Pelourinho

I´m staying at a cultural center in Pelourinho, the cultural center of Salvador de Bahía. Bahía is known as the cultural center of Afro-Brazilero culture and the streets of its capital are pumping with the rhythms of that culture. No matter where you are, at nearly any time, you can hear drum beats and singing coming from somewhere nearby. Pelourinho is the oldest part of Salvador and was an early post for the region´s previously thriving slave-trade. From any street corner you can see - in equal parts - beautiful colonial architecture in various forms of decay, tourists wandering from store to store buying art and crafts, and homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk.

The place I´m staying is called Centro Cultural do Bispo, and it is a work in progress. The main two floors are in various levels of completion. The main floor is here.

The big open space is where most of the activities take place. The activities are almost intirely dance related and mostly versions of African dance. I regularly come home to drums you can hear 2 blocks away and a room full of dancers, sweaty and laughing, running through drills and rehearsing routines.

I sleep in the hammock for 50 Reais per week. On a good day I can make this in 2-3 hours at a stoplight.

The rooms cost a bit more and as you can see, they really stack the bunks. Both floors of the house have ceilings high enough to throw triples and low quads.

The second floor is crudely constructed private residences for the more permanent guests, and a workshop for making instruments. Namely... you guessed it... drums.

Bispo has a party every Saturday and my first one was a special occassion. They were filming to make a DVD and had twice the number of bands as usual that played well past 3 a.m. I was asked to juggle fire for one of the groups and, while I was nervous about my first solo, fire show, I only dropped my torches into the band pit twice. They were professionals though, and didn´t miss a beat.

The music was incredible, dance rhythms all night long, lots of drums and horns and strings, flamenco, forró, and samba. And a flamenco dance. She was incredible. So much power, I wept. I swear to god. I actually wept. And if all that wasn´t enough, the night ended with a jam-session of Peruvian Huayno´s back in the sleeping quarters before lights out. Life is pretty good right now.

Here´s a view down the street, and a view of the courtyard where the party is. I may have some pictures of that soon. People have told me they have them (and videos too!) I just need to actually get them.

Broken Foot, Schizophrenia, and a Krishna/Jesus Retreats

We were going from one beach to another by bus and, as is proving to be characteristic in Brazil, the bus personnel forgot to tell us when we reached our stop and we rode on down to the end of the line. Because both of us hate backtracking, and we never have any place to be at any given time, we decided to keep on going South and took a boat across a river to board another bus. When we arrived at the terminal, they informed us that there was a bus leaving right theat second, and as we hurried off to catch it, Nati took a bad step and went crashing to the ground. This was the third time I´d seen her fall this way, each time largely attributed to bad shoes and a backpack bigger than she is. The first two times she got up scratched and bruised, but basically okay. This time she got up broken.
We were lucky enough to make two, new friends on the bus though, that directly and indirectly saw to it that the next few days went a lot easier and a lot more free than they could have, though those days were not without certain challenges. First there was Paulo who, upon finding we had no place to go, invited us to stay at his home in Aracajú with his family. He´s 33-years old and married with a child, but he still lives at home with his mother. The wife and child live with her mother, though they´re still ¨together.¨ This is only the beginning to the disfunction. Paulo´s mother and father are separated, but the mother lives with her sister, a schizophrenic with a lot of talking to do. They basically spend most of the day in the house, Paulo painting ceramic statues that he buys to sell in craft markets, his mother cooking and cleaning (all day), and the aunt wandering from room to room, checking things out and speaking her mind. Usually its nonsense, but occassionally there´s a gem or two of wisdom. I learned that she´s in her 60´s, a virgin, and has interesting ideas about univeral love.
To add to the madness of this small home, Paulo´s sister and her four children were all visiting from Salvador. The mother occassionally talked about wanting us out for lack of space, but it was clear over time, that she enjoyed our company as we were the only ones that ever listened to her. She took it to extremes though (I think she´s going a little mad herself) and kept us up until all hours showing us her doll collection, photo albums, and broken antiques, one by one, for hours, like a child showing off her toys, constantly saying that she was tired and going to go to bed. But we ate well the whole time we were there, Paulo drove us all over town to take care of Nati´s broken foot needs, and as it was the heart of Carnaval, the mania was tolerable to save on the high price of a hotel. But we had to escape and, the first chance we got, followed the other connection we made on the bus.
Roberto, (or Colores if you want to call him by his Rainbow name) had been travelling with the Rainbow caravan for over a year, but he and his lady friend decided to stay behind at a small community outside of the town where Nati broke her foot. It is a part of, for lack of a better term, a cult that appears to be a conglomeration of faiths. We attended a few services at their store/meeting area in Aracajú, to get to know our hosts and were surprised to find pictures of Jesus and Krishna in equal measure. We also took part in a healing ceremony that was essentially Reiki. Everyone was very nice though and it didn´t feel creepy, so we went out to their ¨compound¨ to soak up some nature and relax.
It was on the side of a beatiful river and covered in mango trees. They have kayaks, a library, and areas to meditate, produce honey and various artesan crafts, eat three delicious vegetarian meals everyday. The day starts at 5:30 with Tai Chi, followed by a talk about universal love, and the day ends with more Reiki. It was all very nice and it soon became apparent that they mostly just use Jesus to reach the heavily conditioned local people. They rarely talk about him, though he comes up in almost every song they sing.
Nati decided that it was best for her to return to Buenos Aires and so we left our new found haven and returned to the city. She caught her plane and I will miss her terribly, but such is this life of travel. And now I´m on my own for the first time in the entire trip. It´s a little scary, I can´t lie, but it´s exciting too. I caught a bus to Salvador after I dropped her off at the airport, and here I sit. More to come.