Advertisement
Published: April 2nd 2009
Carnival 09
Olinda, BrazilNATAL
We arrived in Natal after a 28 hour bus ride with directions to Camy's beach house in hand. We were happy not to get robbed in the night, but we were also very tired. We found Camy's house with a lot of help from her neighbors and it was such a wonderful place we felt very fortunate to stay there. We spent that day mostly resting and walking along the beach. The ocean was green with the temperature of bath water. Unfortunately, where there wasn't submerged rocks there were surfers. We weren't sure which was more dangerous but Ammi was determined to swim regardless. She was having fun until a surfer decided to deviate from the group and force Ammi to swim into the rocks, scraping her knee. But she still had fun. “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” As the old saying goes. Rocks or no rocks, Ammi still loved it.
That night we were awakened in the middle of the night. Someone was in the house! Did I lock the front door? I could have sworn I did. We tiptoed to the door. “Ammi? Kevin?” Camy had come home early from Lençóis. We
stayed up for a while talking. Camy told us about her various projects she had going in Brazil. She had started a school in the Amazon to teach kids English and how to protect the environment at the same time. It reminded me of a desire Ammi had expressed to be a teacher abroad, accepting 2 year jobs with all expenses paid.
Camy had also started something called a micro-credit bank. Started with only a few thousand dollars and no employees, she finds locals that are out on the street and unable to get a traditional bank loan, and helps them buy a house without charging interest. She told us one amazing story about a newly divorced woman living on the streets with her kids who she helped buy a small house on some worthless 8 acres inland. Camy let her pay less per month when her son got sick, but she was paying something month after month. Years later, the woman had only paid off a small part of the loan (roughly $400) but a big time real estate developer was interested in her land. She didn't have anywhere else to live so he offered to take her
land in exchange for a huge 3 bedroom beach house that he couldn't get rented out and he would pay off the rest of her loan. The micro-credit bank wasn't designed to make money, but to help people. I found it amazing what so little can do sometimes.
Having so much fun at her beach house, I looked up a prices on a EscapeArtist.com, which has cheap beach condos in Panama and Costa Rica. Maybe some day.
We enjoyed the next day going with Camy to meet all her friends and neighbors. It is always a treat when you are traveling to get to know the people of the places you visit. It's happens sometimes when you travel that you start to feel like you are just skimming the surface, moving too quickly from place to place to really make a personal connection. We are so grateful that Natal was one of those place were we got the opportunity to really connect, it is a truly special place. We were so grateful to Camy for showing us what is truly possible for one person to accomplish as long as they are motivated and think laterally.
OLINDA/RECIFE
We were having so much fun with Camy in Natal that we decide to spend an extra day in Natal. We spent a beautiful night talking and drinking caipirinhas at a seaside restaurant. The next day like it or not we had to go if we wanted to see them kick off the 2009 Carnival season in Olinda. Camy walked us to the bus stop that morning and in a flurry of hugs and well wishes we were off again.
Our timing couldn't be more perfect. We arrived in Olinda the day before the “The Parade of Virgins,” the official opening ceremonies of Carnival in the twin cities of Olinda/Recife where the season starts earlier than anywhere else in the country. We knew on the actually day of Carnival as well as the days leading up to it that we would be on a boat across the Amazon so because we felt we couldn't leave without experiencing something of Carnival we rushed to see what we could in Olinda. We knew that it would be nowhere near as exciting or colorful as the Carnival in Rio, but we knew the locals would be out in full force none-the-less,
showing us the true Carnival spirit if nothing else.
We were excited, if not mildly terrified about the prospect of the whole event. First the warnings in “Lonely Planet” are rather dire with all their talk of pickpockets, molestations (they say if you choose to wear a skirt everyones' hands will be up it in no time!), and high prices. Yet Carnival in many ways has become so iconic of Brazil, we just had to see something of it for ourselves. Also “The Parade of Virgins” was being billed as a beauty contest between 400 men dressed in drag. Intriguing.
The “plan” had been to spend the next day partying it up and then catch a night bus to Belem to catch the boat up the Amazon. We decided the smartest thing to do would to spend that day going to buy our bus ticket. The catch was that the bus station wasn't in Olinda but in Recife, some 20km and a relatively difficult combination bus-metro ride to get there. We jumped on what seemed at the time to be the right bus at 2pm and headed to Recife. One of the bus employees kept asking us to
change seats and we couldn't figure out why. He kept mumbling at us and it an absolute fit of frustration I responded tartly in Portuguese, “No fala Portugese!' I don't speak Portuguese. He patiently stated his request again and now that we were listening to him we realized he was asking if he could help us get to where we were going. Wow do I feel like an ass! Note to self: if you ACTUALLY listen to what someone is saying the chance of understanding them increases 100%, even in Portuguese. Kevin pointed to the metro station on the map in the guidebook. The bus employee just shakes his head, apparently we are the only ones on the bus who think we are going to the metro station. Crap. The guy quickly recruits a kindly looking woman to shepard us to where we need to be. Did I mention I already feel like an ass? So the three of us hop off the bus and head off to wherever it is we are supposed to be. This woman, about the same age as my mom gently holds my hand on the 20 minute walk to the other bus stop. During
the 20 minutes she waits with us for the right bus to put us on she tells me that her daughter is studying in France and that she hopes that when her daughter gets lost that that someone helps her like she is helping us. A little tear drips off both of our faces as I reply in my best Portunol (a strange Portuguese-Spanish linguistic hybrid) that I think she is a very good mom (I will tell this story later to my own mom (Ammi's mom) which also makes her cry).
