Salvador Dispatch

In January of 1983 I traveled from Rio to Salvador, Bahia in the northeast of Brazil - one of the oldest cities in the New World. This is where the African slaves disembarked, bringing their Candoblé religion, their African rhythms and dances to the Portuguese colony. I had been studying Afro-Brazilian dance in New York for 5 years with Loremil, a ‘Baiano’ – a man from Bahia. Besides being an accomplished practitioner of caporeira - the marshal arts dance invented by slaves in Bahia after they were prohibited from fighting - Loremil was a teacher of samba and the dances of the Candoblé religion, honoring various African gods and goddesses who had to be disguised as Catholic saints by the ‘converted’ slaves. Loremil wanted me to deliver a cassette recorder to his mother, Joselina, in Massaranduba, a poor neighborhood of Salvador.

January is the month when the magic begins in Salvador (OK, December, actually) and culminates in the biggest Carnaval celebration in all of Brazil. I was immediately immersed in the mystical crackling in the air, the ubiquitous batucada of the samba on buses, street corners, and passing open trucks with entire bands on top. The city streets and beaches were filled with celebrants. Caporeira circles spontaneously sprang up on the beach. I witnessed the ‘Washing of the Church’ and the combining of Jesus and the god Oxalá into ‘Senhor do Bonfim.’

I never wrote about this visit. I arrived at Joselina’s humble house where many relatives lived, and spent a sleepless night there. My fledgling Portuguese was no match for this strange northeastern accent I could not grasp at all. This was a slum, and these generous folks were poorly educated. Joselina took me to a Mãe de Santo – a fortune teller – and I had Senhor do Bonfim ribbons tied around my wrists (for blessings), guias – strings of tiny beads - around my neck and wrists (for luck), and a big bag of special leaves to carry back to New York for Loremil to rub on himself for health. On the second day, I caught a large ferry to Itaparica island for a picnic with all these relatives I could not understand. I was to meet their cousin, ‘the English teacher,’ who hung around me in the water saying a modified version of “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” etc. and nothing else in English. After swimming and eating, everyone was excited to go over to someone’s yard to ‘take a shower.’ This consisted of a bucket emptied once over each of our heads, which did nothing about the sand in my bikini. I was just exhausted and in total culture shock. But my flight back to Rio was that evening and they had a neighbor with a taxi who would drive me to the airport. Except he was nowhere to be found, so I missed the first flight. When I emerged from a later flight that night in Rio, my friends Maria Candida and Omar had persevered and were waiting for me. What they beheld is still a source of laughter to this day: a zombie - sunburned, tied-up and beaded, staggering the way one would expect with all that sand still in her bikini – carrying a big bag of leaves.

But for all the shock of Massaranduba with its dirt floors, chickens in the house, and non-flushing toilet, Salvador as a city fulfilled a complete romantic notion for me of the incomparable Afro-Brazilian culture. And the samba invented there - well, Brazil’s signature throughout the world - is a whole reason to be.

Now I’m arriving in 2009 with my husband, my best friend from my whole life and her husband - Lenna and Jon, and we’ve talked them into Salvador after their friend had described it as ‘just another big city.’ Jon had just gone to Kenya to help build a school, so the African influence in Salvador would surely resonate. Eighty percent of the city’s population are African descendants. Please, god, let this place be magical like before.

Let’s start with it was not January. And follow with the fact that tourists start to arrive in November-December. The city was empty of both tourists and Carnaval season celebrants. The various ‘entrepreneurs’ that prey on tourists zeroed in on little us. We started out in Pelourinho – the old colonial district that has been restored. There was a crew competing to show us where to park, then the onslaught of vicious vendors wanting to ‘bless us’ with three knots around the wrist of the Senhor do Bonfim ribbons for health, love and peace. One guy wanted more money than I was handing him for the ribbon, so I untied it and handed it back, receiving quite a non-blessing expletive in English. Large ‘Baianas’ in native dress practically forced us into photos with them. Jon generously handed them more than $10 in Brazilian reais, or in what he called “Monopoly money!”

The caporeira platform at the famous market had a couple of sluggish, overweight guys drooping around in street clothes to the wrong instruments for caporeira. Apparently, if some interested tourist pays, they throw themselves around a little more.

