WOW! What a weekend!!!! Not just completely filled with things, but also amazing and new things!

So, Saturday morning I washed a whole suitcase of clothes, this being because I had been quite lazy the last few weeks in my washings, and only did so this weekend because I was actually running out of underwear and shirts.... So yeah, quite a fun morning, but I had a great afternoon to look forward to! In the afternoon, I went to one of my friend's houses to learn to make two kinds of local cakes! One is a mandioca cake, and the other a corn cake. The mandioca cake is a salty cake, and is made with the flour of mandioca, which when wet makes a chewy substance. The cake is delicious! I had eaten it many times before, but didn't really know how to make it, so was eager to learn! The corn cake, is really quite similar to the American cornbread, but slighlty different... Very tasty as well! You can guess what my dinner was on Saturday right? At least it filled me up for a VERY VERY busy Sunday!!

So, Sunday, I got up very early, for a special breakfast with the same friend as on Saturday. Armadillo couscouz!! Hihihi.... Yes, I tasted armadillo! At first I was quite apprehensive... But it looked quite normal. When cooked the meat goes a whitish colour. The taste is ok actually. It is really similar to chicken. And the texture is a bit like over cooked chicken meat, quite dry. It is not a very fatty animal. So, yeah, it was just another piece of meat!

Then at 9 o'clock.... I went to CHURCH! Yes, to church, but not to pray, or follow the mass, but to go see a baptism. To see the baptism, I had to follow the Sunday mass as the baptism is incorporated into the mass. The girl baptised was already much older than the usual baptism age, but she has a complicated family background. It was interesting to see the mass too, actually. The priest is quite lazy, and he doesn't know half the hymns, and he keeps reading the mass from the Holy Book, even though it's the same mass he's preached year after year on the fourth Sunday after Easter, so yeah, I had to contain my laughter sometimes.

After Sunday mass, we went for lunch at the baptised girl's house. The first time I'd been to a family lunch here in São Miguel. What a caos!! But a fun caos. People sit in little groups, the children in the living room with the tv on, the male adults outside with loads of beer, the elderly women sit in the back yard eating and talking, and the women walk around from group to group, telling people to go eat more, or cleaning dishes, or doing all kinds of other things. The food table.... SOOOOOO much food!!!! Feijoada, pirão (mandioca flour with gravy), liver with blood, white rice, two kinds of salads, fried chicken, cream chicken, and loads of other things I can't remember / couldn't recognize! But everything was incredibly tasty!!!

Something which I found quite funny, and unexpected.... In Portugal a family dinner usually ends with a table FULL of desserts, so after everything was cleared off, I was expecting dessert... Guess what?! Brazilians don't actually eat dessert! So after a while, we went home. I was quite dissapointed, as I was expecting a table full of Brazilian goodies! Later I commented on this with friends, and had quite a laugh about it.

Once home, I got ready for a night of partying! I did my nails, washed my hair, and got all nice and partied up. I went to my very first VAQUEIJADA! Before I tell you about my first vaqueijada, let me explain what a vaqueijada is...

A vaqueijada is similar to the American rodeo. It is from Saturday early morning to Monday wee hours. The "vaqueiros" or cattle riders, do many races. They race in pairs, and the prize of this vaqueijada was 10,000 reais (around 3,500 euros). To race they have to pay entry fees per race, of 150 reais. The point of the race is to thrown the steer onto the ground in a certain area. It goes like this:

There is a pasture of about 300 metres long and about 20 metres wide. At one end is a holding stall where the steer are kept. The two horseman enter the pasture and stand on either side of the door to the holding stall. When the steer is released, it should start running to the other side of the pasture. The horsemen follow it, and one tries to grab the tail. Once it grabs hold of the tail, he passes the tail to the other horseman. They are both running along with the steer between the two horses. At about three quarters of the pasture there is an area of about 4 metres. In this area the second horseman must get the steer to the ground. If it doesn't happen, or it happens outside of the area, the pair loses the run. The exact rules of the race are still unclear to me, and the way that the pairs can get into the final is also unknown, so I cannot explain it to you. Each pair runs many times throughout the weekend, with little sleep, and a frequent change of horses, they often run 25/30 times in one vaqueijada.

The strength with which they grab the steer, and force it to the ground is tremendous, and so very often, the tail of the steer break, and the horseman is left with the hair end in his hand. Sometimes, in the fall, a steer also breaks his legs. If this is the case, then the steer gets killed immediately, so as not to create an infection. The meat is then sold, or used in a communal BBQ. It is quite a cruel sport to the steer, but I must say, I found in interesting to watch.

At such a vaqueijada, we have the races going on, on one side, and on another side, we have to party! It is a real highlight in the social life of these people. A lot of people have BBQ around the dancing area, and many cars have their own sound boxes. In the dancing area, we had a local band playing Forró, the typical dance music in the Northeast. The dance area is covered by loads of palm tree leaves, so it makes a nice covered area. Now.. the dancing...

I have never danced so much in my life! Forró is danced mostly in pairs, and the couple has to dance practactly glued together.... The rhythm is quite fast, and for someone who has never danced Forró is his life, it is quite tiring. Tiring in the mind, because you're trying to keep up with the rhythm without stepping on your partner's toes, and tired in body, because you're using muscles you've never used in dancing before! I danced the whole night. And it was FUN!

There is going to be another vaqueijada just before I leave São Miguel, and you can be sure to find me there!