Lingua Portugese

Lately ive been loving portuguese. the singsongy melody, the funny words, the 'tino' added to words to make it small and 'cao' added to things to make it big. this has come after a spate of not digging it - of muito frustration and exhaustion and i think it is happening now because im starting to actually understand people - voices are not just an incoherent din of background noise that follows me through the day. but of course this means that im only now getting gists of what people are saying. i miss out on crucial details all the time, confuse words and numbers constantly but despite all that it feels like my world has opened up. somewhat. a little. ok, a smidgen. and when i was in rio last week i noticed how differently the cariocas (rio residents) speak. rio is a muito bonita cidade. the highlights were hanging out with my friend and colleague annie, - talking about our work, and life in and out of brasil and planning our collaborations. we also had a harrowing and hysterical ride in a tram up to the amazing neighborhood of santa theresa complete with an armed guard (rio is a heavily armed city - policia just as scary as the drug traficantes they are supposedly protecting the public from.) annie also took me to this great samba bar in the cool section of the city called lapa. she broke down the basic steps of samba for me but i still doubt i will ever be able to do it. also, in lapa i went to these amazing steps that are a must- see for any trip there. the artist has been working on them for like 20 years. when i returned to salvador (or 'cidade de felizadade' as it is known), i realized that even though i was only gone for a week - i missed it a little bit. and of course last weekend was a holiday (you gotta love a country where there is literally a holiday at least once a month) - baihian independence day. i spent the night before independence day listening to samba de roda (specifically samba from bahia) at casa de mae - a very cool small music spot not far from me. american students, bainas, ex-pats, old women and small children were vibing on the music and dancing. and to make it even more of a brazilian moment, the window looked out onto the waves crashing in the ocean across the street.