Now on the right bus we arrive at the metro station where we can take the train to the bus station. However my tear ducts were not done with me yet. As we walked to the ticket booth we came upon this tiny kitten wondering around the station. I pick her up and the sight of her broke my heart! She is only a couple of weeks old and so tiny! She also appears not to be in the best of health and obviously has an infection in both her eyes. Kevin follows at a respectful distance as I wonder the parking lot stopping at every cat
Kevin, Ammi, and Camy
Thanks again for everything, Camy! I see, hoping desperately to find this kitten's mother. Yet each time I put her down next to one of them, I have to jump in to save her from the other cat almost biting her head off. Kevin offers gently, “Honey, she will be ok. Someone will take care of her. We have to go now.” He soon realizes his error as giant wet drops start streaming down my cheeks and I sob,
“I CAN'T JUST LEAVE HER HERE, SHE'LL DIE!” Sniff!
He rushes over to wrap me and my sick charge in a comforting hug and whispers, “Baby, I'm not sure there is anything we can do.”
I shudder again, “I can't just leave her.” Sniff. We spend the next ten minutes walking around trying to find a safe place to put her went one of the local shop owners sees my distress and puts down a saucer of milk.
Kevin says soothingly, “See honey, someone will take care of her. Put her over there so she can eat. We have to go.” Albeit reluctantly, I put the kitten down and she scrambled over to the milk. The shop owner winked at us and
I must have positively beamed back cause he smiled back. We did have to go.
At the bus station we got more unsettling news. The only bus that did the 34 hour long trip to Belem left at 1pm. This was bad for two reasons: firstly we would miss all the Carnival festivities tomorrow if we wanted to make that bus and secondly we would arrive in Belem at 11 o'clock at night and arriving in a new city at night is never ideal. Ultimately decided to postpone our departure for one day and stay in Olinda for the opening of Carnival.
Six hours after we started our journey to Recife to buy our bus tickets we arrived back in Olinda to music and energetic parading through the streets. It was last minute Saturday night bloc rehearsals for the upcoming Carnival events. A bloc is a group of people that get together every year to perform music and dancing specifically for the Carnival parade. Often the group's members all have something in common, they all come from the same neighborhood, or they are all the from the same ethnic group or gender. One of the best performances we
Dude with hat
Sorry some of my captions are so obvious, but I have to write something saw was the all female bloc called the Conxitas, that all played drums or other percussion instruments in combination with enthusiastic singing and dance. I determined at that moment that I would find a way to perform in a Carnival parade someday.
The next day we got up early, did our chores as quickly as possible and headed out to join the ear-splitting, earth-shaking fun we could sense was going on outside. Our first order of business of course was to start getting as drunk as humanly possible. Check. Next I got into the spirit by wearing a goofy pink headband. Carnival in Olinda was nothing like we expected. The parade on this day consisted of a boom-box pulled by a semi-truck with people dancing and cheering on the top. Can you imagine how big this speaker was? And it must have been going at full volume because the buildings were rattling as it lumbered past. Also instead of 400 'virgins' it seemed like half the male population over the age of ten was wearing a dress and spiked heels. Heavy drinking, men in drag, unbelievably LOUD music, and cheap meat shishkabobs. Really what could be better than that?
We decided to pop back to the hotel room for a quick wardrobe change and the unthinkable happened. Six beers into the afternoon I was able to talk Kevin into joining the fun and putting on a dress. Yes folks due to a momentary alcohol induced lapse in judgment I talked my sweet husband, Kevin INTO WEARING A DRESS. Perfectly beskirted in loveliness we headed back out. My favorite thing to do during the festivities was to search the crowd for a kid in plain clothes just enjoying themselves and I would buy a headband or a bag of cotton candy and go over and give it to them. I saw one little girl sitting on her dad's shoulders, dancing away, and I brought her a pretty flowered headband and asked her dad if I could give it to her. They both bent over so I could put it on her head and her mother asked if I was really giving it to her daughter for free? I told her it was a present and she grabbed and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. It put a smile on my face to look out in
the crowd and see the flowers bobbing up and down as father and daughter danced through the street. We lasted another hour before the sun and beer finally got to Kevin, we when back to the room where he promptly passed out. It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. He slept until the next day!
Stay tuned for our next adventure when we go out to conquer the Amazon!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.29s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 14; qc: 81; dbt: 0.1066s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
