Antes de desaparecer outra vez...

I´m on a roll!! Two posts in two days. I wanted to give you all a final update before I disappear for the last time (this year anyway) to my paradise island. Again, Morro de São Paulo. I found an easier way to get here if you find that you miss me. It still involves coming to Brazil, though. Check out my tan! Am I starting to look more brasileira?? This is my Brasilian light bikini. Not as revealing as some...I´ve seen a lot of buttcheeks since I´ve been here...and not all of them pretty.

Believe it or not, but I can actually get some work done here...

...at least until the sun goes down and then it´s nap time until it´s party-on-the-beach time!

This was on our tour of torture.

It rained the whole day and we were on a speed boat, which means when the little innocent droplets of rain pitter-pattered down on us at 80 m.p.h. it felt like sharp knives and needles digging into our skin. Pleasant. "You´ve arrived at the natural pools of hell." Thanks.








But the next day we found the perfect place, called O Sitio: The Place!!

The view was amazing. We had to hike up and around the town, wind our way through overgrown roots and up and down dirt stairs to find out way to this hidden place. It´s the only place on this side of the port and on this stretch of beach where you can see the sunset the best where it´s not blocked by the Farol, the lighthouse.

Here´s the port where all the ships come into Morro. It´s itty-bitty. That´s why the place is still paradise. There´s no cars allowed on the island either. Ahh. No noise. No airplanes. No construction. The materials to build new houses and whatnot are brought in my small boat, then carried by wheelbarrow or mule to the location.

Our toast to our last night in Morro--that time!!! We´ll be back for more "honeymoon shots".

BELEZA!!

Backtracking to the interior

Things are a bit out of order here because I was so excited about my paradise island. However, as part of our many cultural experiences here, we went to the interior, around the bay, Bahia de Todos os Santos. You can see on the map where Salvador is, and then we drove up and around the bay to a place called Cachoeira and Santa Amaro.

The interior areas around the bay suffer from lack of development because Salvador´s size and promise of opportunity draw all the young people out of these towns. The people who remains tend to be older and poorer or families with children who will almost inevitably leave, who maintain a more traditional way of life. Cachoeira is still beautiful.
São João is a Bahian holiday, celebrated namely in the Northeast, that causes more of an uproar than Christmas. The interior towns are where most of the people go to celebrate (I didn´t--you all know where I was!)

São João decorations.

This is the view from the quaint restaurant where we ate a fantastic lunch.

...speaking of lunch, we also went to a very traditional market in I think Santo Amado. EVERYTHING is available for sale here. This may look gross (yes, it´s disgusting) but I´d rather eat the meat from these animals than some of the processed crap we get back in the States, animals which were fed processed food, probably mixed with their own feces, pumped up with growth horomes and then with antibiotics to keep them from falling ill from eating their own feces, living in sub-par conditions, and suffering from the growth horomes, then slaughtered, refrigerated for god knows how many days, processed, packaged, shipped all over the country to sit in our grocery stores for another god knows how many days, dyed and treated with more chemicals to fool us into thinking the meat is...fresh?? I´ll choose grass-fed cows allowed to grow up on a pasture at their own rate, slaughtered in the morning, hung on a hook an hour later, bought and cooked and served up in steaming plate of feijoada. Yummy.

(ok, still gross)

No, this is not poop from the previous animals. This is fresh tobacco pressed together with local honey. We smoked a cigar of it...sweet!

The seafood was super fresh, still moving and crawling in the bowls. And the little boy couldn´t help but pose (his mom pulled him away a few seconds later).

And these are the chickens slated for sacrifice...no, I´m not kidding.

Gostei. It was definitely a cultural experience.

My own slice of paradise

Dear friends and family,

I regret to inform you that I will never be leaving Brazil; I have arrived in perfection. If you have any urgent news, please come to Morro de São Paulo in Bahia, Brazil. It´s quite easy, actually. A quick 10-hour flight from Miami or NYC to São Paulo, then a short flight to Salvador. Take a cab or bus from the airport to the ferry in downtown Salvador, a 40-minute ferry to Valência. I can call Roque the taxi driver to pick you up from there to take you to the second small boat to get to Morro. Once you arrive, you´ll never want to leave, so just buy a one-way ticket and we can spend the rest of our lives together in paradise.

With much love and no remorse,
Anna

This is the zipline from the top of the hill that leads down to the primeira praia (1st beach--there are four!). I haven´t yet done it, but I´m going back next weekend so I´ll have more pictures for you.

I was still innocent here, not knowing that I would say goodbye to all I´ve known before to stay forever in Morro. I still look pretty relaxed though, huh?

Seven of us decided to stay an extra day, and we make a good group. This is one the segunda praia, where you can get a cheap beer and sandwich, some açai, buy a necklace or two (I bought two), and pretend the rest of the world doesn´t exist.
As gatinhas out at a seafood restaurant: Angélica, Lucero, and me.

I´ve found a new friend, one of the many stray dogs that are just looking for a little company, I guess. Maybe he was interested in my reading, too.Oi, Brasil! Estou apaixionada!

Drunken ruins

Was it last weekend? I can´t seem to remember. The weeks are beginning to blend all together. I´ve already been in Brazil for a month: I can´t believe it. Things are starting to feel settled. I have my routine. I actually wish I had more to do, more mobility. The most difficult part of being here is lack of accessibility to the regular things I´m used to. I miss my car. I miss being able to jump into my car and head to the university to do my work. Getting anywhere is somewhat impossible, or at least takes forever. I haven´t even been to the university here yet: Universidade Federal da Bahia or UFBA, pronounced úfeeba. I also miss coffeeshops. I can´t seem to get any work done at home, with my bed calling my name and the Brasilian soap operas. I remembered the name of the newest one: La Favorita. About two women, a wife and a mistress of a guy who was murdered...by whom?? That´s the secret! The mistress spent the last 18 years in prison because she was accused, but of course she´s the one we all like so it can´t be her! And the wife (that b*&$h) raised the mistress´s daughter and doesn´t want her to see her. Oh, and the mistress and her daughter are blond so they must be the good guys. So archetypal, it´s a bit embarrassing.

