Dear readers,
After much consideration, I have decided to ship my blog to blogspot.com. The primary reason is that vox.com is inaccessible on the old computer I have been lugging around, and now, 9 months into my travels, I am taking a stand.
The new address is
www.mandolinsandmoustaches.blogspot.com
I have moved all of my old posts to the new site, and just put up a fresh one as well. I hope you enjoy it.
Amorously,
Auyon
I spent my first night in Istanbul at the Antique Hostel in Istanbul, a much-lauded spot in the heart of Sultanahmet, the sight-seeing center of the city. I arrived there at around midnight, and was greeted at the desk by a guy wearing a button-down shirt opened halfway down the front of his chest, and sporting a well-coiffed head of shoulder-length hair that he flipped often, not unlike women in luxury shampoo commercials. I learned that his name was Adem, and he worked the night shift. “My friend,” he told me, “you are bed six in the Mickey Mouse room.” He then handed me a keychain with a little stuffed Mickey Mouse hanging off of it. I headed down to the room, only to find that none of the beds were made. I went back up to Adem, who was now playing video games. There was also a small boy on a stool next to him, watching him play.
“Adem,” I asked, “can I have fresh sheets and a pillowcase?” Adem looked up from the screen and and I repeated myself more slowly. He then whirled around to face the child and barked at him in Turkish. The little boy almost fell off of his stool backwards. He then ran upstairs and fetched me a sheet and pillowcase. I went back down to make my bed, but then realized that I need another sheet. This time I knocked on the desk to get Adem’s attention, and then timidly asked for another sheet. Adem did not even look at me. He instead snarled more forcefully at the boy, frothing a bit at the mouth. The boy scrambled upstairs again and delivered my sheet with a nervous smile. I then headed back down and made my bed, spending a few hours working on my journal before going to sleep.
The next day, Aroop and a crew of four fellow Williams men arrived, and we quickly left Adem, the Antique Hostel and my entirely strange introduction to Istanbul the previous night, to begin exploring the city. I fell in love immediately. The natural splendor of the crystalline blue waters of the Bosphorous and Golden Horn next to the magnificent domes and minarets that characterize the Sultanahmet skyline make for an addictive combination. The adhan, the call to prayer that envelopes the city in a beautifully haunting melody, sung by a muezzin five times a day, adds an unearthly charm to the entire scene. As one leaves the historic center and gets closer to Beyoglu, effectively Istanbul’s downtown, the main thoroughfares grow broad and proud, dotted with both kebab sellers loudly pitching their wares and the Starbuck’s-esque restaurants and coffee shops expected of a cosmopolitan city. The good people of Istanbul also seem intent on ensuring that no visitor should leave without knowing what the Turkish flag looks like. Accompanying the ubiquitous flags is the visage of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic of Turkey and quintessential Turkish hero, with a borderline religious following throughout the entire country (ironic given that Ataturk’s primary program was secularism). The six of us had a fantastic time walking around, taking in the sights and sampling cuisine throughout the city. Highlights included our time at a hamam, where we were each pummeled and scrubbed lovingly by a large, mustachioed man, and accidentally stumbling into a whorehouse we mistook for a nightclub. The large number of cigar-smoking Turkish men in suits outside should have tipped us off, but we went in anyway. Upon seeing the collection strangely dressed, overly made-up women clustered around the bar inside, though, someone yelled “Brothel!” and we ran straight out again. It was a good night.
Aroop and crew left me a little more than a week ago, and I have since started to settle down. I found a fantastic place with a couple named Cem (pronounced “gem”) and Buket, who cook for me often and feed me fresh squeezed orange juice in the mornings. They are both musicians, and strangely enough, Cem spent several months in Ireland playing folk music there. It is strange how these things work out. I just bought a saz, the long-necked lute I am studying here, and have slowly been learning Turkish. Portuguese came relatively easily thanks to my familiarity with French and Spanish, but it took about a week for “Thank you” in Turkish (“Tesekkur ederim”) to sink in. Getting used to the culture here has also been a different sort of adjustment— what has made it interesting is that Turks are renowned for their hospitality, but their salesmen are some of the greasiest in the business. I thus have a hard time telling when someone is genuinely being nice, or just trying to dupe me. They have a number of tricks, like when a shoe shiner “accidentally” drops his brush as you walk by. He then pretends to be so grateful when you point it out that he must “shine your shoes for a discount price.” He doesn’t tell you the price until after the shining is over, at which point he gouges you. Another example is from a few days ago, when I was waiting for a friend next to a roasted chestnut vendor. A gentleman came up to me and asked if I am Indian (I recently started sporting a moustache). I responded positively, and he told me he was half Lebanese. A few minutes into what seemed like a perfectly friendly conversation, he began to advertise sex. It was 4 p.m. on a Sunday, in broad daylight, we had just discussed our respective heritages, and this man was pleasantly informing me in a thick, Turkish accent that I could have a great time for 30 lira ($25). I smiled politely at him, just as my mother taught me to, and then walked away briskly.
Pushy salesmen aside, I am very excited to end my Watson year here. The food has been spectacular, and my favorite indulgences are currently Turkish Delight and Iskender kebabs (thinly sliced meat drizzled with tomato sauce, served over toasted pide (pita) bread with yogurt.) The music is mesmerizing. I am giddy about the prospect of getting decent on my instrument. The city itself is such a pleasure to walk around in. I have been quite busy staking out favorite waterfront reading spots. Perhaps most notably, though, this is a land where sex and chestnuts are sold side-by-side. It is going to be a good three and a half months.
Much love,
Auyon
]]>As I stood in front of an empty check-in desk at Rio’s Galeão airport, due to the extended disappearance of the airline representative who had failed to inform me that she would be taking her dinner break sometime between asking me for my passport and handing me my boarding pass, I came to pass some rather harsh judgments on certain aspects of Brazilian culture. For the bulk of my time in Brazil, I was able to live rather self-sufficiently, and thus did not have to deal with the lax adherence to schedules characteristic of the country. My final day, though, began with my landlady showing up 90 minutes late to view my apartment and reimburse me for my rent deposit, followed closely by the cab company forgetting to take me to the airport because the power had gone out at their headquarters. After finally arriving at the airport and waiting for an hour to check in for my London flight, the lady who had begun checking me in decided to play hide-and-seek. I was stressed and exhausted. After about 15 minutes of clerklessness, I turned to the representative at the desk next to me and asked him if he knew where she had gone. He said he did not, but did assure me that “he knew she would be right back,” as he flashed a condescending smile. I wanted to hit him. After another 10 minutes, I caught sight of her running around all of the desks except her own, actively avoiding eye contact with me. She eventually calmed down and returned to the desk, only to inform me that there was a problem with my flight, and that I would need to go to a special room. She led me to a small, windowless room and sat me down with my bags. The whole experience was not unlike the many hours I spent in “time-out” as a youth, except this time I was being sentenced by an airline, rather than my mother, and I did not even have the pleasure of doing something inappropriate to deserve it.
