Everyday Vida

Recently, I remarked to a friend that I don’t know why its taken me so long to update my blog. she said – sometimes its hard to make stories out of the every day. True dat. And its amazing how quickly life becomes the every day. Even if you are in another hemisphere. But the every day - though sometimes can be as banal as the every day – can also be full of surprises and cosisas lindas. But before the every day kicked in, in September my friend Betsy visited and besides having a wonderful time in Salvador, we went to the beautiful, deserted (well kind of) island of Boiapeba. It was stunningly amazing and we passed the time away on the beach (which was about 5 mins away from our eastern-inspired pousada complete with a meditation space) reading, playing canasta and drinking fruitoroksas. We felt grateful for this peaceful tranquility because getting there was the worst 2 1/2 hour boat ride ever. Well not ever for me – ive had one worst. But for Betsy definitely. Everybody on the boat got sick (except for the one other American who didn’t stop talking the entire time about boat rides which was the last thing you wanted to think about) and its probably a good thing otherwise we all would have completely freaked out by the huge waves that were literally crashing up over us in our little catamaran. And then in the middle of all the internal and external commotion the boat drivers (sailors? Navigators?) called out “Baleias! Baleias” We all got up from our positions which we had been holding on for dear life and wobbled to the front of the boat to see the most beautiful site of whales, huge brown whales diving in and out of the water. In pairs, alone , close to our boat and far away. It turns out the end of winter is the time to see them and we had hit the perfect spot.
So after Betsy left, life became the every day. No more tour guide and host, no more seeing amazing creatures of the sea– now it was time to buckle down and start on the post-production stuff I need to get down in order to begin the edit of my film. This is basically not much different from working on documentaries at home. A large part of it consists of me running around Salvador asking people to do things for me for free. But this time in Portuguese. And I was very amused to see that the place where I am doing a lot of my work – TV UFBA (which the television station for the university here) is totally un-brasilian and just like media outlets in the U.S. I could be back at ABC news. The head of it is completely stressed, they all work long hours and they need you to talk quickly (Diga!) so they can get back to their own work. It’s the first time I’ve seen this in Brasil. Aah the joys of working in the media.
And lets see what else - I went to a totally fancy, fun party a couple a weeks ago. It was at the penthouse apartment with a 180 degree view of the city (which basically means you can see the ocean and the bay) with a pool, waiters serving processco and an awesome dj that totally spun music that had everyone on the dance floor. Yes it was early and mid-90’s hip hop with some stevie wonder, rolling stones and Motown thrown in. basically it had my name all over it (its true as I get older, I get more predictable). Apparently this guy plays at a tire shop (!) which turns into a club every Friday at like midnight. Which means in Brasil means like 1:00 AM. Gots to check it out.
The next week after the debauchery I went on a Caminadah da Lua (moon walk) with 2 friends of mine – one an American who literally just made her dream come true by moving here after visiting for the past ten years. She is starting a non-profit to rebuild all of these old, abandoned houses around the city and make them into service centers for the poor. Anywho, a woman organizes this walk every month on the first night of the full moon (did I mention that another friend of mine who visited commented that Brasil is “very seventies”). We took a beautiful long walk on the sand and practiced different exercises incorporating the four things we were told that that are fundamental to helping a person be whole: Oracao, Fe, Entregar, Silenco – Prayer, Faith, Surrender and Silence.
And last night things came to a full circle (I love when that happens!) when I saw the son of slain South African Activist Steven Biko give a speech here in honor of the 30 years of the death of his father. The room was packed and everyone was giving so much love to the son of this icon that had was an inspiration for Biko remarked that he had only been in Salvador a few hours but it felt like home and looking out at the audience he could be back in South Africa. I added in my head – or Brooklyn, or Harlem. And as he pointed out it was coincidently the 40th anniversary of the death of Che Guvera. There was a lot of revolutionary spirit in the air.