Luckily, we did come upon these young caporeira students in a Pelourinho plaza. Watch the video:

One rather nice guide who seemed to exist to shepherd tourists around to various bars and restaurants proved to be informative and FREE. He guided us to some bars surrounding a stage with musicians playing bad samba – or was it just the ridiculous volume through bad, static-y speakers? We found a corner as far away as possible and had caipirinhas, but it was early by Brazilian standards and no one was dancing to this scratchy samba, other than the guide and me. We later came upon a female percussion group only at the end of their street performance. We had a lovely dinner of native dishes (Moqueca of shrimp, with coconut oil and coconut milk) at a beautiful, mostly empty courtyard restaurant. We had resisted being signed up for a special tourist Candoblé ceremony. I can only imagine the fake trembling and fake voices as the participants became fake-possessed by African deities. What I’m saying is that 26 years later, the air was not crackling with folkloric mysticism in Salvador in October. But then Lenna and I were together, and Salvador, while not at its best, was definitely not Pittsburgh.

Here is the famed São Francisco church in Pelourinho with its over-the-top gold Baroque interior:

The upper and lower levels of Salvador are connected by this famous elevator that has been in operation since the late 19th century.

The infrastructure of this city has improved in the interim decades and seems more sophisticated than in ‘83. Whereas the mosaic sidewalks of Rio reflect the ocean waves, here the avenues running along the sea meander in wave-like curves, capturing a certain rhythm. Our hotel was a lovely restored colonial structure, beautifully appointed, and something one would

readily recommend…except for this ONE THING: on the hour the church across the street delivers a shocking version of the traditional bell tones and the number of knells for the hour by way of what sounded like a highly amplified, scratchy, static recording of bells. This is from 7:00am to 7:00pm only, thank heavens! But what the hell? We were violently ripped from our dreams at 7:00am, again at 8:00am, and made a goal out of leaving the hotel after our elaborate, leisurely breakfasts before 11 of those soul-rattling repetitions. What we discovered was that there were actual bells in the belfry, but with two speakers facing each of the four directions as well – the source of the static and volume. We brushed up on our Lon Chaney impersonations. What we didn’t know is that the church takes Monday off, so while Lenna, the early bird, girded her head with pillows and braced herself in anticipation of 7:00am, the assault did not materialize. Too bad she could not go back to sleep. Newton and I merely thought in our sleeping state that the morning was taking its time.

The next day we crept in weekend traffic to one of the beaches north of the city. Salvador juts out between a huge bay (“bahia”)

and the ocean, with 30 miles of beaches. We chose one known for young sophisticates rather than hordes of the populace to avoid robbers. The joy of watching people and venders, Lenna buying a black and white polka-dot bikini, drinking coconut water and beer, sampling this food and that …was tainted, after all, by the theft of Jon’s wallet. Actually his entire fanny pack was lifted, probably by a vendor out of Jon’s larger bag while Jon and Newton were dozing and Lenna and I were walking along the beach admiring some handsome, buff guys. Fortunately, Jon had left most of his ‘Monopoly money’ in the hotel and had only one credit card, but also lost his driver’s license and beautiful watch. We were all bummed even more than the unflappable Jon.

The other most famous church in Salvador is Igreja de Nosso Senhor do Bonfim. We drove the 5-mile route that an annual procession follows on the date in January for the Washing of the Church. This tradition is so combined with Candoblé that the Catholic Church actually locks the doors of the church, wishing as they do to avoid any connection with something untoward! The people wash the steps of the church with perfumed water, dancing and chanting in Yoruba, then break into a wild party that lasts ten days. The strange room displaying the wood or wax body parts that supplicants offer for healing at the church was closed the day we visited.

Newton bought his beloved sugar cane juice outside the church:














We managed a cloudy but dramatic sunset off the Barra point, then strolled to the fort (the Portuguese had to fight off the Dutch in the 17th century) and lighthouse for more drama: the sudden darkness that descends around 5:45pm, when the city lights come on.




The particular restaurant crowds we enjoyed observing included a private party we crashed by accident which had educated, upper middle class black people – something one doesn’t see much of in other Brazilian cities; then at our final dinner at an elegant, delicious place, we noticed that the very engaged, animated wealthy of Salvador seemed so much more interesting and relaxed than their small-town Natal counterparts.