There were a few fellow travelers who had been quarantined along with me. Our discussions led us to understand that Tam, the Brazilian airline we were flying, had overbooked the London flight, and that we were the victims. One fellow asked if it would be possible to fly business class, to which the gentleman beside me, named Augusto, responded that he was supposed to be flying business class anyway. Things were looking grim. Not long after our discussion, though, Augusto was tapped. The process involved a single, shifty-looking Tam representative entering our den of the oppressed, looking around nervously and then motioning for Augusto to follow him out of the room. Soon afterwards, another representative entered the room asking for me. I followed him back into the terminal, and let him explain why I was being removed from the plane in broken English (“There was very big plane. Now it has gotten small. Small plane has not enough seat-places. We are sorry.”) My mother’s interactions with service-personnel have taught me a thing or two, and I firmly told the gentleman that I bought my ticket approximately a long time ago, and that I wanted, nay, needed, to get to London. The rep looked down and fumbled with his papers before leading me back to my seat. A few minutes later, I was invited back out and told that they do, in fact, have a seat for me. I had passed the angry customer test. I boarded the plane that night, after purchasing my dinner, which consisted of granola bar, a bread-covered cheeseball and a bottle of water. I then promptly fell asleep for the duration of the hour-long flight to São Paulo.
As I was collecting my luggage from the hold above my seat, I caught sight of Augusto, and we exchanged congratulations for making it airborne. He saw my mandolin, and we started discussing Brazilian music. I learned that he plays MPB (popular Brazilian music, or Música Popular Brasileira) on his guitar in his spare time, and is an engineer by trade. We continued speaking all the way to the gate. Upon reading that our flight was delayed by at least 3 hours, Augusto suggested I try to get in to the Business Class Lounge with him, as sometimes friends are allowed in. I thought this was a terrific idea. I made it through without a hitch, grabbing a handful of toffees and flashing a thumbs-up to guy behind the desk as I passed by. As I entered the actual lounge, however, it was immediately apparent to me that I was wildly out of place. The establishment was filled with fair-skinned men and women over the age of thirty, dressed in business suits and ironed button-down shirts. I, on the other hand, was as disheveled as ever, clad in a dirty hooded sweatshirt and jeans, with unruly black curls splaying out from under my navy skullcap. I greeted their looks of surprise with enthusiastic nods, and then dropped into a chair and observed my surroundings. There were gaudy, white and black zebra-striped chairs, crocodile-skin footrests, leather futons, and, to my great delight, a minibar. I headed straight for the food, and found an assortment of delicious little pastries, as well as sandwiches with brie, sundried tomatoes and prosciutto.
I spent the bulk of my time either eating or using the free internet to watch YouTube videos. Life was good. At one point, I gathered the courage to approach the well-stocked liquor cabinet. After some deliberation, I decided on cognac. I usually don’t drink hard alcohol, but cognac felt appropriate. I poured a generous little glass for myself, and then settled down in my zebra chair, just in time for a show. It had been a few hours, and the airlines was starting to play the “only one more hour” game. I had seen this game played many times, but only with fellow coach-class passengers. Things are different in the Business Class Lounge. Rather being allowed to maintain a distance, or escape into the safety of the off-limits walkway, the airline personnel in the BCL have nowhere to hide. Additionally, I think coach class passengers tend to be more likely to relate to the sad state of the personnel delivering the unfortunate news of the delay, realizing that the kink is probably further up in the line of command and that demonstrating against the gate attendants would do little good. Such is not the case in the Business Class Lounge. As I sat down to sip my cognac, a fellow passenger was beginning to incite protest. “They don’t respect us!” he first cried in Portuguese. I took a sip. “They don’t respect us!” he repeated in English, for the benefit of the foreign travelers. I looked to the personnel. Rather than making any move to calm the man or assuage his anger, they instead just looked blankly ahead, as the passenger berated and criticized them collectively, gathering a bit of a crowd. About half an hour later, we were allowed to board the plane. I have no doubt the vociferous passenger truly believed that he had bullied the lounge attendants, the same people who refill the toffee jar, into getting the plane fixed up more quickly for him. I hope to have that kind of faith when I grow up as well.
My time in England was spent visiting family and old friends around London and Cambridge. England, more specifically Oxford and Cambridge, has taken on a revitalizing, almost cathartic role in my year, as it has been where I have stopped to transition between each country move. It was a great break, and five days later I stepped into Heathrow airport to begin my journey to Istanbul. I arrived in Istanbul on the 5th of April, and was picked up at the airport by Eric Phillips, a close friend from Williams who is currently studying abroad in the city. Eric was kind enough to let me store my junk at his place, so I was able to head to my hostel in Sultanahmet (the part of the city containing the Hagia Sophia and most of the rest of the Istanbul featured on postcards) with no strings attached. The next day, my baby brother Aroop arrived with several friends from Williams and beyond. Revelry ensued. Stories are coming soon.
Much love,
Auyon
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Dawn is breaking. It is the beginning of my last day in Rio. I just woke up on the floor of the 9th story apartment of a Dutch painter named Dré in downtown Centro, and am currently stationed on the balcony of said apartment, wearing a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, headband and a woman’s sweatshirt that fits me quite snugly. The story here is unfortunately not as exciting as some of your sordid imaginations might suggest— my friends Jennie (a dear friend from Williams who just moved to Rio) and Sarah threw a going away/birthday party for me and Sarah, respectively, and they are looking after their friend Dré’s apartment while he is in Holland for a few weeks. I cooked some coconut chicken, Jennie whipped together some tiramisu and Sarah provided the wine and whisky. There were candles, someone put the Buena Vista Social Club on and things got crazy. I fell asleep on an air mattress at 1:30, but not before Sarah gave me a sweatshirt because I was cold and sickly. I am sorry to disappoint.
I usually never wake up before 9, and never get out of bed before 9:30, but the excitement of packing up and moving on has inspired otherwise this morning. Looking out from within the city I usually only see from above, as Santa Teresa is on a hill, I have been moved to reflect on my past four months here. I arrived here scared, anxious and uneasy. My first thought as I walked off of the plane into Rio de Janeiro airport back at the end of November was “Only four more months. Then I can go.” I spent a lot of time studying Portuguese, and even more time alone in my room with my mandolin, trying to get a handle on choro and samba. Although I made friends, I sacrificed what little social life I could have had for my music, in the hopes that I would get great. Three months later, following a humbling experience at the national choro festival, and a slew of visits from loved ones, I had my last lesson with Rudá, my friend and initial mandolin teacher. During the lesson it became clear that I had not gotten particularly good at the mandolin, and this was a frustrating discovery. All of a sudden, those 100+ hours spent with my instrument seemed ridiculous. I had given three months to studying a relatively random Brazilian folk music, and came away with so little to show for my efforts. It was the first time I had failed so spectacularly at something, and it took me some time to come to terms with this.
