DanceBatuKeira 2020

Lunch with friends!

Last week was so different from the rest of the time I have spent here in Bahia. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, people began to arrive in ones and twos for the event, DanceBatuKeira. This event is a gathering of the people from all over the world who are part of the Capoeira Angola OuroVerde group, as well as visiting capoeiristas. This included Avi, Maomé, and Tyler, from my the capoeira group I had been a part of in Flagstaff. All of the sudden, here were people I knew, and a group I could really consider myself a part of. I didn't feel like an extra, a nuisance. It was such a welcome change after how I felt before. Additionally, Avi, my capoeira teacher, has been an important mentor to me ever since I started doing capoeira when I was 13. Several times, he pulled me aside and told me things I could do to make my movements better. Since he is also very tall, he understands what it means to do capoeira as a tall person and how your movements have to change. He also helped me with my wrists, which have always been very weak and started to suffer under the strain of doing capoeira several times a day. Much of the capoeira this group plays is played on the ground, meaning that half of your weight is on your hands (and by extension your wrists) for a good portion of the time. This has been a consistent cause of frustration for me, because it means that I can't always do the movements for as long as I should be able to, even though I am technically capable of doing them.  On Thursday and Friday, we had morning capoeira classes in the Cabana de Capoeira. It was beautiful to be doing capoeira half outside in the morning. The only problem was that there were around 30 people there, and the space is about 7x7 meters, which means that everyone has to be very careful when we do exercises where everyone is playing at once. I really did not like these exercises because I was in constant - almost crippling - fest of kicking someone or being kicked. A very good capoeirista has eyes in the back of their head. 

The theme of this year's event was the Viola Angoleira, which is a 10 String guitar that plays in the Bateria, the musical ensemble that accompanies capoeira games. However, only very advanced baterias have violas (guitars), because it requires the berimbaus to be tuned and for the people to sing in tune, which is harder than you might think for some people. However, since this group is under the guidance of a respected capoeira master, most people are very good at it.  The question of tuning the berimbaus created a bit of a discussion. Mestra Tisza, (who is married to Mestre Cabello), has a different opinion on how to achieve a good-sounding bateria. She thinks that using machines (tuners) to reach the desired pitch goes very much against the traditional aspect of capoeira Angola, and that if you need to use machines to integrate the viola into the bateria, then the viola has no place there. She said that she has always adjusted the pitch of the berimbaus to the pitch of her voice, and never needed a machine to do so. Tisza also talked about how the pitch that the berimbaus were being tuned to was very difficult for women to sing at, being either too low or to high to sing at comfortably for hours on end. I have definitely noticed this; usually when singing here I am either at the very bottom or very top of my vocal range, neither of which is very loud. This results in a men-based sound of the singing and mostly men leading the singing (which are in a call-response format), because they are comfortably within their range. Although it doesn't seem like much, it is one of several gender inequities I've noticed in this group.  Here are my two cents on the subject of tuning the berimbaus: I think that tuning them in and of itself is a very good idea for a good-sounding bateria. I also think it's very nice to have a viola in the bateria, it definitely makes for a fuller sound. However, I think that the technology should be removed. Tisza's idea of tuning berimbaus to the voices of the singers makes a lot more sense than tuning them to an arbitrary frequency. This can be done using the ears, and so, using the tuners is not a sign of progress, but a sign of inability. Going with that theory, the viola must play in or be tuned to the key the berimbaus are tuned to and not the other way around.  After this lengthy discussion about music, Mestra Tisza gave a samba and maculêlê  workshop. This was one of my favorite parts of the event. Both samba and maculêlê are part of the afro-brazilian culture that came over from Africa with the slaves and go along with capoeira. I have matured a bit since I last danced samba de roda (when I was 15), and now I enjoy dancing a lot more. I'm still very shy sometimes, but there are definitely times when I am able to let go and just dance.  On Sunday, the last day of the event, we had a long roda in the Cabana de Capoeira at the farm. At the end of the roda, we all walked outside, still playing the instruments and singing. As we walked into the open, it started raining lightly on us. It hasn't rained here for several weeks and the lake is much lower than normal, so the rain was really special, and it was a beautiful ending to the event.  At any given roda of the event, there were at least two (if not three or four) cameras, either mounted on tripods, in the hands of various people, or even on drones, capturing angles of the roda a human could never see. Although I realize the importance of filming and taking pictures for purposes like creating a social media presence and a reference library, I resent the presence of the many cameras all the time. For me, it takes away from the feeling of being "in the moment" in the roda, because there's always the thought that anything I do could be recorded and replayed later put on the internet for the whole world to see. Gone is the concept that "what happens in the roda stays in the roda", only living on in the memory of those who were there in that moment. I guess I will simply have to accept the way it is now, with the whole world watching. 

