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.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Carnaval, Day Two
Last night was out of conTROL! The way Carnaval works is that giant double-decker busses called Trio Elêtricos drive down the road starting way at the southwest corner of Salvador and drive about 6 miles or so to another point way up the beach playing music the whole way. People who pay for special shirts can wear the shirts and get into moving roped-off areas called Blocos and get really close to the Trios. Some blocos are free, like the one we went to last night called Mascarado, but most are anywhere from R$ 50 to R$ 200. The streets are totally full of people from curb to curb. There's food and booze and costumes for sale everywhere.
I'm being called away by Murillo right now, as we're running late. More posts are sure to come, Carnaval is ridiculously interesting! Absurd, loud, wild, colorful, diverse, expensive, free, all that stuff. Gotta run, wish me another night of fun!
Live on love,
Brad
I'm being called away by Murillo right now, as we're running late. More posts are sure to come, Carnaval is ridiculously interesting! Absurd, loud, wild, colorful, diverse, expensive, free, all that stuff. Gotta run, wish me another night of fun!
Live on love,
Brad
Thursday, February 19, 2009
CAR - NA - VALLLLLL!!!!
Carnaval starts today!!! Everything is traffic-jammed, there are 100,000 tourists in Salvador, and more than half of the major coastline and downtown roads are blocked off. It's electric. Tonight I will use one of Fernanda's dresses and we'll follow the Trios Eletricos, or driving bandstands, in the Bloco de Mascarados. It's a very fun, but very gay, group of people to be with, so Nanda and I will masquerade as a couple for the sake of not getting hit on by gay men and women. Poor Murillo may receive some unwanted kisses or get pinched on the butt since he has no date going with him. But hey, it's a party!
We may not take pictures as the chance of getting a camera stolen in such a massive crowd is higher than usual. Of course I'll be safe and alert, not prey. I probably won't have more than a couple of drinks so I can size up the situation before the rest of the week.
I love you all, wish me luck on the first night at the biggest party in the world!
Be Rad
We may not take pictures as the chance of getting a camera stolen in such a massive crowd is higher than usual. Of course I'll be safe and alert, not prey. I probably won't have more than a couple of drinks so I can size up the situation before the rest of the week.
I love you all, wish me luck on the first night at the biggest party in the world!
Be Rad
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The Feel of Salvador
Preamble: It’s now 9:30 in the morning on February 17th. For those of you living in Reno, it’s actually 4:30, so I hope you’re all dreaming sweetly. Having now lived here for exactly three weeks, I feel like I can write about my overall impressions of Salvador. You all know I'm the rambling, rhetorical type a lot, so this post is to satisfy my need to ambulate. The chronological history of what I’ve been doing here thus far only details the When and How portions of my experiences abroad. The What is a much more grand and unique experience for a person. I left a small and comfortable life in my hometown, where I am king of my little kingdom, and came to a large and incomprehensible place where absolutely everybody starts off as a stranger and where I’m essentially starting over in my knowledge. It makes me feel like a 4-year-old everywhere I go. I can only understand about 50% of what I hear and I can barely produce even the simplest sentences because my vocabulary is still fledgling. Just as true as my American culture has shaped my personality and my world view, the culture and the traditions here, which are still so foreign, are the fabric of the way of life for millions of people around me. There have been times here when I feel such a strong sentiment of being different that it produces almost an out-of-body experience. Self-reflection happens a lot, as the only mechanism I have to make any sense of what I’m seeing sometimes is to compare to my own way and my own life. The definition of who Brad is has a much more distinct and articulate meaning now. Things that I take for granted now seem like gifts or odd, individual quirks and perks of the life I’ve lived in the U.S. It’s humbling, empowering and enlightening. And it makes me feel very high sometimes.