At that last lesson, Rudá suggested I see another teacher for a change of pace, and gave me the number of a young hotshot mandolinist named Luiz. I set up a lesson, and showed up at Luiz’ place a week later. I was greeted by a kid no older than 19, with a goofy smile, a unibrow and a tendency to laugh at everything he said. He led me to his room and asked me to play something for him. I began Cochichando, the first piece I learned. About 30 seconds in, he asked me stop. I looked up and realized he was giggling. “You play the same as all the other gringos. You pick like this,” he told me, as he loosened the wrist of his right hand and imitated a bluegrass picking motion. “You need to pick like this,” he continued, as he demonstrated a movement that was restricted to a flexion of his thumb and forefinger. I was willing to try anything. That afternoon, I went back to my room and tried Luiz’ picking style. By the end of the night, my playing was significantly better. Something still did not sound quite right, though. A week later, I bought a Brazilian mandolin from a luthier just outside of Rio, named Barros. I had been playing a $120 bluegrass mandolin I had purchased in the US, which I have not touched since my trip to Barros’. Brazilian mandolins truly sing, as they sustain their sound much longer, allowing for an entirely different level of expression. The novel picking style in conjunction with the new instrument has made all the difference. Over the course of two weeks, I went from being entirely disappointed with my playing ability to being quite satisfied with how far I have come. Last week, I played with a live group in a bar, with amps and microphones. I only jumped in for three pieces, but for those three, I was the only lead instrument. To be able to hold down my part alone felt fantastic. That kind of playing had been my goal from the start, and it was a highly cathartic experience to come away from the bar that night.
My final month in Rio has been a fine one. Outside of my music, I spent a good deal of time with friends I have made here. While I had no core group of friends, there are a number of people to whom I have grown very close, as a result of our friendships being based on one-on-one interactions rather than group-based relations. It was nice to be reminded how much I have learned from all of them, and how much I have grown as a result. I was also able to take a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to see a few Williams friends and check out another country in South America before I head east.
As a result of the confidence I have gained after living in and learning to love Rio, I am nothing but excited about my imminent departure for Istanbul. My recent decision to pursue writing and music upon my return to the US has also put me in a more stable place. I don’t have a job, nor do I have any idea what city I’m going to end up when I get back, but I do know that I’m looking forward for everything that’s coming my way in the near future. Especially kebabs.
Much love, and my apologies to those who prefer more lighthearted reports of my wanderings. I suspect Istanbul will bear many such stories.
Auyon
]]>My parents and Arnob, my elder brother (who will heretofore be referred to as “Da,”) arrived at Galeão, Rio’s international airport, at 1 p.m. on February 16th. I had left the choro festival in São Paulo a few days early, on an overnight bus, in order to meet them as they walked out of customs. Following a few hugs and Da’s perfunctory disapproval of my unkempt appearance, I excitedly explained everything I would be showing them. I specifically emphasized the city’s abundance of juice bars and caipirinhas (Rio’s signature sugarcane liquor cocktail). My father and I have our differences, but one thing we share is a passion for sweet, delicious fruit drinks. Not even his bushy moustache could hide the childlike delight that my mention of fresh juices and exotic cocktails stirred in him. It was going to be a good week.
We headed back from the airport and settled my parents into a private room at Casa Manga Manga, which is the hotel/hostel where I spent my first few nights in Rio. It is also just a few houses down from where I am now staying. My brother stayed with me, which was an experience for both of us. To call him a creature of habit would be a gross understatement, and thus to explain to him that there are no hot and cold knobs for the shower— there is just the knob, and that is all— or that toilet paper must be thrown into a trash bin and may not be thrown in the toilet, otherwise it gets clogged, was something of a trial. We had a good time nonetheless. My brother has a moderate learning disability, and thus he and I tend not to have particularly deep or weighty exchanges. Our mutual zeal for potty humor, however, keeps things rolling. There is nothing quite like getting one’s older brother to squeal with disgust by mooning him after not seeing each other for seven months.
We spent the first few days of the family vacation in Rio, bumming around Copacabana and Ipanema watching fut-vollei (a highly impressive version of volleyball played without hands,) drinking coconut water and sampling snacks and juices as often as possible. At one point, I decided to take a dip in the ocean, and as any good Rio native would do, I stripped down to my sunga. The majority of men do not wear board shorts in Rio. They wear sungas— skimpy speedo-esque swimwear that leave little to the imagination. I bought a bright yellow one during my first week here. My father was not pleased. His Indian sensibilities are sometimes a bit conservative, and seeing his 21-year old son parade around a beach in golden undies was apparently too much. Cultural differences can be a tricky thing.
Following visits to Pão de Acúcar (Sugarloaf peak) and the Atlantic rainforest, we caught a flight to the city of Salvador in the state of Bahia. The airport was a good ride from our hotel in a neighborhood called Barra, so we got to see a lot of the Bahian coastline on the way over. Our hotel, which I had booked through a travel agent, was something I was looking forward to. The travel agent had said good things. He lied. We ended up with a view of the brick wall of a building next door, and a bathroom where the faucets fell apart upon contact. The city, though, made up for it. Salvador is known as the cultural heart of Brazil, and is incredibly rich in music. There is a great deal of African influence, as the population is predominantly made up of the descendants of ex-slaves. The city itself is beautiful, with a lot of fantastic colonial architecture (it was the first capital of Brazil) and surrounded by white sandy beaches. Salvador is the only place in Brazil where one can see the sun set over a large body of water, since the Brazilian coastline faces the Atlantic to the east. Salvador, though, is located on the western bit of a peninsula that juts out into the ocean, with a bay to the west. Thus, when one sees the sun set in Salvador, it looks as though it is over the ocean.
Our first foray out of the hotel led us to a few of the aforementioned beaches, and a number of restaurants along them. After some deliberation, we entered a family-owned joint that had a few police officers eating inside. If local police ate there, we figured, it must be good. We were seated by a friendly elderly gentleman, who first expressed his delight that we had chosen his restaurant, and then continued by describing everything on the menu that he did not have. Sometimes he would say that he did not have specific dishes in certain sections, but then at other points, he would just cut out entire pages, like “pasta.” His Salvadorian accent made comprehension tricky, but I understood him to say things like, “The bus did not come in today,” so “there would be no sandwiches this week.” We smiled and nodded pleasantly. My father then asked if I wanted to check out another place, but as I looked back and forth between the overstocked menu and the enthusiastic owner, I though we should give it a shot. We ordered one of each of the three dishes that were available, and they turned out to be great. We paid and thanked the gentleman for the meal, and then, as we were leaving, he gave my mother a small plastic Bahian trinket with a keychain attached to it. A token of his friendship. I was glad we had stayed.