Pictures from during the event.

On Monday (January 20th), a group of 17 capoeiristas and their families from Recife, Pernambuco arrived at the farm. They are on a capoeira vacation trip, and are staying until Friday. This meant that every bed was being used, and I had to move all my stuff to a different, less conventional bed. This bed turned out to be the tree house, a platform with a railing, a tin roof, and two beds 8 meters off the ground in a jackfruit tree. Cabello strung electricity up the tree when another guy and I moved there, so there is even a light bulb and two outlets! I strung up my mosquito net and have been absolutely loving sleeping up there. Last night, however, we got a huge rain that came along with the tropical storm sweeping through Brazil. I woke up at 4:00 in the morning to torrents of rain and wind, resulting in all of my clothes and stuff piled near the railing getting wet. I underwent an operation to move everything to the center of the cabin, and as soon as I woke up in the morning I strung up lines across the cabin so the clothes could dry. 

I have another exciting story from this week, where the lesson is that sometimes, everything happens as it should, even when you think things are going wrong. 

It began with me getting a ride back to the farm with Erick, a guy in the capoeira group who is originally from France but has been living here near Itacaré on a farm he bought for 18 years. As we were on our way back, the engine in his car, which is about 20 years old, started making a strange noise. He pulled off the road where he usually let's me off and inspected the engine. Although we couldn't tell what was wrong, there was oil leaking out the bottom, which is never a good sign. He told me I should go back to the farm, and he would work it out, so I went. 

I got to the farm and heated up some dinner in the kitchen when Erick walked up! He had decided to have the car towed the next day, and would sleep on the farm that night on a mattress in the kitchen. "Do you want dinner?" I asked, happy to offer him a favor in return for all the rides he has given me. We ate dinner together and had a good conversation. 

The next day, I had decided to go to Itacaré in the afternoon to go to the ATM and see the town a bit more. I wanted to take the bus that left around 1:00. Usually the busses run late, so I wasn't too worried. However, right as I got to the bus stop, I turned around, and the bus passed me by, because you have to wave at them for them to stop. "Oh well," I thought, "this sucks but I'll take the next one at 2:10". As I sat there waiting, who should pull up but a tow truck! The guys began to load up Erick's truck, which was amazingly fast. Erick saw me at the bus stop, waved me over, and asked me if I wanted a ride to Itacaré. I gladly accepted, because the bus wasn't coming for another half hour or so. It turns out a ride meant he and I sitting in his car on the back of the tow truck, watching the landscape go by backwards. It was a very exciting trip, if a bit scary at times when the tow truck driver took the curves a bit too fast. 

Tow truck and city of Itacare.

Once in Itacaré, Erick and I walked to the downtown area to get lunch. We went to a restaurant he goes to often, and I ate cooked jackfruit for the first time, which was rest good! It was interesting to talk to Erick and hear his opinions on things, especially because he is not a native Brazilian and therefore has an interesting perspective on the culture and the government. He is also working on turning his farm into a sort of rustic luxury place where tourists can come to visit, so hearing his perspective on issues in the tourist business from the side of the hosts was very interesting. 

All in all, it was a very good day, with some very good conversations that would not have happened if Erick's car had not broken down and I had not missed the bus. Everything happened as it was supposed to. 

Acaraje (1); Toinha, who makes the acaraje (2); my sunburnt shoulder (3); cooking on the fire because the gas ran out (4).

I went to the beach with the daughter of one of the capoeiristas here!

Neat animal sighting recently! Annika identified the porcupine as Chaetomys subspinosus, the bristle-spined rat or thin-spined porcupine. Please comment if you know what the last picture is, I'm really curious! My guess is some sort of planaria/flatworm, but I could be wrong.