Friday, February 06, 2009

Arraial d'Ajuda, Brazil

Iemanja, the Goddess of the Sea

Versus the groundhog

Praise Elohim, Cyrus does not have dengue fever! He started feeling much better this weekend and is now almost back to normal. Gave us a bit of a scare though, and we’re all using mosquito repellent more religiously now. Our poor landlord, Marco, is still camped out each day in the hammock on his front porch drinking hot tea, squinting out the sun, and shivering under his wool blanket. Or running to the bathroom. It’s not a pleasant disease. The thought of his wife contracting dengue is scary since she’s five months along. If I were her, I’d take the next plane out of here to some tropical paradise for a few weeks. Oh wait, we’re already in a tropical paradise. Well I’d go anyway because when Marco is not on his deathbed, he’s a grump extraordinaire; I can’t see how she can even stand him when he’s well. In reality, it’s been kind of nice having him down since he can no longer keep up with little Cruz in the garden. Nonetheless, we’re all kind of hoping he’ll be among the 95% that survive the disease.

The kids are doing great with homeschooling and even Cyrus is more content these days. Grandma Norma and Grandpa Jim are helping to teach some lessons and even hosting sleepovers in their little bungalow, which is a couple blocks away, so we’re all reveling in apart time. Right now, Grandpa is helping Cyrus to edit the final version of the capoeira report he’s been working on this week. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art, and Cyrus is taking lessons three times a week at a local capoeira studio. It was apparently brought to Brazil by African slaves but evolved into more of a dance, since the slaves were not allowed to practice fighting techniques. According to Cyrus’s studies, by disguising capoeira as a dance the slaves were able to continue practicing their traditional combat techniques. Until their owners got wise to them, that is. According to Cyrus’s research paper, capoeira was banned until the 1920’s. Since then it has seen a major resurgence among young men, especially here in the state of Bahía. Capoeira dances break out everywhere—in the streets, on the beach, in our front room—it’s a big part of life here in Bahía.

Even little Cruz is doing homework today, which is making him feel quite important. He and Grandma are swinging in the hammock on the front porch where she’s helping him count bunny rabbits in the preschool workbook she brought from the US.

Bella is in the midst of a research project on butterflies. Last week she and Jason made a net and a butterfly cage, and they spend afternoons capturing and measuring butterflies and caterpillars, usually with the help of the neighborhood kids. We found a stable in town, so I’ve begun taking her to riding lessons a few times each week; she’s as happy as a pig in slop when she’s with the horses. Her soft-spoken trainer, Gustavo, is teaching her how to jump and also inadvertently helping us both to improve our Portuguese language skills; at least the equestrian terminology.

Her infatuation with creepy-crawlies finally caught up with her this week, however. Jason and I each found a tiny black growth on the bottom of our foot during the bus ride out of the Chapada Diamantina Mountains. Lacking anything more interesting to do on the 800 kilometer bus ride, we took turns digging out the little black globules, which were each the size of a pinhead. Bella showed us a similar black spot on her foot shortly thereafter, but she refused to let either of us touch it. Instead, she has hidden it away for the past three weeks hoping it might disappear. The other evening as we prepared to head into town for our nightly stroll, her foot was so swollen that she couldn’t even get her shoe on. She was finally forced to admit that her black spot had grown to the size of a gum ball. First stop: the pharmacy.

The pharmacist took one look at the festering mess and asked whether we had been in the mountains recently. When I nodded, he went on to explain that she had picked up a parasite and that it would keep growing by feasting on her flesh, unless I cut it out. Ooh, that’s so nasty. He allowed me a moment to suppress my nausea, then geared me up with all the antiseptics and medical accoutrements that I would need to perform a minor operation in our bathroom. He also, coincidentally, gave me a nice little lesson on Portuguese parasite terminology while he was at it.

This encounter with the apothecary, by the way, illustrates one of the things I love about living in the developing world. Back home, we would have had to wait days to get in to see a doctor, or go to a hospital. And then pay however many hundreds of dollars for them to fix her up. Around here, pharmacists have a lot more clout. Rather than just selling aspirin, they can outfit you with all the paraphernalia you need to perform a surgery yourself. No MD necessary.

