Naming

one of the first things you hear about when you come to brazil is the persistence of the myth of racial democracy. this is a concept that has defined the country since last century and who’s architect was the social scientist and author Gilberto Freyre. In the 1930's, Freyre introduced the idea of a "Brazilian racial democracy", in where he argued that the mixture of races here (African, Indian, European) has created a race-free society where races freely mix socially and sexually and thus racism doesn’t exist .He said that class difference in Brazil were based on economic disparities, and not racial differences. This narrative has obviously served the interest of the white elite here and not the mass of black folks of which, a large part are poor, live in the favelas or moros on the outskirts of town outside of the economy and who have little access to education and upward mobility. This narrative has also inspired much debate- and yesterday I took part or rather witnessed one among 3 brilliant, politically progressive, women- one afro-Brazilian, one American white and one mixed but considers herself black (race here is very complex. This was crystallized for me recently when someone pointed out that Brazilians have about 30 words for various shades of brown and black. A person is largely defined by what they want to call themselves. So, there are people who are as dark as me, who call themselves ‘morena’–which means brown; brown people who call themselves branco, and so far ive met exactly one brown person who calls herself black). The four of us were eating a late lunch, which after many beers, turned into an evening, which turned into a night. And they were kind enough to speak a hybrid of Portuguese and English so I could follow the discussion. It basically was about whether Freyre could be considered anything but racist since in his effort to elevate the African contribution to Brazil, he stereotypes blacks and argues that slavery wasn’t that bad here. The Afro-Brazilian woman argued no – he cant be. The other Brazilian woman though agreeing that Freye was problematic argued that he had to be read in the context of his time. What was interesting to me is that a white dude who wrote in the 1930s was still the defining voice about race in this country – you either argue for or against him but he is still the standard. I don’t know exactly what that says but I feel like it says something. Then of course we moved on to bigger and better subjects like gay celebrities, differences between butch and femme here and in the states and dirty Portuguese words.
This was the second impassioned discussion I had witnessed/taken part in this week. Earlier in the week, I went to get my toenails done (one of the most convenient things to do in this town because there is literally a salao de beleza on every block). And when I told the woman my name she repeated it to make sure she understood. I am now used to this– most people here know that my name is a language and is in fact the language of the afro-brazilian religion of candomble – so they repeat it, or ask again to make sure they heard me correctly. Sometimes they tell the person next to them and its usually it’s a nice way to break the ice (however, on the bus recently I was talking to this man and after I told him my name he stopped and looked at me in shock said ‘you must change your name’). So after I told the woman at the nail place she told me she knew some Yoruba words because her mother practices candomble and she grew up in the religion. Then one of her colleagues asked her if it is a religion where they do bad things. This sparked a whole discussion and since it was all in Portuguese, most of it escaped me but basically the woman was explaining it was a religion brought over by the slaves and that it was a very beautiful religion, very spiritual and was not about doing harm to people. Interestingly when I asked her if she practices candomble, she said though she likes to go to the festas da candomble and especially liked the food there, she herself preferred Catholicism.
Salvador is awash in conferences this time of year. last week was a conference on Africa and development at the university. I saw 2 good documentaries about Angola and Zimbabwe. and this upcoming week is the Caribbean Studies Conference where people from around the world are presenting on everything under the sun - at least under the caribbean sun. im hoping i can pass as an academic and get into some of the talks.