We worked in more beach time our last morning. The phenomenon of being on a beach in Bahia with my best friend since childhood was appropriately marked by a miraculous circular rainbow around the sun! I have a couple of shells beside me on the shelf that Lenna collected that morning. She was determined to try all the native Afro-Brazilian dishes made by the Baianas on the street, so ended her stay with Salvador ‘fast food:’ acarajé.




These are black-eyed pea cakes, seasoned with ground dried shrimp and onions, shaped into balls and fried in palm oil – ‘dendê,’ with spicy shrimp and onion filling when the patron is on foot, or on the side in Lenna’s case in the simple restaurant next to the Baiana. The aroma of acarajé spices and dendê is the smell of Salvador!

We took Lenna and Jon to the airport after lunch and waved good-by till the last second like the silly girls we’ve always loved being! Newton and I returned to a beach by the airport to await our later flight back to Natal, sipping caipirinhas and catching another sunset.











Love,
Sandy

Lenna Dispatch

In 1962 Lenna Baranoff and I, eighth graders, were assigned as assistants to the Wilson Junior High School office during 4^th hour of classes. We assume we were competent helpers to the white-haired ladies of the office, though what we remember most about those hours is the giggling. We became best friends. We had a great photo of the Beatles inside our shared locker. Even though we went to different high schools, we both went to the same church and had overnights most weekends and stayed best friends. We loved “Dr. Zhivago,” and Lenna, being half-Russian, vowed back then to name her daughter “Larisa.” We both were sent to Girl’s State from our respective high schools. I was a mayor and Lenna was the governor! (She was then sent to the Senate Youth Program in Washington DC where she met Jon Kottke of New Mexico and LBJ.) We were both crowned one kind of queen or another at our high schools. I met Jon when he came to Lenna’s graduation and prom from New Mexico…handsome, smart, great personality – check, check, check…OK! Lenna and I and her brilliant Mother went to Europe by ship for seven weeks after our graduations. (I found odd-jobs to save money for a year that my parents matched, and Lenna’s Mother required only that fabled “$5 a day” from me plus transportation.) We liked to sing Beatle’s songs on trains and balconies, and first heard the very ‘weird’ Sgt. Peppers while trying on mod clothes in London. Lenna went off to Stanford with Jon (she was later a Phi Beta Kappa there – the smartest of the smartest); I went off to Northwestern.

In the interim years we gave each other the same presents, discovered we had the same books and albums on our shelves, and were each other’s bridesmaid. Lenna and Jon moved to Boulder, Colorado, where Jon went to law school; I continued to head eastward. We had our kids. I took my family to Boulder and our two 4-year-old girls stripped naked and peed in the bushes. (Lenna and Jon have a son, Chris, who is getting his Ph.D. in pure math at MIT and their daughter, Larisa, works for a non-profit in Boston for foster/adoptive families). Lenna’s mother gave her a copy of my father’s interpretation of the Psalms because her mother was one of my father’s writing mentors.

Lenna has run a non-profit in Boulder for 18 years – “Special Transit,” which provides transportation to Boulder’s older or more fragile citizens. She has doubled the size of the operation several times over while putting together an extraordinary staff. She gives unlikely employees a chance to prove themselves and succeed.

In 2006 Lenna and I shared a room in Tulsa at the first reunion of our Wilson Junior High School class – 42 years after graduating 9^th grade and going off to different high schools.Everyone had such a fantastic time together that a second reunion just took place this month. Lenna and I were unable to attend because she had decided that what she wanted to do for her 60^th birthday was to celebrate our milestone together in Brazil! Her birthday was in late August, and on my very birthday in September, Lenna and Jon emerged from the baggage section at the Natal airport in huggable 3-D! They were fresh from Rio. It was the best birthday of my life, with roses, chocolates, live music on a boat, grilled salmon, champagne, and my favorite seriously chocolate torta with my best friend.

We had leisurely breakfasts, Cotovelo and Ponta Negra beach time, good food, and a wild day in a dune buggy in the dunes north of the city. Here’s our driver Darto and his “Jesus” buggy: I opted out of the rides “with emotion,” not being a roller coaster devotee, and closed my eyes and held on for the “without emotion” part; but Lenna was thrilled with the plunges and elliptical climbs, as well as with the “aero-bunda” ride where a harness carried her down a cable into a lake.

I took Lenna to see the largest cashew tree in the world in the next beach town. She noticed that ‘seniors’ over 60 only pay half to get in, so we had our first opportunity to cash in on our age. The dismissive shrug I got when I asked if any I.D. was required either indicated that we were surely trustworthy or obviously feeble!