This city was built so densely and so long ago that the inhabitants couldn’t really compensate for industrial growth everywhere. Some places, where the streets should be four lanes thick with ample parking and broad sidewalks, are instead crowded, rugged and confined. The pedestrian traffic everywhere is unbelievable. People cross the street at random intervals, trusting on their own judgment and the reflexes of the drivers here to keep them from getting run over. Even in the fastest or most dangerous streets, pedestrians begin to cross without caution or consideration. It’s all very devil-may-care. In the States, we are definitely more accustomed to driving quickly (even highways here only allow speeds of 80 kph or 50 mph and they are enforced by electronic radar and automatic license plate scanning and photography). But here, they disregard the lane lines, sidewalk distances, double parking restrictions, turn signals, and personal distance completely. I’ve driven around quite a bit already, and my notion of safe distance is totally different. It’s common to pass other cars or giant Onibusses with no more than 2 feet between us going 35 miles an hour with traffic converging in lanes all around us. Also, as bad as the streets in Reno seem sometimes and as much as they are the subject of joking, the roads here are much worse. Many of the roads are the same ones paved with cobblestone or dense black bricks from hundreds of years ago. They are very quaint and beautiful to look at, which compensates for the bumpy ride they create. Many of the sidewalks were built in a time when Salvador’s population was a fraction of what it is now, so they are only 3 feet wide with no gutter to speak of and no ramps for handicapped people.
I never really realized how devoid of smells my city is until I came here. Delicious cooking smells, body odor, animals, the occasional vomit or poo, thick engine smells, garbage left in the heat, the salty breath of the sea, and smells of the abundant fruit and flowers everywhere are pervasive and constant. The food smells, especially, are ever-changing and appealing. The other, nastier smells are rare, but the sweet stink of cooking grease, fresh fruit, fried cheese or potatoes or whatever, thick sauces, seafood, and acarajé is everywhere. A tourist without self control could walk around here and get really fat really quickly. The seafood and the fruit here are of such high quality and high diversity that they are staples of the diet here. Shrimp and fish are on average about a third of the price as in America and the cost of fruit is negligible. An eight-count bunch of succulent bananas or a bag of orange, plum-like fruits called siriguela costs only R$ 2,00, which is about $0.75! At any beach or restaurant, a whole fresh coconut will be brought to you with the bottom planed into a flat surface and the top chopped off and topped with a straw to drink the coconut milk for only ONE Real. Then, when you’ve finished drinking the milk, you can ask the person, “Você pode partir, por favor?” (Can you split it, please) and he will take it and return with the split coconut and a spoon so that you may eat all the fresh meat. On many corners, there are these clunky old blue or yellow machines that men wheel around to grind and smash fresh sugar cane into juice. You can walk up to them with one Real, watch them feed a long stalk of sugar cane into the gears of the machine, and receive a full, icy cup of sugar cane milk thirty seconds later.
The service industry here is shockingly cheap. To get a full interior and exterior car wash costs only R$ 10,00 and you can just drive the car up to the person’s place and go get a sandwich or something. Thirty minutes later, it’s like a brand new car for about five bucks! Even people living within limited means all have maids, cooks, housekeepers, and accountants. Every single building with a parking garage has doormen that stay in the kiosk all day to personally allow or deny entry to people. Shoeshines are R$ 5,00 and haircuts are only R$ 30,00 at the absolute most. Even the salons with the fancy signs and quality work have packages for a manicure and a haircut, wash and rinse for R$ 40,00. I’ve paid $15 in Reno before for a crappy, rushed haircut, but here that much money buys a professional job. Also, it’s like Oregon here. Nobody pumps their own gas. There’s always an anxious young guy in a spiffy uniform waiting to pump for you at every station. Also, valet parking is super cheap and there are poor people all over the city that wait around to help you find parking spaces. They only charge about one Real each time and they make sure nobody breaks into your car while you go off and screw around.
I’ve never seen so much foliage and green before as I’ve seen here. We tend to separate lush areas of trees from the urban or residential areas in the U.S. and throw in an occasional tree in parking lots to break up the manmade monotony. Even government buildings are surrounded by gigantic lawns with indigenous ferns and huge coconut trees drop their seeds all around. Large estates have basically small, fully-functional rainforest ecosystems all around them, and even the downtown area has little plazas all over the place with ancient trees and thick bushes hedging them. It’s a constant reminder that man is trying to sprout up out of a crack between the huge ocean and the vast, unending jungle that used to occupy the area. Here, civilization is a weed being crushed or plucked from out of the crack in an otherwise perfect and smooth nature preserve.