images from the week

house of the sisterhood in cacheira
view from Cachoeria
friends on the beach

Cachaca, Capoeira, Cachoeira

Last weekend some old friends came through Salvador and I got to show them around my new city. They had just come from rio and upon arriving in Salvador they (who have traveled extensively around the world) declared brasil the best and most underrated country in the world. So my job was fairly easy and we had a blast. On Friday we met up at this great cachaca bar – they serve all different kinds of cachaca (brasilian rum) infused with things like cinnamon, tamarind, passion and a host of other unknown spices - and then we headed to hear a folho band in the streets of the pelohrino. “Folho” is a very popular music in brazil that’s like a mixture of samba, country, a little rock and maybe even a little salsa. We ended up at this great samba bar where the locals hang out and where a different live band plays every night of the weekend. We ended up there the next night as well. This time an afro-pop band played – and they brought on stage a great female singer who rocked the place with her guitar. Before that we went out to dinner at a fancy spot where we had good food, amazing chilean wine (check out Carmenere wine from chile) and heated conversation. We got into a deep discussion about post-colonialism, globalization and politics. It was refreshing to be able to express deeper thoughts than the basic, functional ones that i do in Portuguese and I wondered if I would ever get to the point where I could argue with someone loudly and confidently in Portuguese. Earlier I had shown my friends my index cards with my various vocabulary words written on them. I carry them around with me to look at on the bus and at other spare moments. My friend commented that that was the first multitasking he’d seen in Brazil and said that the way he learned Japanese when he was living in Japan was by arguing with his Japanese girlfriend.
Yesterday I took a capoeria class for the first time. Capoeria is the brazilan martial art/dance created by slaves in brasil. I had been hesitant to do it because, though beautiful, it just looked like something my body was not up for – but I knew I had to try it at least once. And it was amazing. My body may not be completely up to the task but she and i gave it the old college try. The teacher is this amazing young woman who has the right combination of toughness and teacherlyness. Im a total convert. Tomorrow morning I head up to Cachoeria – a town about two hours north of Salvador - to try to gain permission and hopefully collaboration from the women that I want to film.

The Rainy Season

ive been thinking a lot about language lately and Ive decided that language is like a relationship. The familiarity with the process should, in theory, make it easier when you begin a new one. But often you confuse them, substituting words and meanings, switching accents and applying rules where they don’t belong while ignoring or forgetting the new ones. Like a relationship, when you are learning a new language you think about it a lot – analyzing the structure of a sentence or trying like anything to figure out what a word signifies. The process is a relationship- alternately wonderous and frustrating (why oh why are there 3 words for ‘this’ in Portuguese?”), adventuresome and exhuasting ( I was quiet because it takes so much energy to constantly explain what I actually mean. And im tired of being corrected.), impressive (you’ve been studying Portuguese for only 3 weeks – wow you’re a fast learner) and can cause concern ( you didn’t understand that? she asked you ‘where we are from’ -which we learned the first day of class). Language, like a person, takes a really long time to know. Often you think you are getting a handle on it getting into the grove, the rthymn (cool- I totally made a joke and they laughed) and then you are shocked to learn that though you thought you were speaking with the correct accent, right verb tense and correct prepositions - the other person doesn’t know what the hell you are talking about. Sometimes you think you understand them, are quite certain even that you do, and it turns out that they are saying something completely different than what you thought. And sometimes you just cant understand the other person at all – you look blankly at their face, and they are incomprehensible to you. And you realize that all of our assumptions, our nuances, our preconceptions, our selves, are in language. And you are literally speaking a different one. But unlike relationships, one doesn’t become a cynic about language. You keep trying, failing a lot, succeeding some and getting corrected often. Im in my 4th week of language classes and this is where I am. New students come and go each week – this week there are people from France, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Britain, Austria, the U.S and of course Switzerland. But May is a sleepy time in salvador. It is the rainy season, a time for cleansing and clearing away. It rains almost every morning, washing away the trash of the previous evening, clearing the leftover beer cans and quejos on a stick (delish grilled cheese by the way). Still, every morning old men can be found soaking in the blue ocean. Its nice to have some respite from the unrelenting sun and but this is rainy season tropics style. There is usually enough sun for the beach and its still warm enough that official outfit here is bikinis and cute swimming trunks for the men. The other news from brazil is about the pope’s arrival (Brazil has the largest number of roman catholics than any other place in the world) and the daily murders and carjackings in rio. I watch this on the news every morning. That and a special interest program hosted by a Susan Powteresqe blond with so much plastic surgery that is fascinating to watch her speak because her face is pulled back so tight (Brazil has the largest percentage of people with plastic surgery in the world). And I bought a really cute shirt the other day. ive posted it for y'all to see