My darling husband surprised us with flan after dinner, which he made while the rest of us were on the beach. Lenna’s darling husband washed the dishes after every meal and knew the name of the knot he used to secure the beach umbrella – cool. He is the original ‘water off a duck’s back’ guy, so flexible and sane!

On our last night in Natal the four of us went to hear live chorinho music on an inter-city street corner. The self-appointed dancing crazy lady and the staggering drunk who thought he knew the musicians added flavor. A guest trombone player added a nice twist to the traditional chorinho guitar, mandolin and cavaquinho strings and flute.

It didn’t really matter how we spent our time…I was with Lenna! Yes, her intelligence is extraordinary, the sort of intelligence that spills over into kindness, courage, sensibility and humor (we still love to giggle!). She offers a standard I cannot attain because we are so different, but it is a standard I love to bump into, like a mooring for the wind-tossed…a charm that puts all at ease, a grace that baths everyone lucky enough to spend time in her presence. You don’t realize second-by-second that you are being bathed in grace; it just dawns on you later that you have experienced a stunning immersion.

After too many late dinners for a week, Lenna, Jon, Newton and I caught an 8:00am flight to Salvador, Bahia. I had ridiculed an acquaintance of theirs for telling them it was “just another big city,” so I was feeling some pressure that Salvador would live up to the mystical, samba-infused Afro-Brazilian phenomenon I had witnessed in 1983. See next dispatch…

Love,

Sandy

Brazil Dispatch 26

September 17, 2009

I guess taking down our mosquito net after six months and finally power-washing the rain-darkened stones out front harkens the sense of a new phase. Ordinarily, the rainy season ends in July and the subsequent windy season chases away whatever mosquitoes may be lagging behind. This year, we’ve come to mid-September without more than 3 consecutive days rain-free, which is not to say there haven’t been some glorious golden days and starry nights mixed in (with bug-slapping outdoor dinners). We were more than ready to forgo the stooping and ducking maneuver needed to get in and out of bed under the mosquito net – lovely as it is – and we longed for a TV screen minus the scrim, so down came the net last night. I was able to stuff the entire 30 square meters into the washing machine!

And speaking of laundry…I cannot slough off my ‘American washing machine’ oblivion, where one pitches in soap, clothes, pushes a button and goes away. I have a lot of trouble getting a load of laundry done in a timely manner with my simple model Brazilian machine. First, the instructions say to start running the water and, once there is enough to dissolve the soap, return to add that. Then as the water continues to fill, return to put the clothes in. Now the instructions say to turn off the machine and let the clothes soak for an hour. Then you return to push ON to finish the cycle, which takes almost another hour.

Just imagine how hard it is to stay on top of this laundry schedule if one is forgetful or otherwise engaged, especially in another room out of earshot of the machine. So I have many variations on running a load of laundry, from having the agitation start with the machine filled with water and soap, but no clothes...to having the clothes soak for 4 hours instead of one...to the most recent topper: having the machine run almost an entire cycle without soap or clothes! The water had drained out from the first rinse, so I tried unplugging the machine in hopes that the cycle would begin again. Turns out after the water started filling and I added the soap and clothes, then it just rinsed them and spun them! I had planned to check and have them soak at least, but was long gone into some reverie or other when that would have been possible. It is so embarrassing when the maid is around to witness! I've told her that I would like to do the laundry. Looks like I need a Zen cushion beside my washing machine. This timing problem does not diminish my love of the laundry ritual, above all hanging the clothes on the line and admiring, time and again, the invention of the clothespin.

Marcos, the caretaker, started cleaning the stones around the outside of the house with a rented power-washer at 6:30am. We asked him to stop when we were trying to eat lunch on the veranda at 1:45 amidst the unbearable roar. We convinced him to go eat (something he does like clockwork at 11:30 every day). He would not rest in his hammock after lunch as usual because he knew he’d never get up again, so back he went at the stones. I told him he sure has a lot of patience and he replied, “Tenho”…”I do have.” Marcos – wiry and strong and enduring as he is – looked tired. We are painting up/fixing up in time for the arrival of my best friend from my whole life, Lenna, with her husband, Jon, to celebrate our 60th birthdays! After a week in Natal, the four of us are going to Salvador, Bahia.

