in the air and land on his knees with his hands clasped behind him! The terrace was full of orixás, beer was flowing, drums were non-stop, everyone was singing and dancing. The words to the songs, from what I understood, were lovely and unexpected. I would like to research them a little.

People came in and out of the trance state, people on the outside (including Neuza, who was sitting next to me with a scrap of white cloth tied around her waist over her clothes as a symbol of Africa (?)) also started falling into a trance. Candomblé is the only religion that embraced homosexuals in Brazil, and there was one transvestite who was singing with the drums, with a blond wig and a long purple sheath and a very friendly face, who, when in the trance, took on a very scary orixá, a male one who wore a tall top-hat and made a loud moaning noise all of the time. Most of the orixá poeople, when they greeted a person, made the "Caw! Caw! Caw!" noise and kissed you twice and said "boa noite", but this guy moaned and drooled and shook peoples hands so hard that he shook their whole body like an electric shock. I was scared when he slowly came over to Neuza and me, and tried to avoid his transformed, painful gaze. First he greeted Neuza, and instead of shaking her hand he took of his hat and put it on her head. I knew that she was trying to resist falling into a trance, and that proximity to people in a trance had a strong influence over her...she froze and didn't know what to do...meanwhile, I was being greeted by the scary guy, and instead of shaking my hand, he turned me around, ran his hand from my head to my feet, turned me around again and reversed the motion, and sealed the encounter with a nod. What did it mean? Neuza had called her Pai over, who replaced the hat onto the orixá's head and led him away, and we stood there shaken up for a few minutes.

Oh, it went on and on, with more food, more beer, more orixás. I took a nap on a hard bench at dawn, and when I woke up the ceremony had ended and people were just sitting around, reunioning. They were trying to cook a feast of meat, but everyone was too drunk to get the fire going, hence I ate a bite of raw BBQ which really disgusted me and made my already bad mood worse. The dogs in the yard started hanging around me because I was dropping so much food on the ground. I ended up talking to a woman of 45 who had a black eye and 3 grandchildren. I remembered seeing her in the ceremony, a very proud and friendly looking women who danced beautifully. Now she was so drunk and tired that she kept falling asleep when the conversation lulled. Everyone was incredibly nice, except for me because at this point I was tired and done with Candomblé, but I didn't know how to get home and for Neuza it looked like the party was just beginning. Thank goodness one of the neighbors have me a ride to the main road and I finally reached home around 1pm, only to find the Copacabana Parada dos Gays in full swing! Woohoo! Rio never stops :)

My life is like a string of Red Fish

Christo again...he doesn't really leave the Southern zone alone!

It's been a good week. I have lots of lovely moments to share and to think back upon from this week, and none of them involved the beach! I don't know how to connect them all into a theme, so let's just call the theme my life and let the anecdotes stand on their own.

I went to a short film festival at one of the many cultural centers (every big company or extension government seems to have their own cultural center. This film event was at the Postal Service's enourmous one, where they are also randomly showing an exhibit of Keith Herring). Some of the films were too artsy for me, and they spoke too much Português. In front of me, a very smelly skinny very old man sat with his friend, wearing funny formal/cowboy clothes. I liked two films, one about the fanatical football fans of the geral section at Maracana stadium ("Maracanã na geral" on youtube), and one about a musician. The film about the musician was sad or bittersweet, and told the story of a young man who loved to tap dance in the gay olden days of WWII. Now, this man was old, living alone in the basement of what looked like a crack house in Rio. One day, during carnival, he puts on his top hat and tails and tap dances in the confetti in an empty ball-room, alone after the party has already ended, and he is happy. At the end of this film, the smelly old old man in front of me began to cry. He turned around and looked at the crowd, seeking recognition from someone, and his friend comforted him and shouted, "It is him!" We, the small audience, applauded as loudly as we could, and the old man continued to cry. It was too much: I cried too.

On Tuesday, I met with my friend Renato for our sporadic language exchange meeting. He told me about his trip to the Amazon region. He saw the famous pink dolphins, and one day he took a solitary walk and a school of fish passed him (I just thought that this was a lovely thing to notice...I've never paid attention to a school of fish passing me in a river). His friend has stayed beyond him, and now he's worried about her, because she fell in love with two guys and lives on an island with one of them, the pousada where they stayed burned to the ground, and she keeps missing the weekly boat out of there. Renato feels sad because the beautiful, idyllic place he experienced has now changed in his mind with the experiences of his friend. He told me these things as we sat on a big rock island between Impanema and Copacabana, watching the fishermen reel in tons of red and silver fish. Renato said that he had never seen a fish caught in Rio, but on this day every man who threw a many-hooked line in pulled it out again jumping and shining with fish. The red fish looked especially beautiful against the clean ocean, with the sun setting beyond it all.