Tudo Bem Productions

I am sitting in my new apartment in the sun room looking out at the Bay of Salvador (Bay of Santos) to the island of Itaparica, which is the biggest island in the bay. In other words – my new apartment is sweet. Light pours in all day and there is a view of the water from 3 of the rooms. Granted – its totally falling apart as well –needs a paint job, a new fridge, stove and some general upgrading. But the neighborhood is much cooler than barra where I was living. That area was super touristy and pricey and I got sick of all the euros and hearing American accents. Also, there was nothing to do there at night. I am now in the neighbhorhood of Dois de Julio which is definitely more “de povo” (of the people) which of course means less expensive and more interesting. Its also extremely brasilian with fruit, veggie, meat and fish stands operating all day, and baracas serving beer and charascuro all night. The apartment that I am in is in owned by a locoura French woman who speaks Portuguse and some English really fast and with such a thick French accent that I cant understand her in either language. Although this morning we had a conversation in Portuguese that went fairly well. She talks a lot so which is great Portuguese practice for me. And I discovered yesterday while moving in that my new cool amiga Jackie is renting a place next store for three weeks. She is a beautiful Ghanian woman who grew up in Germany, lives in London and is trying to go to school here in salvador. last night she cooked me a delish gahnian dish called "red red" that consisted of dried camarao, tomatoes, onions, peppers sauteed in palm oil over rice with plantains. now i have to cook her a typical american meal. she said she wants corn bread, fried chicken and macaroni and cheese.
Its interesting that all of the places that Ive stayed at – apartment in barra, pousadah in cachoeria and now here – are owned by women. You definitely see that the women here are taking care of business. And I don’t know if that is a result of the sexism that pervades this country where men are often sitting out drinking cerveja and hitting on women while the women are supporting are taking care of the kids. Brasil is known to have less “machismo” than other Latin American countries and be more open and fluid around sexuality. I think that’s true but the system of patriarchy is still evident.
However, one of the most important places of power for women, especially black women is in the religion of candomble. And one of the areas where candomble is muito forte is in Cachoeria where I have been shooting my documentary for the last 2 weeks. I left Salvador to go up there on August 6th. The week before I left I was anxious and nervous about the shoot, about moving and about my time here being half-way done. I was frustrated with my language progress and the difficulty of making brasilian friends. I arrived in Cachoeria on a Sunday and was immediately remembered as the Americano who is doing the documentary about the Festa da Boa Morte. Folks remembered me from when I was there doing interviews in june and were incredibly friendly. That is save for one person . but we’ll get to that later. Best of all – it was pretty much all Portuguese all the time. So for my first week I was dealing with figuring out what I needed to shoot, who I was going to interview and what events we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss. Annie (who’s last name I changed to ‘thank god you’re here’) arrived on Thursday and we began shooting the next day and basically didn’t stop until the next Saturday. Annie was awesome, has a great eye and is such a trooper. It was also totally fun hanging out and I swear I couldn’t have done it without her. She made me laugh, helped me with the language, and while drinking three reis caparhinhas at night (shout out to ruebens at the Hotel Convento), helped me figure out the story I am trying to tell. The shoot was a typical documentary shoot – exhausting, frustrating, inspiring and infuriating. My big accomplishment is that I was able to conduct the interviews in Portuguese without a translator, which was pretty exciting. Unfortunately, our biggest barrier was the gatekeeper for Irmandade de Boa Morte (they are the sisterhood who put on the Festa every year) who I knew was not into me doing this documentary when I met with her a few months ago. This time around she decided she didn’t like me and proceeded to make our life hellish. But we decided that the name of our company is Tudo Bem Productions and we would do all that we can and then leave it at that. And we had a lot of helpful folks along the way as well. One great thing is that Cachoeria is so friggin’ quaint and beautiful that it’s a pleasure to shoot there and the footage looks beautiful. Annie and I are hoping to edit a piece before our time here is through which means I may spend some time in Rio, where Annie is based , editing the footage. This means my next couple of months I will be preparing for that big time.

Tchau

I have hit my four-month mark and am amazed how fast time has gone. Yesterday I filmed at the Fórum Social Nordestino – a local forum modeled on the World Social Forums that have taken place all over the world. This one specifically addressed issues in the Northeast of Brasil (this is where Bahia is located. It’s the poorest state in the country). I went to meeting of activists working on the issues of quilmobos which are communities located all over brasil that were started by runaway slaves and have maintained a strong history of resistance and tradition. There is a huge struggle right now in Brazil over the quilombos which are under threat from large landowners (fazendeiros) and other companies that want their land. Many of the quilbombos are trying to get title to their land so that they can be declared the legal owners but they have to undergo a lengthy process proving that they are indeed the descendants of slaves. Today I go up to Cachoeira and stay until the end of the month. I will do most of my filming during this time – filming the Festa da morte, more interviews with the Sisters, townspeople etc. My colleague and friend Annie is coming up from Rio and will shoot the festa for me which is awesome. I’m very happy not to have to be a one-man band (shooting, producing, and interviewing). When I come back I will be moving (new neighborhood, less expensive, less touristy) so things feel a little in flux but even when your living abroad change is inevitable.
The new food discovery this month – cenouras (carrots)! Incredible -.Sweet, almost perfumey and a beautiful orangey, yellow color.
I will say tchau for now –Cachoeria is still on dial-up and internet is mush less accessible. Tenha um bom agosto! Muito saudade.

