Sunday, October 12, 2008
Orixa Chic
Labels: Brazil Travel, Candomble, Global fashion, Orixas, Travel Souvenirs
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Dancing With The Saints
I said I'd explore the complexities of candomble in earlier posts and here it is, finally. I'll admit, I've been avoiding this for as long as possible because there are so many layers and meanings and opinions attached to this religion that I just don't know where to begin. So I'll begin with my personal experience. On a late June night, in the small southern Brazilian town of Vassouras, I was invited to a candomble ceremony for the feast of San Juan. We drove down some roads and up some hills with only the moon lighting the way. Faintly, we heard the echos of drumming. We climbed down some stairs, past blooming bushes and I saw a huge bonfire. Men were holding large drums over them, tuning the instruments with flames. A tiny altar with flowers and a statue of San Juan stood under a small shack. The men sat down, joined by adolescent boys.
They began drumming in a swirl of intricate rhythms A groups of women, clad in long white gowns and head wraps, moved in a circle to the drums rhythms. They chanted and lifted their skirts so that their feet moved freely. It looked like the whole community of children, teens, father, mothers and grand parents had turned out for this celebration. After I was pulled into the circle to dance with the women, hot bowls of canjica were brought out. A sweet dish of white corn, peanuts and sugar, that reminded me of peanut brittle, I spooned the white clumps up as the participants watched me closely, making sure I ate everything. After canjica, strong coffee with sugar cane juice is traditionally downed but I could barely manage two sips. The Brazilian notion of coffee is more like cappuccino syrup to me. Afterwards, the boys, Juan Pedro, Marcel, Jonathan and Victor came up to me, wanting to know what there names would be in English. I had to break it to them that all except Juan already had anglicized names. They were not happy about that. But the boys cheered themselves up by singing me a Chris Brown song, which was the only English they knew.
Dancing, music and community lie at the heart of candomble but it also represents the spirit of resistance. Brought from Africa over 350 years ago, forms of candomble have sprouted all over the African Diaspora. Ancient Yoruba deities were melded with catholic saints so that uprooted Africans could continue their spiritual practices in the face of persecution. The deities or orixas, all have corresponding saints, colors and days of the week. In candomble, Saint Joan of Arc becomes Oba, the fearless fighter, Saint Lazarus is Omulu, deity of healing and Saint Michael is Logun, deity of polarity. Everywhere I went in Brazil, in restaurants, airports, shops and bookstores, I observed elements of candomble. T-shirts with images of all the orixas sell in boutiques and corner stores. Restaurants, key chains and bronze statues of Imenja, the mermaid deity of the ocean, pop up wherever there is a body of water. Even the all-important soccer teams have their own orixas. Despite candomble being outlawed for much of the 20th century, the religion remains a visible part of Brazilian culture.
In Cachoeira, the Bahian town that boasts 42 candomble houses or terreiros, I was invited to visit the Rumpane Ayono Huntobogi house. The only way outsiders can visit is by personal invitation and unfortunately, by the time we had climbed several muddy hills in the rain, the Iyalorisha or high priestess, wasn't there. Still, I got the essence of the experience. Standing outside the terreiro, on top of a sweeping hill surrounded by sacred spaces dedicated to the orixas, I could feel the energy dance around me.Labels: African culture, Bahia culture, Brazil Travel, Cachoeira, Candomble, Candomble House, Terreiros
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Top Five Things To Do In Salvador, Bahia
2. Viewing the Eight Orixa Sculptures on Lake Torroro.
Labels: Bahia culture, Brazil culture, Brazil Travel, Salvador, tourist activities, Zumbi Des Palmares
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Obrigada
As I writer, I 've developed an ear for language. I love to soak in speech cadences and the rhythms of different dialects. Although I've heard lots of Portuguese crooned from my tons of Brazilian, Cape Verdean and a few Portuguese Cd's, I wasn't ready for what I heard in Brazil. I felt like I was pushed into this world that lured me in with familiar Latin words and then shut me down with crazy interpretations. I pride myself on grasping enough of a culture so that I can blend in fairly quickly. Brazilians embraced me first as a Rio Carioca and then as a Salvador Baiana but I felt like a fake as soon as I opened my mouth. My brain couldn't process the sounds of the words and my mouth couldn't spit them out. Nothing made sense to me and I felt mentally crippled more than a few times. It might be a cliche but one thing about Brazilians is that they are genuinely warm and free-spirited. Even though my speech sounded like a clunky blend of grammar school Spanish topped with bad Eastern European inflections, I never felt patronized or ridiculed. The locals communicated though smiles, through gestures and through gifts. 
