SEMESTER AT SEA -  BRAZIL

 

Email #2 - February 14, 2002

 

            This is the second report about my experiences teaching in Semester at Sea, on a semester-long voyage around the world. I am emailing by satellite from the ship.  This report discusses Seasickness, Neptune Day, and my various adventures in Brazil.

 

SEASICKNESS

            After we left Cuba and headed around the top of South America, we encountered some rainy weather and rough seas.  I was feeling queasy, but I didn't want to take the seasickness pills because they make people drowsy.  So I put on some acupressure wristbands.  I don't know if they did any good, but I felt better after lunch.  In the late afternoon I was feeling queasy again, but after dinner I felt better again. So I think the benefit came from eating.   But I continued to wear the wristbands for three days.  It was hard to maintain my balance while lecturing in classes when the ship was rocking about!

            Fortunately the seas became calmer when we left the trade winds and entered the doldrums near the equator.  As a result we were able to stand up without losing balance during the first dance on February 2! 

 

NEPTUNE DAY

            On February 3 we crossed the equator and had an initiation ceremony for those of us who had not crossed the equator before.  We lined up next to the swimming pool in our bathing suits, and had a scoop of "fish guts" (actually some kind of flour and vegetable oil) poured on our heads.  We then climbed down into the swimming pool where we were sprayed with water hoses to wash off the goop.  When we climbed out of the pool, we had to kiss a fish, the King Neptune's ring, and the Queen's big toe.  We then kneeled to be knighted with a fake sword, and were given a certificate. 

            An optional part of the ceremony was having your head shaved.  About 80 students and a few faculty members did so, including a few women.  I considered it, but decided that I didn't want to look like a skinned rat for the remainder of the voyage! 

 

CANDOMBLƒ

            We docked in Brazil on February 6.  It was sad to say goodbye to those who left on long overnight trips.  Some of them went to the Amazon, others went to Rio de Janeiro, and a few went hiking in the mountains. I stayed in Salvador since the state of Bahia is the center of Afro-Brazilian culture.  Eighty percent of the population there is descended from slaves.

            That day I went on a fieldtrip with a religion professor to learn about the CandomblŽ religion.  It is similar to Santeria in Cuba, in which African spirits were associated with Catholic saints. However, in Brazil the association was more artificial, merely a way for the slaves to practice their own religion which was not allowed.  We went to the Afro-Brazilian museum in the old part of Salvador and saw artifacts associated with each of the spirits which are called Orixas (pronounced or-ish-us). We also saw beautiful wood carvings of the Orixas.

            We then went out to the suburbs to a CandomblŽ compound, where we saw the meeting house and spoke with a priestess.  We also saw one of several shrines for different Orixas, and I bought some beads.  Each color or combination of colors represents a different Orixa.  White is for the creator, blue & white for the seas, red for the winds, black & white for diseases, etc.  There are about two dozen in all.

            A local TV crew came along to report on our visit to Brazil, and interviewed me.  Some students later saw the broadcast on TV.  Unfortunately, that also told the pickpockets that we were in town.

 

RICH AND POOR

            The next day I went on a fieldtrip to one of the many favelas.  These are the poorest areas of the city, which were built by squatters.  Unlike shantytowns elsewhere made of whatever wood or tin was available, these were made of cheap bricks even though they were still put together in ramshackle fashion.  When squatters live on public, church, or private land, if they stay there five years the land becomes theirs.  Private owners often drive them off, but the government usually does not. More than half of the land in Brazil is owned by the 5000 descendants of the 15 families given land grants by the Portuguese crown. These descendants include doctors, lawyers, and politicians who lobby hard to prevent land reform.  As a result, Brazil has the largest gap between rich and poor of any country in the world except South Africa.

            We visited a school in the Cabela Favela, spoke with the principal, and spent time interacting with the kids.  The kids enjoyed playing soccer, coloring, blowing bubbles, and getting stickers.  Other kids came up to the gate, and I encouraged college students to give them stickers too; as a result, the teacher opened the gate for those kids to enter too.  I was struck by how clean the kids' clothes were given their living conditions. The tour guide said that the people there took pride in keeping their homes clean.

            In the afternoon we took the Plano Inclinado (inclined cable car) up the slope from the commercial lower city by the docks to the older colonial city above the cliff. We explored an old church which had gold leaf from the rich goldmines of Brazil.

            That evening we went to a restaurant in the former slave quarters of the Solar do Unhao mansion on the coast.  It was next to the yacht club and I was struck by the contrast between the wealth I saw there and the poverty I had seen that morning. After dinner we saw the most incredible performance of various Brazilian dances. The first were sacred dances of CandomblŽ, with 3 men and 2 women dressed as Orixas wearing hoop skirts.  There also was a stick and sword dance called the maculele which had been developed by slaves in the cane fields as they cut the sugarcane with machetes.  In addition there was a fishermen's song, an Indian hunting dance called coboclo, and a spinning version of the samba. 

         But the best dance was the Capoeira, which was developed by slaves to practice martial arts while disguising it as a dance.  It involves acrobatic handstands, twirls, and kicks which are coordinated by two dancers who battle without quite touching each other.  It is accompanied by drums and a single stringed instrument called a birambau.  We later saw Capoeira groups performing in the streets in various places but none were as good as those that night.

