February 2nd through 4th (catching up)

Monday, the 2nd of February, there was a festival for the ocean goddess, Yemanjá, at the beach in Barra. The plan was to get up at about 7:00 to go see the local African women set sail to hundreds of little ships made of leaves as tradition commands, but we all slept in instead. It’s a vacation, after all. Around 10, we left and drove there. Roughly 100,000 people visit the festival throughout the day, so about 10 blocks were just packed all along the ocean and temporary businesses were everywhere. Everything was super cheap, too. It was like when a carnival comes to Reno and there are $3 hot dogs and $5 hats and sunglasses, only there it’s R$ 1 for a beer and R$ 4 for acarajé (about 50 cents and 2 dollars)! We walked around for a few hours, watching the parades of people with live marching bands go by and jumping in and out of PA’s set up with cultural and dance music playing. There are many Yemanjá priestesses or nuns that attend the festival, so we made a point to stand in line to receive their blessing. That was the only serious moment of the day, as they are all holy women here and their blessing is a special thing. Here, when a person gets into the sea, they are supposed to offer their tidings to Yemanjá with the expression “Odoyá Yemanjá (Oh-do-YA Yay-mon-JA).” I heard that expression about 70 times that day. Since we knew we’d be on foot for a number of hours and since it was about 105° with no wind surrounded by people, Nanda and I drank a ton of beer. The equivalent of Coors and Budweiser here are Skol and Nova Schin, which are two of the logos I’ve seen a lot of here. For a late lunch, we met with Bruna after she’d been pushed around at work all morning. Right when she was leaving to come meet with us at the end of shift, her boss asked her to run some “quick errands” about 20 miles away and battle lunchtime rush hour traffic to do so. Poor girl. But, she met up with us at her father’s pizzeria (a very nice place with huge selection, air conditioning, and seating for about 60 people) right at the heart of the party. Business was slamming, luckily, but we were still given a very choice table since her dad owns the place. The pizza was absolutely great, and we got to sit next to a window and watch a seemingly endless parade of celebration pass by right below us. Bruna wanted to pay her respects to Yemanjá after lunch, so we three walked out to the sea with roses and tossed them into the sea in the hopes that Yemanjá will grant our wishes and good fortune over the water. It was a really special experience that carries the hopes of many people here. Fighting our way through the huge crowd, we eventually made it to the beach at Porto da Barra for a nice long swim that lasted until after dark. Just up the street from Nanda’s place is a great açaí place, so we three walked up there and enjoyed a frosty fruit confection and chatted for a while. From our long day in the sun, we’d lost the energy to go out, so instead we rented Borat and laughed out heads off watching it back at Fernanda’s. Bruna is notorious for falling asleep during parties, so sure enough, she missed at least half of the funniest movie ever. We took plenty of pictures at her expense that night. Eventually we woke her up and she and Nanda went off to bed. I broke a mighty sweat working out in Nanda’s gym downstairs, then fell asleep.
Tuesday we got up early for a change. Nanda had a work errand to do at the mall, plus Mariana wanted to shop a little bit and I needed more clothes. I only took about four days worth of clothes total on this trip since I thought the majority of it would be spent camping with Andy and Pat. So anyway, more shirts and shorts were necessary. We shopped for a while and ate lunch, then I met up with Nanda’s uncle Ricardo to exchange some USDollars for Reales. He works for a tourist agency, so the exchange is free, plus he gets commission on it. I killed some time until we ate a huge dinner. Then I took Nanda out for some unique cocktails at a beautiful little restaurant that actually resides on the ocean. Not the beach, the ocean. There are glass floors all over where we could look down directly underfoot and see the water. Really cool! And of course, the place is called Acqua. Then we went to the oldest bar in Salvador called Barravento, or “Windbreak.” It sits high above the coast and is absolutely breathtaking at night. We spent a good 3 minutes explaining to the waiter how to make a White Russian because it’s my favorite and Nanda had never tried one. Since milk is rare, Kahlua is even rarer, and nobody drinks filling cream drinks, there’s no such thing as a White Russian here. The basic formula for drinks here, according to our funny English buddy Ross, is to take some fruit, mash it up real good, pour rum or vodka in it, add ice, and drown the whole mess in sugar. In this, he’s right. But irregardless, my waiter listened to the description pretty well and brought back a tasty replica of a White Russian, which Nanda liked a lot. We sat for a while chatting and staring at the ocean as we sampled various fruity libations, then cruised back home and fell asleep.