That same day, I went to my favorite bar, Baro do Rato. This is where they have a Ronda da Samba every week, and it's just a nice place, blocked off from the Halloween streets of Lapa by stacked beer crates. This week, I stood right by the musicians and watched them play...a girl played pandeiro for a few songs, and the other musicians were having fun, despite the sweaty heat (yay!). Then, guess what happened? The roof caught on fire! And guess what everyone did? Nothing! The musicians kept playing (although a few of them did look a little concerned), and everyone else kept dancing, so I did too, with one eye on the smoke, just in case. It was a perfect opportunity to sing "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire, we don't need no water let the mother-f***er burn!", and I did, but secretly to myself because I don't think anyone else would've got it.

Inside the train...unusually empty, though...(one day before operation Complexo Alemão, and I was wondering why the train was vacant).

Yesterday, I actually planned an ok English lesson (involving Beyoncé), and after the class we sat around and had a kind of ladies-club. No one seemed to want to leave, so me and my three students sat in there for quite a while, chatting away. It was nice. Then, Neuza invited me out for a beer to talk about men, but really what we talked about was her religion, Candumblé, and her NGO and the energy of everything. I really admire this woman, she is extreamly tolerant and kind and honest. So...we sat there for 5 hours! Many pleasant people passed through the conversation: the bar lady, the young guys, the old guys, a billion children, a few dogs and two cats. Then came Mr. Annoying, in his red and black Flamengo stripes. He was so nervous, just humming with tension and a desire to be liked. I am not so tolerant, I can't stand these types of people! He kept saying "With all due respect, I would really like you guys to come to my house and drink beer." Ha. With all due respect, no way. Then, Neuza wanted to use him to demonstrate something or teach me something, so she asked me to look at him ("without using your eyes") and say whether he was happy or not. Well, I didn't feel comfortable saying that I didn't think he seemed happy, so I just said he was acting really nervous and he could relax. Then he started crying and said he wasn't happy and he was all alone. Ahhhh...it was weird. But he was back to his crazy hyper self within a few seconds, asking us with all of his respect to go to his house. And I continued to be rude. Oh, well, I'm not a saint.

My train

Then I slept on the floor of my "classroom", woke up early, and experienced rush hour traffic on the old creaky train! As I travel counter-flux to my Englsh classes, I've always seem the rush hour from the other side of the platform, elbows and hands pressed up against the windows of the train as more people squeeze in. Well, I got to be in the squeeze today, and after my initial anoyance, I realized that it's quite comfortable! You don't have to hold onto anything, despite the fact that the train's shocks are so bad that the bumps actually lift you up off the ground. The crowd just holds you up. The only time I had to hold on was when I was by the doors. The guy next to me held them open with his hands and, well, we traveled a couple stops like that, hanging out of the train door. Scary but super cool! I don't plan on doing this again, though.

The scary alien guy who stands in the door, and the campaign against him..."he's not one of us!"

Annnd...I saw Vin Diesel. Not that exciting, but kind of funny, right? Oh, and I climbed up to the famous Christ stautue, but when we got the top we found out you have to pay to see the view/front of Christ, and you can only pay at the bottom. So I only saw Christ's bunda. The walk itself was worth it, though.

Christ's view...Impanema, Lagoa e Leblon

And I went on a few dates :) I think that's it! Beijos!

Sol!

One of my body-image idols!

Yes, the sun is out! E eu fico vermelha. That means I'm red. I was doing so well being pasty and healthy...well, I'm happier this way, Vitamin D overdose and wrinkles! I have yet to buy a Brazilian bikini, but I'm definately going to, because I agree with the Cariocas: we should all be showing our butts to the world. What's the big deal, anyway? At first I was startled by the amount skin being displayed, but now I love that everyone is wearing a thong. Not just the gorgeous young people, but everyone. If Brazil has an L.L. Bean kind of brand, it sells thong bathing suits and tiny postage stamp tops.

Chopin at the beach, still a little melancholy

Now that I live "on the beach", life is totally different. People wear bikinis and speedos when they're grocery shopping, when they're sweeping, playing ping-pong (a very serious sport here). The surfers travel via metro. Everyone is tan and some of the grocery stores ONLY sell fruit and vegetables...this grocery store has a cute ad campaign. Billboards of fruits singing songs about themselves: "Cai, cai mamão, cai, cai mamão, cai aqui na minha mão" (Fall, fall papaya, fall fall papaya, fall into my hand). I haven't even written about the juice here. Buenos Aires had cafés on every corner. Rio has juice bars, and they sell the yummiest juice! Limão, laranja, caixu, morango, fruta de conde, millions more and ACAÌ. Oh how I will miss acaí, that purple icey juice slush.

On the beach, like every tourist beach outside of the US I've ever been to, there are people selling things. What I like about here is that 1) they´re selling things that you might actually want, like food and water and sun screen, and 2) they´re not pushy. The vendors sing out the product and walk along, if you want what they´re selling, you whistle at them. And the songs they sing are lovely...just the one or two words of their product, but in a singing way. "Aaaaaguaaaa mineral!" is the one that's stuck in my head today.