The next day, we headed into the city. One of the main squares in the city is known as the “Pelourinho,” which translates to “the whipping post.” It used to be the site of public floggings of slaves, and is now a lively, cobbled crisscrossing with shops and vendors aplenty. The street vendors in Salvador, usually selling shelled jewelry or small knickknacks, are much more aggressive than in Rio. They often attempt to give you a “present” of a free colored band to tie around your wrist, but then pester you incessantly if you accept their gift. We navigated through the bustling streets and ended up in front of a jewelry shop. My mother walked in, and my older brother and I followed her. My father stayed outside. This proved to be a good move on his part.
Brazil is famous for its gemstones, and the store’s vast spread of stones, jewelry and sculptures housed quite a variety. There were no other shoppers when the three of us entered, so the salesman inside started chatting to us. He was impressed with my moderate grasp of Portuguese, and informed my mother that since he liked our family, he would be giving us a good deal. The poor man had no idea what he was getting himself into. My mother is a charmingly candid, vivacious Indian woman. This salesman’s mistake was to confuse her forthrightness with the naïveté often ascribed to gringos. As he would soon find out, shopping and haggling in the Indian markets of her youth have forged my mother into a merciless shark of a customer. I had forgotten how painful it is to watch her cheerily cut vendors down until they offer a price, often ludicrously below anything reasonable, with which she is happy. This particular transaction took 45 minutes to negotiate, and ended with my mother walking out of the shop with a little bag and an innocent smile on her face, leaving behind the ashen-faced salesman to slowly come to grips with how he had just been broken. I relayed the gory details of my mother’s exploits to my father, who responded quite simply, “That’s why I don’t go in.”
We continued on to a small shop stocked full of colorful paintings typical of Bahia. My mother wanted to buy a few gifts, and instructed me to ask the man in the shop how much each of the paintings were. I was apprehensive about getting involved, simply because if my mother decided to bargain, I would have to play translator. In the jewelry shop, I was allowed to be a spectator, since the salesman there spoke English. I did not have much of a choice, though, and relayed to my mother that each of the smaller paintings was R$40. She told me to ask him for five for 80. I asked the man, who then responded with an offer of 150. My mother shook her head, and repeated her offer. I informed her that my understanding of bargaining was that each side progressively makes concessions, in the hopes that a mutually acceptable middle ground is eventually reached. I was told to shut up, and that I did not understand. I turned to the vendor. My mother’s inability to speak Portuguese afforded me the capacity to say whatever I wanted. “My mother is difficult,” I said. “She won’t budge from 80.”
“I cannot do 80,” the man said. “That is cheaper than how much I buy them for.” I am aware that such a tactic is commonly used among greasy salesmen, but this man did not look like the sort. He was a short, pudgy man, wearing a tattered baseball cap, a faded T-shirt and jeans. He had honest, sad eyes, and spoke slowly. I liked him. “130 is as low as I can go,” he said.
I turned to my mother. “He says 130.” My mother responded with 90. I relayed her offer to the salesman.
“Your mother is a hard woman,” he said.
“She’s crazy,” I agreed. “Imagine being her son.” The salesman looked at me with a mix of pity and wonder. He then took a phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. I looked back to my mother and suggested that when someone has to call their supervisor to ask about how low prices can go, things have gone too far. I was ignored. After the vendor had gotten off the phone, he explained that the lowest he was allowed to sell the paintings was 100. Otherwise he would lose his job. My mother conceded, and the man wrapped up the paintings, glad that we were finally leaving. As we walked outside, I asked my father how he reconciles my mother’s bargaining techniques with his own good conscience. He looked at me and paused to think. He then instructed me to fetch the vendor from the shop. The man walked outside, confused. My father greeted him with a hearty pat on the back and asked him what he would like to drink. We ended up buying a green coconut for him. He thanked us, grateful for the acknowledgement that he had been wronged, and then hurried back to his shop. It made me feel a little better, too.
The rest of our trip consisted of more city wanderings, a guided tour and a few music shows. The tour was a difficult experience for me. After having lived in Rio for a few months, enjoying the way my skin color allowed me to blend in, and generally knowing my way around, it was uncomfortable to be a part of an obvious group of foreigners. It was probably healthy for me to be forced off of my high horse, though, and the tour did have its redeeming points. The highlight was the church in the city center, one of many which was built by the Portuguese during colonial times. The interior of the church was massive, and the area surrounding the altar was done up ostentatiously, with bevies of cherubs flitting around walls that glistened with gold leaf. The best part of the church, however, was not immediately apparent. Our tour guide explained that while the church was commissioned by the Portuguese, it was built by African slaves, who themselves were disallowed from practicing their religion (candomblé, a spirit-based belief system with African roots). As a result, the slaves slipped a number of candomblé references into the construction of the church, like lion heads and serpents carved into the woodwork. Additionally, the slave artisans who fashioned the angels deliberately sculpted them to look sickly and unpleasant, and often gave them engorged genitalia or apparent secondary sexual characteristics. Unfortunately, the bloated genitalia had been trimmed down since, but the rest of the angels had not been fixed, and upon closer inspection it became clear that many were suffering from gout. I have heard many people say that the greatest churches they have ever visited are in Italy, but these people have clearly never been to Salvador.
The music we got to see in Salvador was, as expected, fantastic. One show that stuck out was an open-air forró performance in the Pelourinho. Forró is a fast-paced music from the northeast of Brazil, and is readily distinguishable from other Brazilian musics by the presence of an accordion. I had seen a couple performances in Rio, neither of which was particularly noteworthy, but the Salvador show we saw was some of the best music I have seen in Brazil. On another occasion, I believed a taxi driver who told me he could take us to “a great beach show,” that was “free and not too far.” Believing this man was not one of my finer moments. We got into the cab after calling him later that night, and he took us to a place that was a) not a beach, b) not free and c) not close by. Although the show was very well done (Carnaval-style samba), the whole experience was tainted by the fact that I had swallowed a cab driver’s pitch hook, line and sinker. It was also a pointed reminder that, even after learning to speak proficiently in Portuguese and getting a good sense of Brazilian culture after 3 months in Rio, I can still get caught with my pants down as just another gullible gringo.
All of our misadventures made for an excellent family vacation, and I was sad to see my parents and brother leave at the end of their week in Brazil. It was nice, though, to get back in control of my life and get re-settled for my last month in Rio. It is now the 26th of March, and I leave for London on the 31st. I plan to make one final post in Brazil before I head out, to bring everyone up to speed with the going-ons of my last month.