Early the next morning, Wednesday the 4th, we all got cleaned up and went to meet Nanda’s grandmother Ida and grandfather Abdul-Hay for lunch at Eduardo’s house. Abdul is the patriarch of the whole Tanure clan and is as much a character as my own granddad, Lew. He is originally from Tel-Aviv and Beirut, and is full-blooded Lebanese. Ida is a very classy lady from many parts of Brazil. I’ve seen photos of when they were younger, and they both looked like supermodels. Though Abdul is proudly 82 and Ida is in her seventies, both are full of spunk and in great health. We (Renata, Milena, Nanda, Aleixo, the grandparents, and I) exchanged conversation over a delicious meal at Nanda’s dad’s house for lunch. Eduardo and Gisa (dad and mom) live separately right now from some marital issues. But they’re friends still, and still married trying to work it out. An interesting thing is that they live close to each other and their housekeepers are sisters! Ana’s sister is named Julia, and they constantly compete to see whose food is better and who favors them in the Tanure family. Julia is like Ana, only a little younger and a little more sassy. She, too, is a fantastic cook and a really nice person. Anyhow, her lunch was really terrific (black beans with black sausage, farofa, rice with vegetables, shredded beef with potatoes and orange sauce, and doce de leite for dessert) and we had fun eating it. The rest of the morning, Nanda had to work for a while and then attend her first night of school, so the twins and I goofed off and watched Friends. I’ve been learning guitar here as much as possible, too, so I finished learning Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton. That evening, Murillo invited me out with one of his classmate friends, also named Mariana. She was somewhat serious and shy at first, but lightened up completely once we all started gobbling food together and barhopping. I didn’t really drink much, as I’m a moderate chap, but we had some “secret ingredient” shots called Monkey Brains at a great second-floor bar for students called Postudiar or something (it means “after studying,” ha!). The shot was a syrupy red fireball mixture with what I assume is some kind of milk product in it that was curdled up in the liquor to look like a small brain. We drank our monkey brains and giggled for hours, talking about culture, the ocean, Reno, Burning Man, and all the things that make us the same and different. At this point in my trip, I’d begun to absorb Portuguese more quickly and asked them to speak it to me unless I really, really didn’t understand. With clear and metered diction, I can understand basically everything I hear with a little time to process. Afterward, I stayed the night at Murillo’s house because Nanda’s house was the overnight home to the visiting grandparents. Thursday the Fifth. Muro and I slept in since we were up so late drinking and screwing off. We went to Porto da Barra, basically the best beach within a ten minute drive, and started swimming. Luckily, Nanda is friends with one of the seaside attendants there named Sidney (pronounced “See-gee”), so he gave us a great deal and a great location near the ocean with chairs and umbrellas. Plus we drank coconut waters a’plenty for one Real each. Murillo’s friend Rafael was there by coincidence, so he joined us for the rest of the afternoon. He’s a cool dude, and even though I love hanging out with Nanda, it’s great to be able to rap with guys. We talked about English and culture as always, and more about the differences between ladies in Brazil and the States. Basically, the culture is very patriarchal and strict in Brazil. It’s like a big game. One can’t allow the subject of his affection to know that she has his interest and he always has to make the first move with no provocation. Plus, they can “date” for months without being of any social importance to one another until they explicitly discuss being boy- and girlfriend. Then, usually the man (boy, in my opinion) is possessive and distrusting of the woman and requires his permission for her to socialize with other people in the event that there may be other guys there to steal her from him. It’s all very strange to me, but apparently it works for them. So, back to the beach. We yakked and swam out to an anchored boat to jump on and off into the ocean there (very common), then split off eventually and I went back to Nanda’s to clean up. After dinner, I played some guitar with Leu. Everybody except Murillo, Nanda and Mariana left after that, and we made a delicious chocolate addiction called brigadeiro. You all can look up the recipe if you want, but it’s really simple: one can of condensed milk, three scoops of Nescau (the Brazilian version of Nesquik chocolate milk stuff), and butter. Then boil it until it’s thick and pour it into a bowl to cool in the freezer for a while. It’s like heroine afterward and you eat it with a spoon until your eyelids close autonomously. We went outside to play cards, a cool game called Shithead, and drink a bit of champagne to celebrate Nanda’s aunt Andrea’s successful stomach surgery. Nanda shaved my head then, since I needed a haircut badly. We settled in to watch about three hours of The Simpsons and Futurama, then went to sleep at three in the morning. I tell ya, it’s the little things like Matt Groening cartoons that really remind me of home.