Now, one might think, given the fact that I fancy myself a medical translator, that I should be fit for performing such a minor medical procedure. One might, however, be mistaken. Years ago when I was a fledgling linguist, I decided to try my hand at Emergency Room interpreting. After nearly fainting during one of my first shifts, while interpreting for a roomful of young Mexicans whose faces were being sewn back together after a bus accident, I made up my mind that translating rather than interpreting—that is, rendering written documents rather than real-time dialogue—might be a more appropriate calling for my talents. Given my history, then, it made sense that Jason was elected to perform Bella’s surgery while I held her hand and tried to keep my eyes focused on the wall. After nearly a half hour of wrestling with the foul parasite, Jason finally emerged with a nauseating blob of black goo, which ended up being twice as big as it had appeared from above the skin. We refused Bella’s requests to keep her globule as a pet.

I may not be much of a surgeon, but I did finally succeed in finding a Portuguese language teacher here in Arraial. Luis is a history teacher by profession, and he comes over a few nights each week to help us read aloud from his history books in Portuguese. As luck would have it, Luis also happens to be one hell of a cook. Earlier this week, he taught Jason how to make moqueca, which is the Brazilian coconut fish stew with which we’ve fallen in love.

On February 2^nd, which is of course my birthday, we had the opportunity, quite by accident, to be part of our first Candomblé celebration. Cyrus spent last month studying Candomblé, which is one of the major religions of Brazil and stems from beliefs brought over by slaves from various African countries. Having the opportunity to participate in a celebration first-hand was a welcome stroke of luck. Grandma and I were minding our own business, chatting at a local bar where she was treating me to a birthday caipirinha in the shade while I mined her for advice on childrearing. Little by little the bar began to fill around us with rowdy folks, all dressed in white flowing gowns and adorned with flowers. Before long, we were surrounded by an unruly crowd of people singing, shouting, drumming, dancing and raising toasts all around us. I was pretty sure they weren’t all there to help me celebrate my birthday, but their enthusiasm was infectious so we ordered another round and joined in the merriment. I had read an advance copy of Cyrus’s homeschool report, so I was eventually able to deduce that this ivory revelry probably had something to do with Candomblé. When the throng learned it was my 36^th birthday, they flung flower petals over my head and sprayed me with perfume (which instantly made Grandma’s throat swell up like a bloated goat). Between toasts, they explained that my birthday is also the feast day of the Candomblé Orishá (deity) known as Iemanja, and that Iemanja just happens to be the goddess of the sea and of beauty.

Jason, Grandpa, and the kids showed up just in time to bear witness to my declaration that from this day forward I would share my birthday, not only with the ground hog, but with the goddess of beauty. When the mob was finally good and hammered, they abandoned our little bar and began dancing down the street. It was then that I remembered other parts of Cyrus’s research, which suggested that Candomblé rituals sometimes involve people being possessed by Orishás and animal sacrifices. I would ordinarily have been a tad bit nervous in the face of this recollection—if I had not already been two caipirinhas into the afternoon. And, thanks to the swollen goat in Grandma’s throat she was unable to protest, so we followed the mob.

Surprisingly, the multitude marched directly toward the Catholic Church, which is perched majestically on a cliff overlooking the sea. This unexpected turn of events caught me off guard since, if my strict Catholic upbringing taught me one thing, it’s to stay far away from churches when tipsy. Nevertheless, we followed the sweaty crowd to the steps of the church, at which point we all fell quiet and made like we were reverent. Two somber priests descended the staircase to say a few solemn words, which though I couldn’t understand I was sure were meant to reproach the infidels. (The next day, however, Cyrus notified me that over the centuries each Orishá has become associated with a Catholic saint, and as a result these days many people in Brazil consider themselves followers of both religions. Similar to how capoiera was disguised as dance, early slaves were apparently able to continue worshiping their own gods under the guise of honoring Catholic saints. Nowadays it’s no longer necessary to conceal religious beliefs, but nevertheless after so many centuries of tangling, the two religions have become utterly intertwined.) After leading a few moments of earnest prayer, sprinkling some holy water, and burning a bit of incense for good measure, the priests themselves started up the hooting and hollering all over again. They took to the front of the assembly and recommenced the motley parade, leading us all down the hill toward the sea.

Women burned incense and tossed flower petals along the street while men carried brightly-painted wooden boats on their shoulders, like caskets, until the procession finally reached Fisherman’s Beach. As the sun was setting, pilgrims set their offerings out to sea as gifts to Iemanja—boats full of flowers, prayers written on ribbons, and beauty products all dumped into the ocean. She is the goddess of beauty after all. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Revlon was sponsoring the event. As night fell, candles were lit on the shore and the dancing heated up. Unfortunately, each evening a couple hours after the sun has set our children turn predictably into pumpkins, so we trudged back up the hill toward beddy-bye, leaving the music to go on without us into the wee hours.