Evening walks are nice

The beach is used by everyone. Though I have gotten better at making judgements about people in Rio based on their clothes and looks and accents and attitudes (great, I've developed the ability to prejudice here!), on the beach it's less obvious. Where I live, there is a favela tucked up in the morro behind my apartment, so the people living in this poorest of neighborhoods only have a 10 block walk to the beach. Then there are all of the fancy hotels and apartments that line the beach. But everyone rents the same chairs and guarda sols for 3 reais an hour, and the bathing suits aren't big enough to determine the quality of fabric. I've learned to relax about space. Where in the U.S. I might walk for hours to find a place on the beach where I can have a few meters around me, here I just plop down where ever there's space for my chair. It's very cozey on the beach on a hot day! One mystery I have not yet figured out is this white stuff that some girls paint themselves with. They stand there or sprawl in their chair, slowly and lazily painting themselves white with a tiny paintbrush. Some kind of delapitation? I'll keep you posted.

I've seen two helicopter rescues take place right in front of me! The waves here are big and strong, and they have an irresistable pull (the portugues word for pull is puxar, confusing, huh?). So I guess people get stuck out in the water...a red helicopter swoops in while a black helicopter looks on. A life gaurd jumps out of the red one, and then a big net is thrown out. The lifegaurd and the drowning person get into the net, the helicopter pulls them out of the water and dumps them out onto the beach and zooms away. It's very exciting. So I don't really go into the water at all...too scary!

I don't know what these guys are doing, but it's pretty!

More Music

Well, I mentioned once that I might be dating someone. That "might" has become a major thorn in my heel, and I'm trying to extract it by doing whatever random thing comes my way, even if I have to go its way first. Does that make sense?

The other day, I went to...the second BNDES International Piano Competition! This is a fancy event of classical pianists under thirty from around the world. The stakes are high: R$80,000 (maybe US$55,000?) for the winner! And, although the finals were held in the opulent Teatro Municipal, the event was free. I arrived more than an hour early, and already the line was beginning to sneak around the corner. The Teatro Municipal is a magnificent building, full of gold-leaf, green stone, velvet and naked ladies depicted in glass, marble and paint. We were assigned seats in the balcony overlooking the pianist, which was a mixed blessing because these are the tiniest little seats in the world! Me, a big German man, and a diminuative (even for a Brazilian) little guy named Julio. Julio is a student of philosophy, and is very serious. At one point, he left his creaky seat to kneel in the aisle for a better view. My other balcony companions were mostly young mothers and their many children. During the first presentation (the Brazilian Fabio Martino, playing Rachmaninoff's Concerto no. 2 in Cm), I really enjoyed watching these kids leaning over the gold and velvet balconys, mezmerized by the spectacle (in my imagination, at least)...By the third movement, they were bored, flipping exasperatedly through the program and making loud noises. I remember feeling similarily at a concert in the whaling church in Edgartown with the Maskins (mom...sorry!). Anyway, Fabio did a good job. I had goosebumps, but I don't know who deserves the credit; Fabio, the orchestra, Rachmaninoff, or the air conditioning. Most likely, a lovely combination of the four.

The other two contestants were a tall, slender Japanese guy playing Liszt and a squat Russian guy playing another Rachmaninoff (talvéz no.3?). I'll admit it, I was too bored to pay much attention, and that thorn in my heel was staring to occupy my mind again...I think that they generally lived up to the stereotypes: the Japanese was extraordinarily dexterious, the Russian emotional. Everyone loved the Russian. I guess he had played Mozart sublimly at the semi-finals. So...guess who won? The Brazilian! People actually booed when the Russian was handed third prize. I felt bad for him: he is obviously one of these guys that lived for piano, pasty and bulbous, with his shiny suit pants fasten halfway up his chest. He took his little certificate and stared out at the crowd through thick glasses in a very confused way (am I making him up now? I'm not sure...). The Japanese won second, graciously, and the Brazilian, with his bouncing pianist curls, took first, to an applause which was a mixture of national pride and artistic suspicion. Julio was disappointed. He thought the integrity of the event had been comprimised.

Corruption? I can't say for sure. But, on that interesting topic, I enjoyed a Brazilian blockbuster with the thorn guy on election night. Brazil has elected her very first female president. After the movie ( Tropa da Elite 2...don't see it 'till I get back, ok mom and dad?), the mood was glum. Pobreçinho is completely disillusioned with Brazilian politics, and who can blame him? In São Paulo, they elected an illiterate clown to congress...the movie is a social critique, and not a very happy one. In fact, a very very depressing assessment of the leadership and social realities of this city. I guess I would be sad, too, but I find it quite interesting that on the one hand people flock a movie with this message, and on the other hand feel completely disconnected to the finding of a solution. Surely they cannot hope for the movie's final: the heroic cop beating the currupt politician to a bloody pulp. That just doesn't seem likely.