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Oi! Feliz Carnaval!
I LOVE BRAZIL…and apparently…BRAZIL LOVES ME! (read my little blurb on Capoeira in the market for more details…)
I have to start out by saying…BRAZIL IS HOT! This shouldn’t be a shocker to you at all. My roommate and I got up at 6 to watch as the ship pulled into port this morning. It was already hot and humid outside as the sun rose over the Bahian skyline. I have never been so excited to see a city skyline before! Actually, that’s a lie because I get extremely excited when I go to NYC…anyways…I’m in Salvador, Brazil and after day one, I’m still in one piece! Brazil is incredible. Even though this is only our second port, I’ve realized that America is too much of a melting pot and we really don’t embrace a distinct culture. Once you walk off the gangway and set foot in Brazil, you immediately are thrown into a culture so different from anything you’ve ever seen before. BUT, before I get to that…let me back up a little bit.
We had a mandatory diplomatic briefing this morning before the ship was cleared and we were able to depart. A woman came on to prep us a little bit more for what we were about to experience. Her lecture really was not engaging, plus we were all antsy to get off of the ship, so none of us found it too exciting. BUT, she did tell us a few interesting things. I’m not sure if all of you know this, but we are indeed in Brazil during the infamous CARNAVAL. Although Carnaval is celebrated all over the country, there are 3 cities that have the biggest celebrations. And…the biggest celebration is in Salvador! The woman who spoke told us that 2 million people are roaming around the packed streets of Salvador during Carnaval. Whoa! Another thing that I found fascinating (and a bit unnerving) from her presentation was a news story she shared with us. ***Feel free to skip to the next paragraph. This is not a pleasant story, but it depicts one of Brazil’s major issues, so I think it’s worth sharing.***Apparently in Brazil, people do not abide by the traffic lights after about 9 or 10 p.m. because it is extremely dangerous to stop a car in the darkened streets during the night. Can you imagine? We would get places so much faster if we didn’t have to follow the stoplights after 10 p.m.! Well, within the past few days, a woman was driving with her two kids around this time at night and she came to a stoplight, but was forced to stop because there was another car blocking the intersection. After she stopped, men from the car in the road and other men from the bushes jumped out and threatened her and her children to get out of the car. She and her oldest child got out safely, and as she was pulling her six-year old free from his seatbelt, the men started to drive away with her car. The child’s foot got caught in the door that was slammed shut. The men sped off with the child dragging on the ground. After about 7km, the child was dead. That story should paint a picture of the violence that is a huge issue in Brazil today. Although Brazil has a rich culture and they are investing money into many social movements, violence and crime are present throughout the country. Brazil is our most dangerous port, so at first I was nervous, but then I got into my “I’m invincible” mode and wasn’t overly concerned about my safety.
Okay, with that said, I would like to remind you that I DO love Brazil! As we walked down the gangway this morning, we were greeted by a small group of African drummers (Salvador has the 2nd highest concentration of African Americans – Nigeria is first) that sounded great! There were also women dressed in traditional Brazilian dresses who greeted us and tied ribbon bracelets around our wrists. These bracelets are associated with one of the most famous churches in Salvador. When you put one on, you must tie it in three knots. In about 2 months, it will fall off, and once it falls off, 3 of your wishes will come true. There were also other people handing us maps and cell phone information. I even got a pair of free white flip flops that are really comfortable and actually decent quality!
Salvador is split into two cities: the lower city and the upper city. The lower city is the poorer and more dangerous part, and the upper city is more historical and also more industrialized. A large elevator connects the two and usually it costs 5 cents to go up or down, but since it’s Carnaval, it’s free! We exited our port in the lower city and walked about 15 minutes to the Modello Mercado, a large market that has all kinds of food stands and shops! On our way to the market, we got a little taste of how Brazil is completely different from the United States. We walked past many places where people peed in the street. Later in the day, we saw a Brazilian child up in the Historic district that was peeing in the bushes in the middle of a large, bustling square! During our walk, a teenage Brazilian said hi to me and we had a brief little chat about us being here on the student ship. I believe is name was Miguel? Anyways…We made it to the market and we were already sweaty because BRAZIL IS SUNNY AND HOT! I think we’re going to have to get used to being sweaty all day long from here on out because until we get to China, it’s going to be really hot! We took time to explore the different shops and found all kinds of cool stuff! I knew when I got into this whole SAS thing that it would take a toll on my bank account and going to the market has confirmed this. There’s just so many neat things you want to get! I’m trying to practice self control, haha. I bought a t-shirt for my t-shirt quilt, and I picked up some of the ribbon bracelets we got when we got off the ship. The money conversion is pretty simple here…1 real is equal to $0.50 in U.S. dollars, so basically everything is 50% off! That’s how I figure it out in my head…While we were browsing, we met these two Brazilian guys working one of the stands who looked about our age. Despite the language barrier, we introduced ourselves and after much explaining and eventually drawing a picture of the ship, they understood why we were in Brazil. It was quite entertaining! We got our first kisses from Brazilian guys! To greet a person, they shake hands and give you a kiss on either cheek. Later, we went back and got a picture with one of the guys, Enio. Very cute!