Until then, and much love,
Auyon
It was 9 a.m. on February 9th, and I was sitting on a bus bound for São Pedro, a 30,000-person town in the middle of the state of São Paulo, for the fourth annual National Choro Festival. The Rio contingent of choro enthusiasts had organized for a direct shuttle to the hotel where the festival was being held, and I, exhausted from the Carnaval festivities that had just ended, was grateful for the convenience. I had chosen to sit at the back of the bus, and was soon joined by a rowdy gang of 13-15 year olds armed with cavaquinhos (Brazilian ukeleles), guitars, bandolims (mandolins) and a pandeiro (the tambourine-style hand drum). My efforts to catch up on sleep were thus frequently interrupted by spontaneous samba exhibitions, and I would have been annoyed had the kids not been excellent musicians. We reached São Pedro at 5 p.m., having stopped for an hour or two for lunch, and I got my room assignment at the reception desk. I then proceeded to wander around and inspect my new digs. The whole hotel compound was rented out for the festival— the rooms surrounded three sides of a large central square, which featured a pool, a restaurant/bar with a patio, and a children’s playground covered with giant, grinning, LSD-inspired plastic animals. At the fourth side of the square was the dining room and a small gated pond, no more than 30 feet in diameter, that was periodically filled with fish for the pleasure of those occupants who enjoyed fishing out of small ponds. It was, in short, a strange but not unfriendly place to call home for the next week.
I soon found my room, and saw that there were a handful of guys on the porch jamming. I began to ask, in Portuguese, if they were my roommates, only to have one of the guys respond in English, with an American accent, asking me where I was from. The festival organizers had apparently played a neat little trick and quarantined all the gringos into one apartment. After meeting the other guys, I heard honking noises and walked outside. We had all been instructed to leave our luggage on the bus, and I had wondered how I would later get it. My queries were answered. A massive, brightly colored tractor carrying everyone’s luggage was leisurely driving around the central square and tooting the horn every so often. I retrieved my things, thanked the driver, and then watched him drive away very slowly. After unpacking, I headed over to dinner with the other guys, and later saw a concert put on by a few of the teachers and older students. The concert ended at 10 or 11, and was followed by an entire night of impromptu rodas (choro jam sessions), wherein people would bring their instruments out to the patio and play until the wee hours of the morning. The rodas were spectacular to watch, but I never got the courage to jump in. Unlike in Ireland, where I could fudge the tunes by ear and no one would notice since everyone plays together, the rodas are all about solo performances. The principal solo instrumentalists (mandolins, flutes, clarinets) trade the melody back and forth, with only one of them playing at any given point. The guitarists (both 6 and 7-string), cavaquinho and pandeiro players compose the rhythm section, playing the chords, counterpoint bass lines and percussion beneath the solo. In watching the rodas that first night, I learned that most every participant at the camp was a highly accomplished choro musician. My two-and-a-half months of exposure were not going to cut it.
Classes started a day later, and I had three of them: mandolin technique, band practice, and harmony. The technique class was great, but it was downhill from there. I had signed up for band because it was the only word on the list I had understood (“banda”), way back in December, but it turns out that there are normally no mandolins in band. The band consisted of brass instruments, guitars, flutes, clarinets, and big drums. And, this year, a single gringo mandolin. I was able to seem Brazilian most of the time, but whenever I spoke Portuguese, or took out my instrument, I was a marked man. Brazilian mandolins are largely undecorated and feature a single, central soundhole. My mandolin is painted bright yellow, and has two ostentatious f-holes on either side of the strings. Were I a hotshot mandolinist, I might have pulled it off. Instead, I was one of the least talented musicians at the camp. I wore my instrument like a golden badge of shame. Finally, my last class of the day was a two-hour beast on the intricacies of harmony and chord progressions in choro, taught exclusively in Portuguese. Enough said.
The true highlight of the camp, though, was not class, nor was it the pleasure of living amongst Real American Dudes again (although that has been sorely missed), but was instead the nightly festivities. The only formally organized events were a few concerts in the auditorium, but somehow, in addition to the rodas, every night turned into a celebration. It seems that all Brazilians need to start a party is some kind of percussion instrument (if drums are missing, then empty cans are often used). No DJ or alcohol necessary, although the latter might speed things up a bit. These are a people who have no hang-ups about singing or dancing publicly. One night, someone snuck in a large floor drum, and a group of around 20 individuals proceeded, at 2 a.m., to have a Carnaval-style bloco parade through the streets of the compound, complete with inebriated dancers trailing behind them. In class the next day, we got a stern rebuking from one of the head organizers, who made it clear that “there would be no more marching parties. Only still parties. Drums stay by the pool.” The ringleaders nodded sheepishly. The same thing had happened last year. Another night, someone brought a small hand drum and started hammering out some incredible beats. Then someone started singing, and out came the cymbals. The party had started. What I enjoyed most about that night was that one of the guys must have thought to himself, “There will probably be a party tonight. I suppose I should bring my cymbals.” America could learn a lot from the example of this young man. I’m buying cymbals.
In more recent news, I’m now well into my last month in Rio. Nothing much noteworthy has happened, except that I have now tired of cooking for myself, so I’ve been eating a lot of papayas. I have also come to accept that I am not going to leave Rio as a particularly good choro mandolinist. I had rather high hopes when I arrived, and was sure that with a few months of dedicated practice I would reach my goal. Unfortunately, it will take a lot more than four months of practice for me to get to a satisfactory point, but my study has been quite fruitful here nonetheless. I’m now focusing on trying to learn Turkish, and have been listening to a bit of Turkish folk music as well. They use different scales, with notes that don’t exist in Western musics (quartertones), and instead of measures of 4 or 8 beats, they use “cycles” of up to 32 beats. It is a good thing I am no longer afraid of failure.
Much love,
Auyon
]]>Although Rio Carnaval was one of the most eagerly anticipated events on my Watson calendar, it was also the source of much anxiety. Going out alone on a normal Saturday night in nearby Lapa, a seedy neighborhood chock-full of great music joints and transvestite hookers, was enough of an adrenaline rush for me— the prospect of weathering a wild, four-day pagan celebration of hedonism was on another level entirely. I was thus delighted to have two dear friends, Whitney Hunter-Thomson and Katie Josephson, a pair of strapping, able-bodied young women, to accompany me for the duration of the festival.