Anyway, what weekend was it? We took a day trip to see some places, including Castelo Garcia Dávila, the most powerful landowner in Brasil during the Portuguese colonial days. During that time, the country was divided into huge tracts of land, and old Senhor GD had the biggest plot, and hence controlled a huge part both geographically and politically. Now his house is in ruins but still amazing. And with a spectacular view.

For a house of this era, it´s very unusual for it to have so many levels. On the second floor the house is divided into two wings, and the young men would flirt with the women through the windows.

The gorgeous view :)

After we went to the Castelo, the director of the program Clara invited us to eat at her house. Her parents live there and she bought the plot next door to build her own house. This was the outside pizza oven and the mini-bar is off to the left. Behind in the picture is a lake where we all got to relax. That´s the bus driver standing guard. He never did relax...but he got to eat.

The official drink of Brasil is the caipirinha made with a local sugar cane rum called cachaça (ch is like sh, and the ç is like an s: cashasa) and is mixed somewhat like a fresh margarita, with limes and with added sugar. Delicious! But, another variation is the caipiroska (see the Russian in there??) made with vodka instead and it comes in a variety of fruit flavors instead of lime, and by fruit flavors I mean fresh fruit from the market or garden chopped up and muddled.

Caipirinha, caipiroska de abacaxi (abacashí or pineapple), caipiroska de acerola (like a big sour cherry)The most interesting and ironic part of staying at Clara´s was the negra staff. All along we´ve been learning about the misfortune of the Afro-brasilian population here, the lack of opportunity, the inherent racism, the suppression of African cultures and religions, and the oppression of the people of African descent. Clara´s family, white, German white, have 2 black women employed to do all the cooking. These must be their children. Not mistreated, by any means. Just...conspicuous after all that´s been said. Can´t figure out quite how to resolve that.

Minha familia brasileira

Last week my Brasilian family took me out to eat sushi. I never knew sushi existed in Brasil. I should have known. The event was to celebrate my 8 days here. Awww!

From left to right is me (duh), my tia Rosa Maria, minha mãe Terezinha, a friend, of Vanessa the daughter of the family, and Brian who is another student of the family but the filho of the best friend my minha mãe, so he´s like my Brazilian cousin! Don´t worry US family, you´re still my favorite!!

Rosa Maria hates sushi, but I couldn´t help taking of pictues of her and the maki.

Terezinha, me, Rosa, and Brazilian beer. YUM!

Vanessa minha irmã, me, and minha mãe (the nh is the same sound almost as ñ in Spanish).

Having a family here is very nice. It surely brings a sense of security to know that there´s someone here watching over me as I meande around this unknown place. Every morning, minha mãe is waiting for me to have coffee and freshly blended fruit juice (I feel like I´ve talked about this already). It´s a little ritual and nice to start my day with some easy conversation, a recap of the day before, and a "vá com Deus" as she waits in the doorway for the elevator to come get me. The urban middle class in Brazil live in high rises,
while the filthy rich (there´s not too many of them) live in gated and guarded estates. The poor live in slums--favelas--or on the street. It´s pretty shocking. It´s hard to know when you´re in a rich or poor area because everything is pretty dirty and rundown. The nice middle-class buildings still have dirty and worn facades and the streets are always full of trash, no matter what area of the city you´re in. At least in the actual downtown part. Graça, where I live, is known to be a very nice part of town but one wouldn´t necessarily know it visually.

I come home every afternoon from school to have lunch with my family, and minha mãe is a pretty good cook. She and Rosa and I all eat together. Rosa is a writer and interested in politics, so our conversations are usually pretty interesting. Many people here are involved in the democratic nominations, and Obama is a phenomenon here. It´s a relief for the whole world I think that he´s winning the nomination.

I have my own room and bathroom so I have some privacy and piece of mind. However, I don´t think anyone in Brazil actually ever sleeps. The streets are always really noisy, people yelling about futebol games, the latest novela (the soap operas here are a national phenomenon: they only last about 6 months but Brazilians get very involved in the stories. The lastest one--Duas Caras or Two Faces (Two-Faced??)--just ended. I saw my mãe and tia in tears over the ending. The new one started yesterday, although I can´t remember the title), just having a beer in all the local bars that line the street, barely more than a few plastic chairs, a couple of long-necks (about 1000ml), and some conversation.

We´re off to see a house of Candomblé. I´ll tell you more about it later.

Capoeira is a traditional Afro-Brazilian dance that developed during the days of slavery. The men and women stolen from their homes developed this martial art as a dance to disguise that this was an actual fighting technique. Nowadays it is still practiced throughout Brazil and in other countries as well, like the US. The two kinds that I know of are Angolan, in which the movements tend to be lower to the ground, the dancers--or players--are barefoot and where the "uniform" of white pants. They traditionally ask "permission" to play from the musical instruments, which include berimbau, atabaque, and pandeiro. The other kind of capoeira is regional, and this is more street capoeira, from my understanding. The players where shoes, street clothes, and don´t necessarily go through the ritual of asking permission.

These pictures are from the Manginga school of capoeira, where they were practicing regional. Ok, I really don´t know the difference between these two, but there are a few other students here in the program who are really into it. As you can see the movements are very acrobatic and you can see the instruments in the background. I wish I could upload the movies I took but I would be sitting here for a few hours waiting.

This is me contemplating the Pelourinho.