We decided to sit and eat in the Mercado at a place where we could also watch Capoeira schools perform. Capoeira is basically a mix between break dancing and martial arts/kickboxing. It is SO COOL to watch! I could sit and watch it for hours! There is actually no human contact when people are fighting. Capoeira plays a large role in Brazil’s cultural identity, especially in Salvador. For lunch, we ended up splitting a dish called Bahian Farajo (something to that effect) between four of us. It was dirt cheap and we were all stuffed by the end! By the way – we aren’t supposed to have regular water, ice, or fruits and vegetables that haven’t been cooked because it will make us sick. Our dish was a combination of beans, rice, and some kind of mystery meat. The meat was some kind of pork, I think, but there was also liver thrown in too. Although the meat was a little questionable, the rice and beans were great! As we were eating, I noticed one of the guys (probably about my age?) doing Capoeira was looking and me and at one point, he mouthed, “I love you.” I was confused at first, but we all got a kick out of it. He was talking to one of the other guys up onstage and pointed at us and they both smiled and kept looking at our table. Then, he told me to come up and get a picture w/ him and some of the other guys. After we took the picture, we got kisses from them and when I was saying thank you to this particular guy, he gave me one kiss on the cheek and then completely missed my other cheek and got me on the lips instead. A little later after that, he motioned for me to come up on the little stage they were on so he could teach me some capoeira. It was a fun experience! My friend Becky went up as well and another guy was showing her some moves. As we were getting down from the stage, this guy gave me a kiss on the lips again. Then, when we left a little while later to head back to the ship, he tried to kiss me again. Maybe I need to move to Brazil and find a husband here? Just kidding. Another interesting experience we had at the market was with women who were dressed up in beautiful Brazilian dresses. They flock to the tourists and make you hold their necklaces as they read your palm and then they bless you and give you these tiny wooden pieces that looked almost like teeth. I couldn’t escape during this little ceremony thing she was doing and then by the end she made me pay 2 reals! This happened to Becky and Ellie as well. Now we know to avoid the ladies in the pretty dresses because they won’t leave you alone until you give them money for doing their little “blessing” thing or whatever.
Once we got back to the ship, we met other SAS people in the Union for our walking tour of Historic Salvador that we signed up for beforehand. While we toured the lower city, the tour guide basically pointed out buildings that were once beautiful but they aren’t anymore because the city doesn’t have enough money to restore them. Some buildings were still beautiful, while others were completely trashed. Then, we took the elevator up to the upper city to Pelourinho. Once we got out of the elevator, we were surrounded by people in the Carnaval spirit! In this part of town, the Carnaval celebrations are toned down a little and geared more towards families with kids. Even so, we ran into MULTIPLE groups of transvestites drunkenly roaming the streets. I found it pretty entertaining. We continued to roam around and we saw a bunch of different bands parading through the streets, which was great! Some of them sing on top of big trucks complete with high tech sound systems while others are composed of a big group of people just playing the drums and singing. There is just so much to see! All of the little kids we saw were dressed up in outfits – it was almost as if it was Halloween in Brazil! Surprisingly, we felt pretty safe because it almost seems that people are so into Carnaval that they aren’t as concerned about mugging tourists. I took a whole bunch of pictures with my digital camera and didn’t have any problems. Tomorrow night we’re trying to go to Carnaval in a different part of Salvador where we wouldn’t dare taken digital cameras and maybe not even disposable ones! We did encounter one weird older man that approached us and gave us kisses on the cheek and then kind of followed us a little bit, but we avoided confrontation after that and lost him. Otherwise, we were pretty safe. There’s police at almost every street corner also, which is reassuring.
When we got back to the ship, we found out that a group of men pulled a knife out on three SAS girls and forced them to give up everything they were carrying with them. I’m not sure all of the details of the story because it seems like there’s a bunch of different versions flying around, but the girls were not harmed. Hearing that is making me a little nervous now!
Some of my friends and I went to Bahia By Night tonight at a restaurant located on an old manor that served as its own sugarcane plantation, church, and slaves quarters along the water between the lower and upper cities. It was amazing!!! By the way – I bought a white and yellow dress earlier in the day and wore it tonight! It only cost me $13 USD. The dinner was a buffet of traditional African-Brazilian dishes and also some other international foods. My favorite dish was the barbequed chicken. I didn’t necessarily care for some of the dishes because it seemed like there are so many flavors all thrown into one thing, so it’s almost overwhelming I guess? I would like to let you know that I tried OCTOPUS. It was in one of the rice dishes and the piece I ate had the little suction feet things on it and everything. The feet things kind of grossed me out and I didn’t really care for it! After dinner, a group of performers played music and showed us all kinds of traditional Brazilian dances. I took videos of most of them. My favorites were the Capoeira and Samba dancing! The sword fighting was pretty awesome to see as well.
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