There are three primary components of Carnaval: the street parties (called blocos), the Carnaval balls and the samba school parade. Our story begins on Friday, February 1st, as the three of us hunted through the streets of Santa Teresa for the Carmelitas bloco, one of the most famous in the city. A bloco consists of a slow-moving truck with a great deal of sound equipment, someone playing a little ukelele called a cavaquinho (ca-va-kee-yoo), and another individual with a microphone, who sings the lyrics to a single song that is repeated for the entirety of the parade (usually a few hours). Both the cavaquinho and the vocalist are hooked up to the huge speakers on the truck, which is itself surrounded by a massive, marching bateria, or drum corps. The bateria is the heart of the bloco, and is made up of men and women armed with drums of all sizes, providing the powerful pulse of the party. Enveloping the bateria are the throngs of carnaval revelers, who come in all sorts of costumes and in all states of inebriation. Beer is sold from accompanying push-carts, in case anyone needs a pick-me-up or three. The bateria is also usually cordoned off from the crowd via a human chain, to prevent over-enthusiastic participants from harrassing the drummers. This motley crew is then followed through the streets by more merrymakers, as well as vendors selling cheap food and more beer. The generous consumption of alcohol, combined with the fact that the blocos parade throughout all avenues of the city, often makes available restroom facilities conspicuous by their absence. Following the passage of a bloco through any thoroughfare, a perceptive observer can spot anywhere from 5 to 10 men relieving themselves on trees, walls and potted plants. These gentlemen quickly take care of business, zip up, and then rush to catch up with the rest of the crowd, lest they miss anything. During Carnaval, there’s no time for shame. Only for partying.
Most blocos advertise the time and place that they will begin their festivities, but the Carmelitas group kept it a secret this year, in the hopes they would get a more local, Santa Teresa crowd. There are upwards of 50 blocos, each with its own bateria and theme song, that parade throughout the city over the four days of Carnaval, so veteran partiers will often plan their schedules according to their favorites. Katie, Whit and I had spent the earlier part of the day shopping for costumes in Centro, or downtown, so that if and when a party hit us, we would be ready. I was particularly proud of my costume. It was less of a costume, though, and more of a hat. The hat was a fuzzy, multicolored top hat meant to resemble a birthday cake, replete with frosting, perky candles sticking out of the top, and “Happy Birthday!” embroidered on the front. I sported it with a styrofoam pink-and-blue bowtie, and no shirt. I will never again look that good. We set out into Santa Teresa, hat in hand and bowtie adjusted, in search of the bloco. It did not take long to find it. Blocos begin at their concentração, or fixed location, and remain there, pumping the crowd up for a little while, before beginning their pre-determined parade through the streets. Following our ears, we found Carmelitas’ concentração only a short walk from my apartment. It was quite a scene. Thousands of revelers crammed into the picturesque, cobbled streets of Santa Teresa, with street kids weaving through the masses, busily collecting cans to redeem. This was the first big bloco in the neighborhood, so people were out in full force. The costumes and gimmicks were also a sight to behold. A few of my favorites included a shirtless man riding a tiny motorcycle back and forth through the crowd, and an elderly East Asian gentleman, dressed in a crimson and white toga and a golden foam Roman helmet, happily puffing away at a cigarette. After a little while, the mob started to move, nudged along by the bateria at the back. We could hear the drums far before we could see any of them. The parade was massive, and the energy infectious. Of all the blocos I got to see during Carnaval, Carmelitas was far and away my favorite. I saw a few other great costumes— like the jovial, obese gentleman, clad only in skimpy green shorts, who had smeared red paste all over his body, drawn on little black seeds and then donned aviator sunglasses and a watermelon peel-helmet— but no other bloco compared to the spirit of the Carmelitas party.
After a few hours of bloco-immersion and people-watching, we retired back to the room to prepare ourselves for the Red and Black Ball, reputed to be the most scandalous of all the Carnaval balls. The balls are gala events, typically held in large dance halls in Leblon (one of the more upscale neighborhoods, near Ipanema), and we had gotten quite excited about the evening. Whit and Katie brought dresses for the occasion, and looked fantastic. I, deciding to go all out as well, wore long pants and a shirt with buttons. We ate dinner at a barbecue put on by Vinicius, my paraglider pilot/gourmet chef friend, and then headed on to the ball. We got there at 11 p.m., and, upon presenting our tickets, walked in, expecting to be shocked and appalled at the depravity and sin to which we were so looking forward. Instead, we were mostly disappointed. The dance hall was packed, there was a large samba outfit on stage belting out tunes, and there was a long line for drinks. The whole affair was not unlike a large college dance party. We stayed for a little less than an hour, and then decided our night would be better spent at home so that we could get started early the next morning (some blocos start as early as 8 a.m.). The only notable events of the night were the valiant yet unsuccessful attempts of a few daring young fellows to court Whit and Katie. These endeavors proved to be a recurring theme of our Carnaval experience, as beautiful American girls tend to attract attention. The efforts of these young men also prompted me to realize that I have not been wooed by a single Brazilian woman over the course of my three months here. As a virile, young foreigner who was looking forward to getting taken advantage of, this has been a disappointment. Once, an elder lady cashier did tell me, “You have a nice face.” I suppose I’ll take what I can get.
We woke up early the next day, and were thrilled to find that the sun was shining. The weather had been poor the past week, so we took the opportunity to venture over to Copacabana, where we lolled around in the sun and headed into the water to let the waves crash over us. Copacabana was once the jewel of Rio, home of the rich and famous, the loveliest beach and the most coveted properties. That title has since passed to Ipanema, as Copacabana fell into a bit of a decline a few decades ago. The crescent-shaped beach of Copacabana is now a bit dirtier than the straight stretch of sand at Ipanema, and is not particularly safe at night. We had been to Ipanema a few days before, though, and thus decided to check out Copacabana this morning. As we lay on our chairs and beach towels, letting the sticky salt water evaporate off of us, we ordered açais (a-sah-ees) from a vendor. Açai is a deep purple Amazonian berry, touted as a superfruit since it is packed full of antioxidants. The fruit is typically served as a frozen, sugary smoothie, with granola and honey liberally added to the mix. A perfect beach food. We then toweled off and roamed around the city, going from Ipanema to Botafogo (two other neighborhoods in the south zone of the city), chasing blocos and jumping into the festivities. That night, at sunset, we took a cablecar up to Sugarloaf, a famed peak that looks out over the city, and then returned home and wandered around Lapa before calling it a night.
The next day was rain-filled and generally depressing. Rio is a rather sad city in the rain, and we opted to wander around the downtown area and see what we could find. The blocos continued to happen, but were a bit less spirited, as the weather put a damper on everything. We cheered ourselves up with caipirinhas (kye-pi-ree-yas)— Rio’s signature cocktail, made with sugarcane liquor, sugar and crushed limes— and hotdogs, which are served with corn, peas, mayonnaise, ketchup, potato slivers, cheese, and a quail egg. We were cheered up in short order.
