Carnaval week -- so much to say and yet nothing to say! But then, this would be a pretty short entry, so I guess I better find some words to explain it.
It started with Wednesday..well, no -- technically, Carnaval started on Thursday, but where I left off was Wednesday, and it might as well have started on Wednesday. I ended up going out with Sheberon (Sweden) down to Barra (the neighborhood near the beach, near the lighthouse) and we went to Caranguejo do Farol, the same restaurant I had gone to with Auana and her friends. We were going to go out just for a couple of hours to get a little bit of dancing in and then go home, but we happened to stumble into a street party (go figure) that seemed like a mini-Carnaval (only mini because there weren´t millions of people). The streets were still packed, though, and the music was blasting, and there were still some parades of people passing by, dancing to music that was accompanying them. A few times, since the streets were so packed, the only way we could get through was when a car went through the people (a car went through the people!) and we ran and danced our way behind it. That was really fun because the streets were then lined with people and it would just be the two of us dancing behind the car as the car parted the sea of people. So creative we were!
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Now a glossary of a few key terms for Carnaval (it is also important to remember that Carnaval celebrations vary from place to place, so my account of Carnaval will likely be much different from that of someone who experiences it in, say, Rio de Janeiro):
bloco [BLOH-koh]: When there is a huge truck of people playing music (called a trio elétrico, even though there are way more than three people) and a lot of people following behind, the group of people is the bloco. (I have referred to this before as ´´parade of people.´´) These trio elétricos apparently started in jest in the 1950s, when two famous Brazilian musicians, Dodó and Osmar, got on top of a truck and started jamming on electric guitars. I realize that `trio´ means three -- the third person refers to the driver of the truck. Since then, however, these trucks have become such big deals that now there are dozens people atop the trucks. And when you decide to do a bloco, there will be at least two trucks -- one with the group providing the music, and the second one that has a bar and bathrooms on the truck (as well as, obviously, people dancing on top of that truck, too).
camarote [kah-mah-ROH-chee]: These are kind of like club seats or VIP areas -- they are stationary areas from which you can view lots of blocos passing by. Camarotes often have open bar, free internet, some have massage tables, and other things going on. The places you might find camarotes could be in restaurants, hotels, etc. along the main routes of Carnaval.
pipoca [pee-POH-kah]: A word that also means popcorn, the pipoca consists of everyone who lines the streets. You don´t have to pay to be part of the pipoca (whereas, you do have to pay for camarotes and blocos), and this one is the most dangerous because anyone and everyone can be part of it.
abadá [ah-bah-DAH]: When you are part of a camarote or bloco, you have to wear a certain kind of T-shirt that identifies you as part of that group (since you pay to be there). This T-shirt is called the abadá. Many people cut the T-shirts to be more form-fitting -- in fact, the norm is to bring the shirts to seamstresses to have them cut them in cool designs and turn them into real-looking shirts. Me, I just cut mine myself (I had two, since a group of us got tickets for one bloco and one camarote).
****** (Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming) ******
Thursday marked the first official day of Carnaval. After class, late in the afternoon, I met up with Greg (USA), Salvador (USA), and Marcelo (Brazil) to walk down to Barra (one of the areas where Carnaval takes place -- there are several). We got there really early, because Marcelo likes to get there early every year to stake out a good spot and to be there when everything begins. It was neat seeing everything before it started and then being there when the festivities kicked off. Also, since we were down on the waterfront by the lighthouse, it was really windy, so it never got unbearably hot.
We also got a great spot on a ledge, near the police tent, so we could see all the blocos passing by and still had enough room to dance (two essential elements of the evening). We ended up meeting a bunch of other people from school later on, so we had a sizeable group. By the time I walked home, however, it took me about a half hour just to turn the corner onto my street because I got stuck in a pipoca. You see, though I live in a good area, perhaps I forgot to mention that Carnaval also takes place at the end of my street. Thus, when I went to sleep, fortunately I was tired enough that it didn´t matter that Carnaval was still going on, but what was surprising (well, in retrospect, it´s not so surprising, actually) was that when I woke up, it was STILL going on...and I couldn´t go back to sleep because of it. Bummer. They finally finished about 8am/8:30am or so. I guess they needed to rest up before starting up again mid-afternoon. Too bad I couldn´t do the same.
The rhythm of Carnaval is such that you rest during the first part of the day so you have energy to go out from mid-afternoon throughout the rest of the night, so when in Bahia....Anyway, a group of us had bloco tickets for a group called Timbalada on Friday, which was slated to start at 4pm. (In that video, you can see the bloco as well as the big truck, which at that moment happened to be stopped in front of the camarote for which my friends and I had tickets the following night.) There could be 20+ blocos in a night, and ours was one of the earlier blocos. The way the bloco works is that the trio elétrico truck follows a 5-6km route and we follow behind dancing the whole way. It takes several hours, and there´s security holding ropes around the group to keep out the people who didn´t pay to be a part of the bloco. It is extremely exhausting, but the only way to go is forward, and since the masses are dancing, you just have to rally to do the same, tired though you might be (and after several hours, tired and hungry isn´t even the half of it!).
During all this time, Carnaval is always still going on right outside my apartment, 23/7 (and that one hour is after I´ve already woken up), and it´s really quite the madhouse. Everyone is clad in some kind of costume, and I would have gotten some great pictures of it all if it weren´t a risk to take my camera out on the streets. On Saturday, a bunch of us got tickets for a camarote called Camarote Skol , which, as you´ll recall, is a station from which you can watch all the blocos pass by. These camarotes, though, are like little cities. They have everything inside. Mine had internet, open bar, a dance club, a beauty salon, a food plaza, massage tables (they said, but I never saw them), etc. And, oh right -- Carnaval was happening outside all the while. (And the best part was, you didn´t have to walk 5-6km at the same time!) Saturday night is supposed to be *the* biggest night of Carnaval, so it was good to watch it from a camarote (and less dangerous, too). You could see fights happen from above, for instance, and see the police march people through the crowds without having to be directly alongside the action (although sometimes that was exciting, too).
Sunday and Monday were just pipoca, pipoca, pipoca. We didn´t have tickets for anything else (tickets don´t run cheap), and everyone can really see the same things at Carnaval -- it´s just a matter of how close you are to the action and the safety factor involved (but the music is certainly loud enough to hear from most places). So during those days, different groups of us met up to partake in Carnaval (you only live once, after all), and that meant checking out festivities in both Campo Grande (where I live) and Barra.
Aside from the craziness in dancing all the time and the music never stopping, though, I´d say Carnaval is much tamer than everyone makes it out to be. I mean, really, you tell me what about the following isn´t low key?
*guys lined up peeing against public walls (while still dancing to the music)...sometimes near/on police tents, keeping in mind that it is highly illegal to pee in public at all
*people dressed in random costumes all the live long day
*one bloco (called Filhos de Gandhy -- Sons of Gandhi) that trades beads for kisses
*the game that some people have to see how many people they can kiss in a day....a *highly* entertaining game to witness
*etc*etc*etc*
And thus concludes the recap of Carnaval 2008 in Salvador, Brasil. Next year in Jerusalem, perhaps? I mean...next year, in Rio?
And now that all is finally quiet on my street and there aren´t hundreds of people blocking the way, I´d say it´s time for that siesta I´ve been waiting for.
Boa noite!
missy :)
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com/
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