I am too musical for my own good

Phone booth, Barranquilla style

It’s so hard to write about interesting things like carnival! I’d rather describe for you the music that comes through my window all hours of the day, which is so exciting for me that I sometimes can’t sleep at night, even with my little green ear-plugs in. What happens is that the ear plugs block out the singer’s voice, and the horns, and the accordion, and the various percussion, and even the boys exclaiming over their mid-night football game outside my window. But they just don’t do the trick for the bass line. And a Vallenato bass line can really drive you crazy. As a complete package, the music is slow and romantic. But if you take all away but the bass, ooof...it’s a dotted quarter note and then 5 sixteenth notes, exploring a fifth. And then it jumps down or up, around the circle, and it drives me mad trying to figure out where it will go next (which, as you can see, is actually pretty predictable). I get used to it and start to fall asleep, and then suddenly may heart starts racing when the song changes. It’s very strange.

The music is coming from somewhere over there.

I am sleeping enough, though. Don’t worry.

Foam attack. Has it happened to me? Yes.

Carnival was really fun, I got caught up in it and it was everything I hoped it would be. Now it’s over, though, and I can’t rummage up that enthusiasm, so I don’t think that there’s any point in writing about carnival right now if I can’t remember how it felt. A little moment that I can bring myself to remember for you is one of the last nights, when we went to an event called Carnavalada to see a wonderful singer called Totó la Momposina. She is really worth hearing...it’s “River Music”, folkloric music from the coast and around the Magdalena River. After we listened to her, we headed down the block to where the Super Banda de Colomboy were playing up on a raised stage in the middle of the street. And I was delighted to see that instead of just standing in the street dancing, the crowd was marching around the stage! Around and around, like the Gazebo on fireworks night in OB. But with a lot more style, I must admit. Marimonda masks and the black and tan costeño hats. I didn’t know it, but if there’s one thing I like to do to accompany a night of music and Aguardiente, it’s dance/walk around and around a marching band. There was foam, there were new friends, and every once in a while the crowd would roar and we’d all switch directions.

Cake Walk!

Another musical discovery for me, perhaps not for you, my hip cool friends, was Bomba Estereo. The singer is from Santa Marta, the dude is from Bogotá, and they mix local music, Champeta and Cumbia, with electronic. They sounded reaaaly good at a free concert one night, for which we stood in a line in front of some underground hip-hop Barranquilleros and in back of a group of people from Detroit. Suddenly (I might have had something to do with it), we were all rapping “It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine...!” I know all of the words (thanks to dorm-room dance parties with Merealere), and so did one of the Barranquilleros, who was slowly learning English through a careful study of Biggie lyrics. I like things like that. Phonetic rapping, there’s nothing like it. It reminds me of a group of boys in Cuba who knew the...sounds...of every Eminem song. Not the words, though, just the ways that vowels and consonants mix with the rhythm. After hearing them, my friend Sarah and I briefly thought about putting together a compilation of phonetic rap covers from around the world. It might not be so cool out of context, though...

Ahhh, the music just started up again. Whatever happens to me here, you can blame it on the Vallenato!

La Guacherrna, La Guacherrna, La Guacherrna Carnival!

On the way to the parade: In my student's taxi, haha.

The walls and light of this apartment are so white! I look in the tiny mirror above our hallway sink and all I can see are the wrinkles that I’m getting from smiling and laughing in the sunshine. Why are we punished for doing the best things in the life? (I know, I know. Wrinkles are beautiful.)

In general, though, I am aware that I am older than I’ve ever been before. Mostly in good ways. For example, suddenly, miraculously, without my even noticing, I seem to have dumped a big (annoying) part of my personality (being insecure about expressing who I am). And I can only attribute that to age. So, thanks age!

I’m also older in less exciting ways. For example, on Sunday morning my roomates and I found ourselves on some curb up in north Barranquilla, watching the sky casually brighten at 6...7...8 o’clock in the morning. We had spent the previous hours at a gay parade, then terrorizing and charming a man who wanted to rob us, then in the street outside of La Troja, where we met this group of “bohemian” Barranquillan university friends. I love this bar, La Troja. Every time we go there, the crowd and the mood shifts. It’s a matter of situational perspective: if you stand 4 feet to the right, you’ll meet the group of doctors. 4 feet to the left, and you’re stuck with the drunk old childhood buddies wearing map shirts. And if you stand where we stood the other night, you meet graphic designers and musicians who stepped out of the pages of an Urban Outfitter’s catalogue. In a city where every other torso is encased in neon purple spandex (and I’m talking about the men who aren't wearing map shirts), this is a refreshing change.

Dancing and chatting, we American/”Brazilian” girls finally relaxed and made some friends. The robber had us on our guard, so we introduced ourselves with all sorts of stories that fell away slowly throughout the night. All the same, I was stuck speaking “Portuguese” because everyone in the world loves Brazil! It’s a wonderful thing to share with strangers. Imagine, being madly, un-covetously in love with a person and meeting people all around the world who also madly love that person! This is how loving Brazil feels. Later into the night, I sat in a taxi with a glamourous little ballerina man, eating piña (abacaxi ;) ) and singing homages to Rio in Portugues. And I felt the wholeness of the universe...haha. Don’t take that too seriously.

Trees are just another place to hang out

But the point is, after that night turned into the next morning, I was the one to decline our new friends’ invitation to go to the beach. I wanted to sleep! I never would have done that when I was 23....

The marimonda!

Also, it’s more Carnival then ever here. We were in the Guacherrna parade and I dressed as La Negrita Puloy. Now, I know that sounds weird to all of you who are not here in Barranquilla. But La Negrita (La Gringita?) is a beloved traditional character here, and it’s totally normal for everyone to dress up as whomever they want. What is interesting to me are the origins of these characters. In Trinidad, I spent a lot of time learning about the stories behind everything, the Moko Jumbies who use their stilts to walk back to Africa, the Dame Lorraine mocking the master’s wife. And the craft that goes into it all...the Pierrot Grenade “speechifies” and the Midnight Robber “robber talks”, and jab jab climbs up poles. Everyone has their dances, their art, and it’s necessary to dedicate yourself to learning that character and then to give yourself into playing it. It’s all very, very involved. I don’t know much about the characters here, but from what I’ve gathered, the Negrita Puloy is based on a brand of Venezuelan detergent from the ‘70s. And that’s about all the story I can find. Woah! I think it’s safe to say that Carnival comparisons are interesting, but, at least in this case, I shouldn't rely on them for historical perspective. Barranquilla’s carnival is young (maybe a century younger than Trinidad’s?), and I think it evolves constantly. It also seems to be more of a willy-nilly carnival...do what you want, be-costume yourself as you wish...I am intrigued.

Moko-jumbies?

In the meantime, I will uncritically dress up in this way and dance through the streets. Please forgive me. I did not chose the costume.

And the negrita/gringita/albina puloy