By Monday, we were ready for something different. We hit up a few more blocos, but spent most of the day gearing up for that night, since we were going to the Sambodrómo, a massive, single-purpose stadium built expressly for showcasing the samba school parades. There are over 70 samba schools in Rio, all of which parade at some point during the four days of Carnaval. The schools aren’t actually institutions of learning, but are instead more like samba teams, each with its own fan club and history. The top few schools parade for 80 minutes through the Sambódromo, to a repeated, original song, with colorful, ostentatious floats and extravagantly costumed dancers. The biggest and bestest 12 schools parade on Sunday and Monday nights, and often feature up to 10 floats and 5,000 samba dancers. The schools practice, build, and compose for the 11 months preceding Carnaval, and the result is absolutely spectacular.
We arrived at the Sambódromo on Monday night at around 11 p.m., and looked for people hawking tickets. The bulk of the pre-Carnaval tickets are bought up by tour guide companies and hotels, and then resold to tourists at inflated prices. The remainders are then distributed on the streets. We had decided that we were willing to spend a maximum of 60 Reais per person (approximately $40 a ticket), and I approached a shifty looking individual who looked like he might be hawking. “How much for 3 tickets?” I asked.
“130,” he responded. I was pleasantly surprised. Only R$ 130 for the three of us? I enthusiastically agreed, and he dove into his pockets to produce three white plastic cards, each enveloped in a paper envelope labeled with a seat number and “SECTION I.” It all looked very official.
“See the envelopes? It means these are legit. Section 1 is the best,” he explained. “So, that will be R$390.” It seemed we had a miscommunication. I explained that we were willing to pay R$130 for three tickets. He looked at me, looked down at the tickets, and then shook his head. “One moment,” he said, as he once again searched through his pockets. He produced three bare black plastic cards that read “SECTION XIII”. No paper envelopes. “Section 13,” he said. “R$ 200 for all three.”
I inspected at the cards suspiciously. “Is there really a Section 13?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“But where are the paper envelopes?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“But you said…” I trailed off. “Are these real tickets?”
He growled. I nodded understandingly, and then conferred with the ladies. We decided to take a chance. In retrospect, I should have bargained. Or at least suggested another price. Instead, I handed the man four R$50 bills, thanked him for his time and moved on.
Section 13 did, in fact, exist, but it was a very long way from the entrance to the stadium. At one point we were walking on a highway. We eventually made it, and were glad to find that the tickets scanned properly. After wading through the crowded bleachers for a few minutes, we eventually found a narrow space where the three of us could fit. We then turned around to face the parade, and what a magnificent spectacle it was. The endless rows of extravagantly dressed dancers, moving in perfect unison to the music powered by the equally impressive drum corps moving with them, was enough to impress anyone. The gargantuan, elaborate floats that towered over the whole parade, though, put the whole affair over the top. The floats featured everything from massive, statuesque Amazonian warriors, to immense smoke-breathing dragons, to real waterfalls that poured over the scantily clad women dancers who were featured on every float. I later read in the paper that there was even a float with a snowy ski slope, that had dancers skiing down it in rhythm for the duration of one team’s parade, but we did not get to see it. As though we needed any more entertainment, there was a family from São Paulo seated next to us who had brought their young son along. He had decided to amuse himself by throwing paper airplanes into the bleachers below us, and, in his more daring moments, up the stands into the faces of those behind him. When he grew bored of this, he began blowing up condom balloons. The source of his seemingly endless supply of paper and condoms remain a mystery to me, but I do know that his presence made my evening complete.
The next day— which technically marked the end of Carnaval, as it was the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday— was mostly spent recuperating. We saw a few blocos, and took a bus up to see the Christ the Redeemer statue, but our energies were sapped. It had been a good ride. Katie and Whit returned home the following Wednesday and Friday, respectively, and I was once again left friendless and lonely in Rio. Until I went to Brazilian band camp that Saturday, but that is a story for my next post.
Until then, and much love,
Auyon
P.S. I must include a special thanks to Hattie Cobb, a fellow American residing in Rio and Carnaval veteran, who was kind enough to provide me with a guide detailing the history of the festival, bits of which I regurgitated and/or flagrantly plagiarized in the above post.
Auyon
The Watson Fellowship
is when you decide,
“Tonight, I will make salmon,”
because you have never
cooked fish before
and if there is any time to try
something new
it is now.
So you buy a salmon
steak
and you lovingly chop the garlic into
tiny bits
and you slather some
olive oil
all over the fresh
pink flesh
and you put it in your little gas oven
and wait
excitedly.
But half of an hour has passed
and nothing has happened.
Your oven,
you realize,
is a piece of
shit.
Not to worry—
you are industrious,
clever,
gifted and able.
You are, in short, a
Watson Fellow.
You will panfry the little bastard.
But you do not know how
to panfry salmon,
and watch as your perfectly pink steak
is rendered brown
and inedible
by your incapable
hands.
Looks like you’re having
dried fruit
for dinner
again.
You leave the pan
unwashed
in the kitchen
and throw the fishy mess
into your trash bin,
wanting to forget,
to forgive yourself
for ruining what could have been
a lovely meal.
You walk
to your bed,
feel the cold concrete
under your bare feet.
You lay down,
exhausted.
It wasn’t that far of a walk,
since your kitchen is
technically
in your bedroom
but how
tiring
failure
can be.
You try to sleep,
the stench of poorly cooked
salmon
lingering heavily,
palpably,
invading your nostrils.
Your doze is
cut short
when you hear a rustling
in your trash bin.
There is
a cat
in your garbage.
A furry white intruder,
with brown speckles.
You did not even know
that cats could get in
through the metal grate
outside your window.
Now you know
though.
You yell obscenities
at the cat;
its presence
adds only insult to injury.
You have been wronged
by an oven,
a fish
and now,
a cat.
You feel sorry for yourself.
The cat
leaves.
The Watson Fellowship
is when you try
something new
and then your apartment
stinks
like fish
and then
you have
cats.
]]>One of the most spectacular vistas I came across in Ireland was at the Cliffs of Moher. I remember speculating how it must have felt for the first Irish explorers to come upon the massive, mist-enveloped rock faces looming over the waters below. To not know how far the ocean extended, or what strange beasts lived in the caverns within the cliffs— the scene would have prompted an entirely magical sense of wonder. I, on the other hand, was led to the cliffs in a bus by an eccentric Irishman named Desmond who warned us not to venture too close to the edge, and made disparaging comments about the other bus-tour companies. The inevitably sterile feel of my visit, as just another tourist and sightseer, caused me to fantasize further about life when “explorer” was still a viable and socially acceptable career option. Although there are many, and decidedly more, fields of discovery that exist in the academic world today, there was something that remained singularly attractive about the prospect of setting foot on uncharted soil. I returned home from the cliffs that night feeling unfulfilled.