And so, the one word that I mastered in Portuguese was obrigada, which means thank you. It was the one word that I found myself having to use the most often because Brazilians are generous, open-hearted people. I kept having to say obrigada for another decadent dish a waiter would bring without my asking. Obrigada to Aparacida, the Yansa priestess who pressed her precious candomble beads into my hands as a gift after she invited me to a private St. Joan candomble ceremony. After repeating it so many times, I even got fancy with it, tossing out brigada like the locals. Brazil itself offers much to say brigada for, like the graffiti that tells more stories than any guide, the surreal Salvador coastline or the lush splash of parrot flowers (what we call poinsettias only more fabulous) that line the south coast. Brazil showed me that there are many ways to communicate and many ways to be thankful.
Labels: Brazil culture, Brazil Travel, Language
Sunday, September 21, 2008
A Tiny Piece of Carnaval
Labels: Brazil Travel, Carnaval, Rio, Sambadrome
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Washing The Steps With Miracles
Labels: Black Rome, Brazil Travel, Brazilian Churches, Salvador
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Aromatic String
As I bustled past street vendors selling coconut candy bars and the sleek, shiny-haired, hotties that fill Rio streets, I realized that I missed something. I couldn't put my finger on what exactly. When I neared the the orgy of beauty called Copacabana Beach, observing the languid motions of skimpily-clad cariocas strolling in the sand, it hit me. There was supposed to be a samba soundtrack to all of these scenes! How can you have a true Brazilian experience without samba as the backdrop? I needed to hear some live Brazilian rhythms! It happened to be a Sunday when I made my proclamation and my guide Da'vid didn't look too confident about it. It seems that most musicians take Sundays off in Rio. There I was, in the party capitol of the universe and it stops on Sunday? It didn't make much sense to me so we headed to the famous bohemian district of Lapa. Overflowing with street hustlers and artists of all stripes, Lapa does not close down. Built in the 18th century and marked by two towering arches, Lapa is part of old Rio. Punctuated by crumbling, deserted mansions and dimly lit, dodgy looking streets, Lapa feels like something out of the Brazilian drug war movie, "City Of God," which it probably is. It is the only place that I visited in Brazil that prompted me to remember the high crime rate.
I got over it, though. Lapa looks iffy but I never witnessed anything other than beaming friendliness while I was there. We found a tiny, closet-sized bar called Acaso Bar, which literally translates to random bar. Bursting with laughing, dancing people, all the patrons sing and play instruments along with the musicians. Red, gold and orange walls frame scuffed cherry wood tables filled with Skol beer bottles. Dav`id and I order bacalau or salt fish balls and the zesty, local Skol beer, while we absorb the festivities.
Three or four men gather in a circle and play samba classics with guitars and percussion. I can't tell exactly who was in the band and who's not because every single person in the bar shakes a tambourine, bangs on a pot or jingles bells. The crowd belts along with tunes that were created to encourage hip and derriere shimmying. Four women dance enthusiastically. Because they are Brazilian, they are gorgeous; with long, lustrous hair and sinewy bodies. I can't tell if they are in the band either.
After two sweaty sets, a band member comes over and introduces the group. It's called Coisas Nossas or literally translated, aromatic string. He hands me a wisp of sweetly perfumed string with a tiny safety pin to remember them. In street carnivals, the line of people dancing samba is called a string. Curly-haired and charming, he is the grandson of one of Brazil's most significant Samba composers, Cartola. As we are surrounded by everyday Brazilians singing and dancing, I'm sure it's just the way Cartola would have wanted samba to be experienced.