All around town, there are many walls separating the roads from hills and from neighborhoods. And on many of the walls, there is really elaborate and beautiful spraypaint art. Contrary to the way it is in the U.S., only a small amount of it is crappy gang signs. Here, there is modern art, wild colored abstract graffiti, and lots of scenes from local culture. Brazilian military scenes, historical events, cultural musical instruments, poetry, capoeira, African gods and goddesses, people, and stuff about Carnaval. In addition, there are very tall hills here rising up to tower above the roads that curve around them. Especially along the coast. Many of the walls are among the earliest things to be built in Salvador. Consequently, they are rugged and dark in color. So to compensate for their simplicity and sometimes ugliness, local artists set thousands of white tiles into the walls in the shapes of seagulls, white silhouettes of people on a black background, fish, turtles, and words like Bahia and Ãe (a local slang word like “cool”). A true feast for the eyes.
The way people interact with each other here is much more intimate than I am used to. Even total strangers, when meeting for the first time, hold each other’s shoulders and make direct eye contact. When men meet women or women meet women, they kiss each other on both sides of the cheeks. They only suspend such intimacy in courtroom or business settings. And it doesn’t matter the age. When I met Fernanda’s grandparents, I hugged and kissed them like we were family. I can only imagine the response I’d get from that in Reno!
The diversity of people here is one of the most amazing things. I’ve seen Brazilians that look just like I do, with long features, blue eyes and blonde hair. Then, in the same restaurant or at the same table, there are authentic first- or second-generation Africans. Plus, the myriad of Cuban-looking, European, Latin American, Indian, and Asian people and everything in between. There are full-blooded Japanese Brazilians here. They look like they just arrived on a plane from Kyoto but they’re born and raised in Salvador. It’s really amazing. All around town, there are artistic paintings of the words “Diversidade Cultural,” or Cultural Diversity. Roughly 75% of the people living in Salvador have African heritage and the blend of cultures and lifestyles here is more than comparable to places like New York or Chicago. A really surprising thing to me is the amount of accident victims, scars, deformities, birth defects and prosthetic or orthopedic devices. Many people have large scars or large burns, or they’ve suffered a major injury and the patch-up surgery is apparent. We truly have gifted surgeons in the States. Only the most heinous of accidents leave hideous scars once our best surgeons have worked their magic. It’s just not the case here. The medicine is about 20 years behind here as far as I can tell. Obviously, the vaccinations are all the same and the toothpaste isn’t made of arsenic or anything weird (they have Colgate and Pantene), but maybe 1 in 5 adults I’ve seen has braces on his or her teeth. It’s much rarer here for children to receive them since only the most recent generation has had the benefit. Very interesting.
A sad reminder of how some of this city is very third world is the high number of poor people. True, there are homeless people in every city in the world, especially in places like Portland and Sun Valley. But here, it’s a big percentage of the people. Some are dirt-poor, with no home, no school, and digging through the garbage in broad daylight or at night when the garbage is taken out. Some are cornered economically, and have been for generations I imagine, and sell cheap wares on the beach or direct traffic for tips only. There are many beggars that stand on the lane dividers at stoplights and knock on the car windows with a pitiful look on their face. It’s just the way it is here, and it doesn’t seem immoral to me at all. It’s a social problem that requires generations to fix and government intervention, and even the mighty United States haven’t fixed it yet. When I see these people begging, it just reminds me of the blessings with which I live every day and encourages me to never sink into mediocrity and poverty.
This place is so very alive that it’s too potent sometimes. Life explodes out of everything here. All the bars are hopping, all the clubs are loud, all the music incites people to dance. Nothing is bland, almost nothing is colorless. It’s very rich and encompasses all the emotions I have. My mind has not been so productive and curious as it is now since I was a young boy soaking up everything for the first time. My friend Andy, with whom I will meet in about two weeks in Chile, told me that traveling becomes an addiction. Now I know what he means. The time spent between trips like this one will seem so easy and so comfortable. I liken it to be like a downhill cruise with a spectacular view after a brutal uphill struggle on a bicycle. Truly amazing. A once in a lifetime experience.