My galavanting around the city of Galway did not satisfy my budding urge to explore. While Galway was certainly foreign to me, the commonalities in customs, society and language made me feel very much at home. My discovery of free broadband internet at the library was a fine illustration of this sentiment. I had been paying for web time at cafés and shops for my first two months in the country, and had learned about the free library wireless through chance circumstance. Rather than being happy about my finding, I was only annoyed. I felt as though I should have known about free public internet access, and that I had discovered it so late was only a result of my ignorance. The basis of this reaction was my expectation that I would easily understand and assimilate into Irish culture, and thus any shortcomings were a source of frustration.
My arrival in Brazil quickly purged me of any presumptions regarding my ability to seamlessly integrate into the culture. It took an entire month before I could even understand what people were saying to and around me. I lived off of the advice of other English speakers, and my own limited, but expanding, understanding of my new stomping ground. Six weeks into my stay here, I discovered a supermarket in my neighborhood. I had been shopping at the tiny local grocery store, which had been a disappointment. I am a sandwich man, but the abysmal offerings at the store, where the meat smelled like cheese and the cheese smelled like fish, and the entire store stank of fish, caused me to swear off sandwiches for a good while. This supermarket I discovered, though, was a real American-style beast of a warehouse. I was ecstatic. A place where I could buy both insecticide and decent wine was a godsend. Strangely enough, there was no frustration regarding the tardiness of my finding. A lack of expectations allowed me to wallow in my own cleverness rather than care that I should have found it earlier. The library broadband in Galway was not a discovery— it was a right I had not known about in a world I understood. Rio, however, is uncharted terrain as far as I am concerned. A place where old men sit on the sidewalks in pairs with big bottles of beer and little glass cups, where hot dogs are served with peas, corn, potato slivers and a quail egg, where hardened lady-butchers don’t wear plastic gloves, and where I had no idea there was a supermarket in my neighborhood. This is my new world.
With only two months until my departure and my Turkish lessons underway, I’ve also grown pretty excited about my discoveries in Turkey. I’m specifically excited about discovering a serious Turkish massage from some mustachioed masseur in a hamam, but I’ve still got a few more months of Brazil to explore. I will keep you updated.
Much love,
Auyon
P.S. I have been informed that my blog posts of late have been ill-received by Jared Mayers, a dear friend in the more northern America. There has been a bit too much thinking and not enough doing. Next week is Carnavale, a week of drunken, saturnalian revelry. I plan on doing a day-by-day account. There will be no thinking. Get excited.
]]>The night before I left for Brazil, I stood in front of my little brother’s bathroom mirror at Oxford and talked to myself. “I don’t have to go to Rio,” I told me. “I could just go back home. My parents would be disappointed, my friends would think less of me, and the Fine Folks at Watson Headquarters would make me return the remaining fellowship funds, but at least I wouldn’t be alone in Rio. At least I wouldn’t get shot.” Over the course of my four months in Ireland, I had gone from being incredibly excited to visit Brazil to being scared out of my mind. The transformation was the result of a number of factors, including my realization that the solo existence afforded by the Watson was difficult enough to adjust to in Ireland— I was disturbed by the prospect of repeating my first month in a country where I did not speak the language, in a city infamous for its violence. The impassioned and relentless requests of my mother, a wonderfully unsubtle woman, to skip Rio and stay in Ireland for an extra four months, also did not help. My self-help session in the bathroom, however, helped me to summon the courage to board the plane the next day, and the following morning, I woke up over the azure waters, white sand beaches and lush forests of Rio de Janeiro.
My first month in Brazil was a frustrating one. To complete any basic task, such as finding a fan for my room or shopping for groceries, was a massive ordeal, due to my poor grasp of Portuguese and unfamiliarity with the city. Fortunately, loneliness was never a problem, as I had learned to enjoy living independently in Ireland, so I was able to focus my attention on getting established as quickly and efficiently as possible. By the end of my fourth week, I had settled into a rhythm, having set up intensive Portuguese (6 hours/week) and music lessons earlier in the month. After seven weeks of study, my Portuguese has improved immensely. I am now conversational, and am able to understand the majority of what goes on around me.
My efforts to understand and study Brazilian music have not been as fruitful nor as straightforward as my Portuguese studies. The many regions of Brazil have spawned a number of varied musical styles, including bossa nova, forro, maracatú, samba, choro, and many more, all of which can be found to some degree in Rio. I have focused primarily on samba and choro (which is a more intimate, instrumental type of samba), and have been taking mandolin lessons with a teacher for a number of weeks now. Samba is defined by the specific beats and rhythms that accompany the singer or melodies, and thus to gain a better understanding of the music, I have also been taking weekly lessons on the pandeiro, a hand-drum ubiquitous to the musics of Brazil.
I attempted to begin my study of self-expression within choro early into my stay. Within the first few interviews, though, I recognized that my lack of familiarity with the rudiments of the music prevented me from discussing it intelligently. While the stable structure of Irish music was immediately comprehensible to my classically-trained ear, choro is much more like jazz, in that improvisation in both melody and rhythms are integral to the music. Without understanding the basic structure of rhythm over pulse, it is impossible for one to appreciate or even distinguish the intricacies inherent in these improvisations. I thus resigned myself to learning these fundamentals, so that by my later months I would be able to better understand and carry out my study of the music and the musicians in earnest. It has been this elementary step that has proven vastly difficult for me. As a violinist, I have always thought of music in melodies rather than chords and rhythms. Before coming to Brazil, I had never even studied chords on an instrument. Before learning any new mandolin piece, though, my teacher insists that in order for me to understand the melody, I must understand the structure beneath. To learn foreign rhythms while attempting to teach myself the basics of chordal theory has been an arduous undertaking. In order to ensure I don’t run out of time in Brazil, I have been practicing upwards of six hours of music a day. I have never practiced or focused so heavily on music before, and in spite of my vested interest, to keep up has been difficult. What has been especially wearisome has been my apparent lack of progress— I have learned a number of pieces now, as well as their chords, and yet nothing seems to be getting easier. I am just hoping that with continued devoted practice, things will start to click in the near future.
Personal disappointments aside, I have been enjoying my stay in Rio immensely. The city is beautiful, and the musicians I have met and heard have been warm, welcoming and accessible. I have also signed up for a week-long choro workshop in mid-February, in the state of Sao Paulo, in which I will get to meet a number of world-class musicians, and also learn a bit about the history of the music. It will be entirely in Portuguese, but I believe my grasp of the language will be adequate by that point. I am hoping that through both this workshop, as well as my increased understanding of the music by the end of my stay in Rio, I will be able to write my next quarterly report with a bit more substance on the nature of self-expression within choro. Until then, I’m going to go practice some more.