Labels: Brazil Travel, Lapa, Rio, Samba, World Music
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Tasty Cultural Connections
Labels: acaraje, Bahia culture, Brazil Travel, Food Travel, global cusine
Friday, August 29, 2008
Understanding Samba
If you've heard of Brazil, you've heard of samba. Most people have glimpsed photos or scenes from Brazilian Carnaval, with sexy revelers festooned with a feather or two, writhing to samba rhythms. But what exactly, is samba? I always thought it was a music genre but I discovered that it's music, dance, and so much more, at Santo Amaro's House of Samba.
Stepping into the terraced building that also holds a studio and performance space, before you can even get to the samba exhibits, the altars of seven saints loom. Like all African art forms, samba does not separate the spiritual from the mundane. The heavy percussion of samba beats derive from candomble music used for sacred ceremonies. Statues of Saints Lazarus, Joan, Barbara, Bonfim, Anthony, Roue, and the Portuguese twin Saints(! ) Cosme and Daniel, line the first wall of the Samba House. The corresponding colors for the candomble orishas or deities, adorn the background of each altar. The beads representing the orisha connected with the saint hang dramatically over each statue. I stood in front of the altars, a little overwhelmed. I was raised Catholic so most of the figures were familiar but I couldn't figure out all the symbolism and how the orishas connected specifically. The candomble religion is embedded in Brazilian culture but it's a very complex system. I'll be discussing it in detail in a later post.
An exhibit highlighting samba instruments was next. Besides the all important drum, (pandeiro)there were tambourines and guitars (cavaco) and plates and knives, over a floor filled with sand. The floors of poor houses were typically made of sand and samba music and dance is traditionally performed in the sand. Bahia is known for its rural, folk versions of samba, which is very different from the contemporary samba you see in Rio. Samba De Roda, or circle dance, is the most famous. It features women dancing in and out of a circle and men playing guitar, tambourine and plate and knife. a defining move of the samba de roda is the umbigada, where the women bounce gently off of each others bellies. The music and dance can be traced to African Bantu culture and the exhibits spotlight this point, displaying all the clearly African characteristics of samba.
Labels: Bahia culture, Brazil Travel, Global music, Samba, Santo Amaro, World Music
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Poetry Santo Amaro Style
The name Santo Amaro da Purificacao sounds like the title of a poem or novel and in a lot of ways, this quaint rural town on the Northern coast of Brazil reflects the very essence of poetry. Starting from the sun-baked streets and ice cream-colored buildings, this place screams with charm. The cobblestone roads are narrow and seem to be overflowing with people, animals and products for sale. The marketplace, which features an array of tropical fruits and vegetables as well as homemade hootch, is famous for its Bembe do Mercado Festival, which is the only candomble ceremony that takes place in an open setting. The sunflower yellow courthouse, with its cannons still aimed at intruders, is a national monument that commemorates Brazil's independence from Portugal in 1822.
Perhaps Santo Amaro's ultimate claim to fame rests plainly in the middle of town. That's where you'll find the childhood home of the poet of Salvador, Brazilian musical icon Caetano Veloso. Caetano's 100-year-old mother remains the village matriarch and I was taken by the white-washed house to meet her. Tired out from meeting officials for the independence ceremonies, she was napping but I enjoyed hearing about the family's lasting influence on Santo Amaro from my guides. A lyrical genius and political artist on the level of Bob Marley, Caetano has even been compared to Leonardo da Vinci because of his renaissance-man ability to write poetry, paint, sing and direct movies. Caetano founded the Tropicalismo movement with Gilberto Gil in the 60s, blending rock, jazz and Brazilian folk genres with densely political lyrics. That music forced Caetano and Gilberto into exile by Brazil's military dictatorship until 1972.
Although he's now retirement-aged, Caetano continues to pump out innovative tunes laced with his breezy, sinuous vocals. Considering standouts from his ginormous catalog of albums, one of my favorites is 2000's "A Bossa de Caetano." He re-interprets bossa nova classics and throws in an extra twist with a stunning cover of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." This was the soundtrack that flowed through my mind as I explored the poetry of Santo Amaro.