The Sertao

Camarotes

ok so I know that from my postings it seems like my life in brasil is filled with nothing but fun, excitement, festas feijoada and caparinias. And though that’s largely true, I thought it was important to mention that at times it gets lonely, feels super foreign and baffling especially when I step back and once again process that people are communicating in a totally a different language. Its muito strange, man. There’s also times that I work myself up into a cold sweat thinking about what my life will be like when I return to states. However, this last week has been full of the aforementioned festas. My friend Naomi has come for a visit and we’ve been doin it up – camarote style. Camarote means VIP tickets and for the last 2 Friday’s we got camarotes to a great little club called barraca de raizes (roots club) and heard a good samba band that was preceded by great house band. Both times, in classic brazillian style streets outside the club were lined with folks drinking, eating chiaroscuro, and chillin. Then, in classic new orelans second –line style, at about 11:30 pm the house band came down the block drumming and playing outside until they entered the club about a half hour later. Inside , the crowd was fully vibing off the energy and sambaing like mad-people (we especially enjoyed the beautiful tranny who held the crowd captive and as she shook her thang). Then the band came on and kept folks going the rest of the night. we also went to a great concert last week headlined by Gal Gosta and Maria Martinali – two giants of brazilian music. The next day we attended a beautiful candomble ceremony at the Gantois terreiro in honor of Oshala who is the orisha traditionally honored on Friday. The day after that we went to a birthday party of a brazilian woman I met when I was in sao paulo. After getting a little lost in the taxi and arriving there a little early (I was told 8 pm, got there at 10 pm and of course it didn’t really get going to 11:30 pm). We got to practice our Portuguese while hanging out with some cool folks in a neighborhood that was off the beaten tourist track route. The next day after the beach, we ended up at casa da mae listening to the amazing samba de roda band I had heard the week before. again the old ladies danced, again the gringos (yes here im a gringo – I was shocked when I found this out) and the locals mixed, and this time I was even pulled in to the circle to dance which I had been reluctant to do being that I cant samba worth a damn. It was total bahian immersion for Naomi and it felt great to be able to share my new world with a friend from home. This week, consisted of 3 birthday celebrations for a friend who lives here. Last night after the third and final celebration, we ended up at sankofa – an African place in the pelorino – that played American hip, hop and club hits from the last few years. I have to admit – it was really fun to dance to hip hop again. Tonight we are going to hear Olodum the afro –brazilian drum ensemble (we just watched the video they were in with Michael Jackson called ‘they don’t care about us’ on youtube.) and then we are off to Chapada Diminitia which is a national park about 5 hours from Salvador. So I will be off-line for a about a week or so. ate mais and i miss all the camarotes in my life.

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.

Paulista Pride

Who knew that the 3rd largest city in the world would be so friendly, fun and inviting? My friend tisa and I had a blast in Sao Paulo in our 2 two short days there last weekend. We went shopping, checked out the museu de lingua Portuguese (a really cool museum that examines the Portuguese language in Brasil and the diasopora. It looks at history, slavery, colonialism, music, religion and writers, songwriters and authors. Neither of us had been to anything like it before), checked out the Liberdade neighborhood which is the Japanese area (brasil has the largest number of Japanese in the world outside of japan), ate sushi (yum – sushi I miss you!). And of course we did gay pride. Saturday there was a small but spirited dyke march that of course ended in a street party. After we went to one of the best lesbian bars ive been too – food, live music and samba dancing. Why cant we have more of these kind of spots everywhere??? And Sunday was the hugest march ive ever been too. It was estimated to be 3 million people. Wow is all we could say for the entire day. After that I came back to salvador and went back up to cachoeria to do some filming with the irmandade. I’ve connected with this American professor who has been studying and writing a book about them and about afro-brasilian religion, politics and identity. He has been coming to cachoeria on and off for the last 5 years. We realized our purposes converged and I have started filming him interviewing the sisters. I will be going up again this week then off to rio for the weekend for another Fulbright conference. The language learning curve continues, at a glacial pace sometimes and other times by leaps and bounds (well no not really - it usually feels glacial.) One of the things I realized is that I tend to use the same vocabulary over and over again because they are words that I feel confident about and can pronounce. Its like im a 5-year old all over again. I spent yesterday morning learning the past-imperfect verb tense with my language teacher. (Yes, in portuguese three are three ways of conjugating the past depending on the circumstance your talking about. crazy!) and then last night I spent out trying to use it- with limited success. And for the first time last week I started feeling like ive been away for a long time. And its only been a little more than two months.
Im missing ya’ll hardcore.