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An Angolan lesson
I'm in a scorpion fight...eyes bolted to the opponent, tails swinging and a piece of rope around my waist. The tanned, sculpted body reels into action: palm.. soul.. float in liquid motion to the hypnotic twang of berimbau. Maybe a prison chant or a puberty ritual, this angolan dance is an exhibition of human contortion in the face of an opponent. Blessed with grace, perfect balance, it is a beautiful violence.
Calma..calma says the mestre as I pick my heavy weight off the floor for one more attempt.. ginga! as left blends into right...the souls of my feet are split, wrists bruised, and muscles under construction,
..I limp back to my hostal suckling on a coconut and comforting myself on the thought of breakfast..acai, banana, guarana, granola ready for afro-brasillian culture.
Underwater love
i sink into the waters at sunset and search for the seabed where the luminous creatures dash around me, illuding my grasp. As I lie horizontal, the cerulean blue is turning the water into oil.Between my feet and the tropical wooden boats, the sun is leaving this still sultry Bay in vermilion. I dry off and replace the taste of salt
for an acai que fundo na boca e desliza por em baixo....isso rapaz e meu felicidade, hoje, agora, neste momento .
I have arrived in Salvador da Bahia... "The cradle". The cauldron of brasil's history,genetics and culture rests here on its delicious shores. Slaves brought here in the 1500's. A mirror of West Africa, people wrenched from their roots reformed and now live. If you have passed through here, you will never forget it. Poets, musicians, artist's have forever flown here to feel what it is to be bahian. Post-card brasil with possibly the most beautiful beaches . This is Havanna's cousin with its curving Malecon and African canvass
Music..................Rhythm ...... dance ........ its in the blood , its deep, its identity, shape, history, its
magnificent . Does black culture need to be liberated any more. Its fanatical, there's no doubt, but it draws in everybody to see the spectacle and feel its temptations.
Education ain t the same round these parts...opportunity is a word for the lucky and the rest make do ..desperate pleas and scarred children roam like stray cats in the tourist districts. The paranoid middle class swing around in air conditioned boxes.
Bars, gates,locks, charged barbed wire, glass splints, invisible cars and tall towers keep the cats away. Hyperinflated prices, big eyed taxi drivers skew and marr the cool bahian way..where nothing happens and anything goes... Beach life is languid and love is everywhere. Boys in their tight "sungas" sport their bodies across the sand to the spectating girls who lie in wait for the next approach.
Ah menina
under the parasol's shade, she sips on a coconut. Protective oils and dark lenses cover up her perfect figure as she watches from her ornated sand the corpulent men audition, wondering what kind of rubbish the next one will court her with .... the thermostat blows, sending her catwalking into the shallow waters causing nystagmus amongst the greyhounds. ..... the football goes flying.
Under the spell of Africa
Salvador is uneasy on the tame soul, its sinful, treacherous and fickle. Culturally it remains african and makes you turn your own head on yourself. With little respect for rules, it runs on a cool breeze of anarchy, where impatient pursuit of satisfying daily urges is law. Outrageous, respectless, deceiptful.......... its bound by irrepressive social joy, music, and an
unflinching hope for tomorrow or the day after. As it completes its 461 st birthday, bahia evokes the soul like few other cities, primitive, wide eyed ..it somehow amongst the chaos makes sense.
On a more personal note, despite bahia's master class in percussion, its raw and hypnotic musical rhythms have been in the majority put aside for the modern trashy derivative rhythms of pagode, axe, arosha which its youthful crowd go wild for. The best bahian music is found outside of the state.
Aquarella do brasil...Itacare
I ask the guide how dense the jungle path is to reach "prainha"..I dismiss
his attempt to exploit me and instead I pester four little troublemakers wadeing in the river's mud...I ask one of them if the path is difficult to which he tells me he will take me there...how about 4R$? after a laugh and a wink to his 3 chums we are off... under imposing trees, woven branches, oversized leaves, bursts of green,wafts of warm fruit and the sound of 2 clowns laughing.. I overhear they are gonna try and loose me ..thats the plan, until Fernando looses his havaina in the swamp. The underage search party begins
and good old gringo finds the treasure deep down , It appears I have been accepted by the group and we move on across the fast flowing river and under the waterfall. Something tells me this gang of explorers know the forest inside out with their incessant experimental games. I feel safer than I have ever felt in brasil surrounded by 8 year olds. A monkey flies above us, a quick grin and a scratch later, he's off and before we know it we are out of the dense forest ( only 7 % of the original mata atlantica remains)... revealing the open rolling hills with dazzling coconut trees as far as the eye can see, maybe a scene from the after-life or a dream we float down to the most gorgeous untouched beach where the waves are wild and the forrest is virgin.. - the portuguese must have had a big smile on there faces when they let down their sails and stepped into a new world-. I hand over the treasure to the pirates and the in-fighting begins as they scamper back into the jungle.
Tea with the queen
Im sitting in the lounge of
possibly the most famous mother of brasilian music. We are watching religious music on the television as "Dona Cano" asks me where I am from.
... She is sitting in a wheel chair with her nurse an arm s width apart. At 104 years old, I tell her I am visiting brasil in part because of her son Caetano veloso.. A few children pass through the open house and kiss her royal hand and she smiles as she turns the volume up to conversation ending point.
I am visiting the reconcave region surrounding salvador where the slaves were housed and made to work on the sugar cane plantations. I hop on the back of a motorbike as we dash out of town in pursuit of roberto mendes, a famous guitarist who lives in the sticks. We go up, down, and wave around the rediculously round earth with coconut trees sticking out in all directions. Its so much fun, just flying around this absurdly green country....
Bahia is a vivid experience.. of course, I can't tell you everything...Voodoo spirits, piranha's,cocoa plantations, gold mining tales, ice cream sellers, a broken camera and the clowns I have met are
some of the sensations I forbid my fingers to recount. until the next time.. as I make my way to the golden rivers and diamond mountains of Minas Gerais.
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Heather
non-member comment
I really enjoyed your Bahia post. It reminded me of my own time there and how amazing it was. I was glad to read your vivid recollection of it, as it is such a special place. My blog is looking for travel photos, reviews, etc, to share. If you have the time, check it out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com, or email us at dirtyhippiesblog@gmail.com. Continued fun on you travels! Heather :)