Labels: Bahia culture, Brazil Travel, Caetano Veloso, Global music, Santo Amaro, World Music
Friday, August 22, 2008
Bahia Style
Flaunting flawless skin, a vibrant spirit and colorful fashion sense, Brazilian women are famous for their beauty. On my recent trip to Northern and Southern regions of Brazil, I wasn't shocked to discover that Brazilian women mostly rock 3-4 inch stilettos in sand, over cobblestones and through airports. Nor was I amazed that most wear very little make-up and exude a natural beauty that's eternally kissed by the sun. What grabbed my attention was the realization that it wasn't the glammed up cariocas that strut down Copacabana and Ipanema who captured my memory. It was the baianas, the striking women from Bahia that wear traditional white dresses, fly headwraps and ritual beads, who really rule.
Labels: Bahia culture, Brazil Travel, Global fashion
Hangin' With Jorge
Whenever I asked about Brazilian culture and customs, my guides kept telling me to read Jorge Amado. So I was excited to visit the Jorge Amado Foundation in Pelourinho. It's a museum dedicated to his 32 novels, memoirs and guidebooks. Jorge's books have been translated into 49 languages in 55 countries and all those translated books adorn the walls of the museum. His stories have also been made into plays, films and Brazilian soap operas. Judging from countless recommendations, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon is probably the most popular. The exchange rate for American dollars in Brazil is about as thrilling as Paris Hilton's thought process so I declined to buy a $32 translation at the museum.
Labels: Bahia culture, Brazil Travel, Brazilian books, Jorge Amado, Salvador
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
How To Avoid Creepy Experiences During Your Travels
I love adventure. I don't love creepy situations. Generally speaking, it pays to be open to new experiences except when you're freaked out. I learned the hard way that when your inner voice is telling you to beware, it's best to listen and forget about that great travel experience that you're passing up.
On my last night in Brazil I stayed in a 400-year-old convent. Yes, it has been converted into a hotel but there's very little evidence of this. A huge crucifix carved from what looks like petrified wood looms in the lobby. Christ hangs from it with suffering and pain carefully etched into his face. The hallways and rooms are painted a stark, institution ,white. All of the floors creek. The key chain I was handed for my room looked like it was at least 100 years old. It was heavy brass and displayed the Carmelite symbol. No decorations mar the minimalistic and dark atmosphere except an oil painting of the last supper in the lobby. Compared to the rest of the place, that painting qualifies as a cheery little design detail.
A former Carmelite convent, it's now called Posada do Convento and sits in the center of Cachoeira, a city famous for it's colonial architecture and huge number of candomble terreiros or temples. Candomble mixes Catholicism with African rituals and the religion plays a significant role in Brazilian culture. I was scheduled to visit the oldest terreiro in the morning and I anticipated this. What I didn't anticipate was spending the night in a former convent that bears an uncomfortable resemblance to an insane asylum.
"Oh, I would stay here with you but I see spirits every time I stay here and can't sleep," said Claudia, my lovely and genial host. That was really what I wanted to hear. "Why can't I just stay with you?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant but panicking inside. "We're staying in a simple guest house, it's not for visitors," she explained. "I don't mind," I countered. She waved away any other talk of leaving, assuring me that this was the best hotel in Cachoeira. This was where I should have insisted but I didn't. I climbed the ancient stairs and walked down an endless, unlit hallway to my room. I manically locked the door, checking it twice. Besides a bed covered with a worn white bedspread, a small nightstand and chair, the only thing in the room was a massive wooden bureau, large enough to stash several bodies.
I was exhausted after touring four cities in two days so I checked my door's lock one more time and went to sleep. Days before, I had been given a candomble necklace by a priestess as a gift. She told me to wear them for protection and prosperity. It's a great honor for a priestess to give someone her beads so I was extremely careful with them. I took them off and laid them on the chair before I went to sleep.
I slept fairly well, considering the circumstances. I don't remember seeing or hearing anything. But when I got up, my door was not locked. Maybe I hadn't locked it correctly but it was eerie to see it slightly open. I turned to put on my necklace and it fell apart in my hands. The coral beads and cowrie shells scattered smoothly on the floor. The sturdy rope that they were strung on, which had been fine when I took the necklace off, was broken. I scooped the beads up, packed my bags and rushed out of that room. When I told Claudia she gave me a guarded look. "What do you feel this means?" she gently asked. It means that I'll never allow myself to stay in a situation where I don't feel comfortable. It's a common lesson but one that I obviously needed to remember.
Labels: Brazil Travel, Cachoeira, convent, travel adventure
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