And we just had a great visit from another longtime friend, Maria Candida. I met her on my second trip to Rio in 1982. She is a bona fide, sophisticated, urbane, brilliant, fascinating Carioca! Her English is excellent, and we discovered we were reading two of the same authors; we had also both seen the same museum exhibit in New York recently! Maria Candida is a truly talented photographer, as well, as you can see in these photos:

Here are a couple of gorgeous photos from some of her world travels, to Indochina and India:

We all enjoyed Rossana and Cassio’s boat ride with full moon and great live music. Then plenty of beach hiking to the falesias (cliffs of sand) and a trip to Tibau do Sul Beach south of here, complete with whole grilled fish.

We also tried the paella at a restaurant owned by a Spanish chef we had met:

Newton and I have returned to our groove after our US visit. One day we saw three dolphins traversing Cotovelo Beach in repeating arcs! Amazing. This is rare, though not unheard of on Cotovelo. They are ordinarily glimpsed further south. We took up the habit of cooking spicy chicken wings and eating them on the beach with beer, although the windy season causes sand to blow on the food in one’s hand, so this part of the routine is on hold till summer. We found out that the crescent moon looks like the smile on the Cheshire Cat here because near the equator the crescent opens upwards, rather than opening to either side. I am also reminded of Eugene Field’s “Wynken, Blynken and Nod” because this crescent moon looks like a boat sailing in the sky. When at last we turn out the downstairs lights and go upstairs every night, I heave a sigh of pleasure upon entering our bedroom with the window and doors thrown open to the sea and the breeze, sometimes with this crescent moon out the window, or maybe the bright indigo glow the full moon casts on the ocean, or sometimes there is Saturn – so big in the sky – and sometimes, later, framed by the window from the bed, is Jupiter – just HUGE in the sky. And the ocean sound. I still love our house! Even though Newton consults the clock habitually – well, he’s still working, after all…I really can forget about what hour it is and feel the rhythm of rotating bird sounds from the migrating parade, of the changing hues and shadows from morning to evening or with changing weather, local errands, a book in the hammock, Newton’s shrimp on Saturday and Sunday after the beach, the buzzing of insects every evening, heading out to the veranda for our meals across from the coconut trees, watching a downloaded episode of The Wire. I’m leaving out the annoying stuff, but I really love this life.

On our US trip I picked up Obama’s two books. Dreams of My Father is extraordinary for both its beautiful writing and its universal theme of identity, regardless of how well or how little we understand our roots. He is a keen observer and master of subtlety. The Audacity of Hope is more like a well-written government primer. My new Alice Munro short story collections have already been consumed, so now I will look forward to my next two from the US in December. I’ve started Volume II of Robert Caro’s LBJ biography. The opening is astounding. To be reminded of the courage that was required of African Americans to stand up for civil rights is humbling. And we get daily reminders 50 years later of how ugly bigotry and demagoguery are.

My Mother just moved from her larger room to a smaller one at the Methodist Manor in Tulsa, as she outlives her funds. My two oldest sisters, brother-in-law and nephew made the move as organized and painless as possible, not to mention their wonderful job preserving her remaining chicken collection. The chicken wire was my brother-in-law’s idea and draws many sightseers! We will visit her in her new space in December.

Not to be outdone, Jake moved from Boston to Las Vegas. He bought a Toyota convertible the first day there. He has now had a cash offer accepted on a house, so if all goes well, he will be a homeowner a few days before turning 23! We will all meet in Las Vegas for Christmas – now there’s an odd image. I’m thinking poker chip ornaments, though I haven’t mastered the engineering yet.

Elise was invited to join the Jonas Brothers’ tour for its last eight days - Nashville, Columbus, Cleveland, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. She had a berth in one of 14 busses with the horn section - 4 guys – and the string section – 2 females. Then after all night on the bus, she was provided with beautiful hotel rooms to shower, sleep some more, and prepare for the next show. She was assigned to video one of their opening acts, the Wonder Girls, from Korea. It was a thrilling ‘roadie’ experience! The Jonas organization has requested her again to video the show of another opening act group in Manhattan. In the meantime, she is still the official videographer and editor for the Jonas fan club website, among other assignments.

As you might well imagine, it is time for me to go turn the washing machine back on!

Hope the return of the fall routine is sitting well with all of you –

Love,

Sandy