This city was built so densely and so long ago that the inhabitants couldn’t really compensate for industrial growth everywhere. Some places, where the streets should be four lanes thick with ample parking and broad sidewalks, are instead crowded, rugged and confined. The pedestrian traffic everywhere is unbelievable. People cross the street at random intervals, trusting on their own judgment and the reflexes of the drivers here to keep them from getting run over. Even in the fastest or most dangerous streets, pedestrians begin to cross without caution or consideration. It’s all very devil-may-care. In the States, we are definitely more accustomed to driving quickly (even highways here only allow speeds of 80 kph or 50 mph and they are enforced by electronic radar and automatic license plate scanning and photography). But here, they disregard the lane lines, sidewalk distances, double parking restrictions, turn signals, and personal distance completely. I’ve driven around quite a bit already, and my notion of safe distance is totally different. It’s common to pass other cars or giant Onibusses with no more than 2 feet between us going 35 miles an hour with traffic converging in lanes all around us. Also, as bad as the streets in Reno seem sometimes and as much as they are the subject of joking, the roads here are much worse. Many of the roads are the same ones paved with cobblestone or dense black bricks from hundreds of years ago. They are very quaint and beautiful to look at, which compensates for the bumpy ride they create. Many of the sidewalks were built in a time when Salvador’s population was a fraction of what it is now, so they are only 3 feet wide with no gutter to speak of and no ramps for handicapped people.
I never really realized how devoid of smells my city is until I came here. Delicious cooking smells, body odor, animals, the occasional vomit or poo, thick engine smells, garbage left in the heat, the salty breath of the sea, and smells of the abundant fruit and flowers everywhere are pervasive and constant. The food smells, especially, are ever-changing and appealing. The other, nastier smells are rare, but the sweet stink of cooking grease, fresh fruit, fried cheese or potatoes or whatever, thick sauces, seafood, and acarajé is everywhere. A tourist without self control could walk around here and get really fat really quickly. The seafood and the fruit here are of such high quality and high diversity that they are staples of the diet here. Shrimp and fish are on average about a third of the price as in America and the cost of fruit is negligible. An eight-count bunch of succulent bananas or a bag of orange, plum-like fruits called siriguela costs only R$ 2,00, which is about $0.75! At any beach or restaurant, a whole fresh coconut will be brought to you with the bottom planed into a flat surface and the top chopped off and topped with a straw to drink the coconut milk for only ONE Real. Then, when you’ve finished drinking the milk, you can ask the person, “Você pode partir, por favor?” (Can you split it, please) and he will take it and return with the split coconut and a spoon so that you may eat all the fresh meat. On many corners, there are these clunky old blue or yellow machines that men wheel around to grind and smash fresh sugar cane into juice. You can walk up to them with one Real, watch them feed a long stalk of sugar cane into the gears of the machine, and receive a full, icy cup of sugar cane milk thirty seconds later.
The service industry here is shockingly cheap. To get a full interior and exterior car wash costs only R$ 10,00 and you can just drive the car up to the person’s place and go get a sandwich or something. Thirty minutes later, it’s like a brand new car for about five bucks! Even people living within limited means all have maids, cooks, housekeepers, and accountants. Every single building with a parking garage has doormen that stay in the kiosk all day to personally allow or deny entry to people. Shoeshines are R$ 5,00 and haircuts are only R$ 30,00 at the absolute most. Even the salons with the fancy signs and quality work have packages for a manicure and a haircut, wash and rinse for R$ 40,00. I’ve paid $15 in Reno before for a crappy, rushed haircut, but here that much money buys a professional job. Also, it’s like Oregon here. Nobody pumps their own gas. There’s always an anxious young guy in a spiffy uniform waiting to pump for you at every station. Also, valet parking is super cheap and there are poor people all over the city that wait around to help you find parking spaces. They only charge about one Real each time and they make sure nobody breaks into your car while you go off and screw around.
I’ve never seen so much foliage and green before as I’ve seen here. We tend to separate lush areas of trees from the urban or residential areas in the U.S. and throw in an occasional tree in parking lots to break up the manmade monotony. Even government buildings are surrounded by gigantic lawns with indigenous ferns and huge coconut trees drop their seeds all around. Large estates have basically small, fully-functional rainforest ecosystems all around them, and even the downtown area has little plazas all over the place with ancient trees and thick bushes hedging them. It’s a constant reminder that man is trying to sprout up out of a crack between the huge ocean and the vast, unending jungle that used to occupy the area. Here, civilization is a weed being crushed or plucked from out of the crack in an otherwise perfect and smooth nature preserve.
All around town, there are many walls separating the roads from hills and from neighborhoods. And on many of the walls, there is really elaborate and beautiful spraypaint art. Contrary to the way it is in the U.S., only a small amount of it is crappy gang signs. Here, there is modern art, wild colored abstract graffiti, and lots of scenes from local culture. Brazilian military scenes, historical events, cultural musical instruments, poetry, capoeira, African gods and goddesses, people, and stuff about Carnaval. In addition, there are very tall hills here rising up to tower above the roads that curve around them. Especially along the coast. Many of the walls are among the earliest things to be built in Salvador. Consequently, they are rugged and dark in color. So to compensate for their simplicity and sometimes ugliness, local artists set thousands of white tiles into the walls in the shapes of seagulls, white silhouettes of people on a black background, fish, turtles, and words like Bahia and Ãe (a local slang word like “cool”). A true feast for the eyes.
The way people interact with each other here is much more intimate than I am used to. Even total strangers, when meeting for the first time, hold each other’s shoulders and make direct eye contact. When men meet women or women meet women, they kiss each other on both sides of the cheeks. They only suspend such intimacy in courtroom or business settings. And it doesn’t matter the age. When I met Fernanda’s grandparents, I hugged and kissed them like we were family. I can only imagine the response I’d get from that in Reno!
The diversity of people here is one of the most amazing things. I’ve seen Brazilians that look just like I do, with long features, blue eyes and blonde hair. Then, in the same restaurant or at the same table, there are authentic first- or second-generation Africans. Plus, the myriad of Cuban-looking, European, Latin American, Indian, and Asian people and everything in between. There are full-blooded Japanese Brazilians here. They look like they just arrived on a plane from Kyoto but they’re born and raised in Salvador. It’s really amazing. All around town, there are artistic paintings of the words “Diversidade Cultural,” or Cultural Diversity. Roughly 75% of the people living in Salvador have African heritage and the blend of cultures and lifestyles here is more than comparable to places like New York or Chicago. A really surprising thing to me is the amount of accident victims, scars, deformities, birth defects and prosthetic or orthopedic devices. Many people have large scars or large burns, or they’ve suffered a major injury and the patch-up surgery is apparent. We truly have gifted surgeons in the States. Only the most heinous of accidents leave hideous scars once our best surgeons have worked their magic. It’s just not the case here. The medicine is about 20 years behind here as far as I can tell. Obviously, the vaccinations are all the same and the toothpaste isn’t made of arsenic or anything weird (they have Colgate and Pantene), but maybe 1 in 5 adults I’ve seen has braces on his or her teeth. It’s much rarer here for children to receive them since only the most recent generation has had the benefit. Very interesting.
A sad reminder of how some of this city is very third world is the high number of poor people. True, there are homeless people in every city in the world, especially in places like Portland and Sun Valley. But here, it’s a big percentage of the people. Some are dirt-poor, with no home, no school, and digging through the garbage in broad daylight or at night when the garbage is taken out. Some are cornered economically, and have been for generations I imagine, and sell cheap wares on the beach or direct traffic for tips only. There are many beggars that stand on the lane dividers at stoplights and knock on the car windows with a pitiful look on their face. It’s just the way it is here, and it doesn’t seem immoral to me at all. It’s a social problem that requires generations to fix and government intervention, and even the mighty United States haven’t fixed it yet. When I see these people begging, it just reminds me of the blessings with which I live every day and encourages me to never sink into mediocrity and poverty.
This place is so very alive that it’s too potent sometimes. Life explodes out of everything here. All the bars are hopping, all the clubs are loud, all the music incites people to dance. Nothing is bland, almost nothing is colorless. It’s very rich and encompasses all the emotions I have. My mind has not been so productive and curious as it is now since I was a young boy soaking up everything for the first time. My friend Andy, with whom I will meet in about two weeks in Chile, told me that traveling becomes an addiction. Now I know what he means. The time spent between trips like this one will seem so easy and so comfortable. I liken it to be like a downhill cruise with a spectacular view after a brutal uphill struggle on a bicycle. Truly amazing. A once in a lifetime experience.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Photo of Nanda's Place
Hey all. I'm more than a week behind now, but I'm gonna get back on top of it, I promise. I don't want to spend my whole trip writing about my whole trip, y'know? Here is a Google Map of Nanda's apartment so you know where it is if you decide to look. Just look for Salvador on a map. It sits on the tip of a peninsula jutting into the sea or the bay called Baía de Todos os Santos. Near the west coast of that tip toward the bottom is the neighborhood called Graça ("Gra-sa") and that's where I've been living, for the most part, since I got here. The attached photo will show you the location and you can check out the pictures I took of the sea from her balcony on FaceBook if you want. Enjoy!
Expect more posts soon, I need to sit down and do a BUNCH of homework! Ha!
Much love,
Brad
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