 

COUNTRYSIDE

         On Friday I went on a fieldtrip to Cocheira while my wife and son went with a biology class to seen endangered turtles.  Cocheira is an old town with colorful old colonial buildings.  On the way there the bus stopped in the town of Santo Amaro and we explored the farmer's market there.  We saw stands with fruit, chewing tobacco in rolls, and nuts.  There were kids fishing along the river, and elderly people looking out windows.

         We also stopped at a farming community established by a land reform movement.  The former owner had defaulted on loans from the bank, and the reformers convinced the government to buy the land for them from the bank after protests and battles.  Other landowners fought this because this success set a precedent for land reform.  About 50 families cooperatively farmed the land there.

          In Cocheira we visited a sisterhood established by a CandomblŽ priestess and had lunch before going back to Salvador.

        

CARNIVAL VIEWING IN BAJA

            Friday evening we rode buses to the Baja area down the coast in Salvador for carnival viewing.  We walked up the hill and worked our way through the crowds to the viewing stands, which were about 4 feet above the street.  There we stood, drank beer, and ate pizza as we watched the Trios Electricos (electrified trucks) in the parade.  Each truck was about 12 feet high with a band on top and huge loudspeakers on the sides.  Instead of playing Samba music, most bands were playing commercial music with popular Brazilian singers.  Instead of costumes, those dancing around each truck were wearing

t-shirts to denote that they had paid to accompany the truck.  Surrounding them were security guards holding a rope to keep others out.  Also enclosed in the rope was a second truck with a bar, restrooms, and people in t-shirts on top. Outside the rope were other people dancing who were at the mercy of the pickpockets.

            Each truck stopped repeatedly for the band to play, so only about 8 pairs of trucks went by during the four hours we were there.  A few students braved going down to the street, and one of them was taken away by the police.  Fortunately other students saw him and told me, so I sent our tour guide after him, and the guide was able to retrieve him from the holding tank.  He had been dancing excitedly and the police had thought he might be on drugs even though he was not.

            When we left after midnight we had to work our way through the crowds to cross the street and up the hill.  We held hands in single file to keep from being separated.  It wasn't too bad for us, but the group that went the next night had a lot of trouble with pickpockets and many women were groped.  I rarely feel uncomfortable as I've traveled around the world, but I was very concerned about pickpockets in Salvador.  Several people were robbed at knifepoint in the lower city during our visit.  One student had his watch taken one day, and his roommate saw someone trying to sell the watch at the market the next day, so one of his friends stole the watch back from the thief!!

 

CARNIVAL DANCING IN PELOURINHO

            Saturday morning we walked to a craft market near the ferry terminal half a mile from the ship, then rode an elevator to the upper city.  As we walked to the oldest part of the city called Pelourinho, we saw several groups of men dressed alike in skimpy women's outfits.  There also were a few bands marching about with dancers of various ages wearing identical t-shirts.  I danced on the edge of one group of dancers and was invited into the center and given a t-shirt.  I danced with them around the old city for about two hours! 

            After returning to the ship for dinner, I took a taxi back to Pelourinho with a group of students.  At night it wasn't safe to take the cable car or elevator.  There were several bands with dancers wearing costumes.  As I was dancing next to one band, there was a grandmother sitting at a table with two grandsons, and she started moving her hands in synchrony with my hand movements.  When I left she blew me a kiss!

            We ran into some other students from the ship who had had their face painted and it looked cool so I had my face painted too, with a blue and white swirl around my eye and cheek.  After a while it started raining, so we went into a reggae club and crowded under a tarp and danced. The atmosphere was so much more comfortable and fun in Pelourinho than it had been in Baja.

 

BOAT TRIP TO ITAPARICA ISLAND

            The next morning we walked to the ferry terminal half a mile from the ship. Along the way the dock buildings we passed reeked of urine.  There weren't many public restrooms around!  We boarded two boats with about 50 people each for an hour and a half ride to Fades island where we spent an hour and a half swimming in the ocean.  What a life!  It was the relaxing break we needed after the crowds of carnival.  We sailed another half hour to Itaparica Island where we had a nice buffet lunch in a restaurant on the beach.

            When we returned to the dock, some students were having one last drink on shore before boarding the ship.  It is not permitted to bring alcohol on the ship.  One student had mixed up some punch in a large water bottle and was selling drinks!  Since beer and wine are only sold on the ship on certain days and at certain times, less alcohol is available on the ship than on their home campuses, so they drink more in port.

           

DEBRIEFING

            The next two days we discussed our Brazil experiences in each of my classes.  My students had observed on fieldtrips that the manual laborers usually had dark skin while the managers had light skin, in spite of the ideology of racial equality in Brazil. Similarly, those who had paid to dance within the ropes at Carnival had lighter skin than those who were working at Carnival. Many women had felt uncomfortable not only with the pickpockets but the frequent groping they experienced, especially during Carnival. But others reported having met Brazilians who were very nice to them. 

            The second evening there was a community college session in which several people talked about the overnight trips they had taken:  sleeping in hammocks on a ship on the Amazon, hiking in a national park, seeing waterfalls, or touring beautiful Rio de Janeiro.  Some showed digital pictures they had taken so we could share their experiences too. 

            Last night the music professor led a session of African drumming, to which some of us danced, to prepare us for our next stop which is Cape Town, South Africa.  Tonight we are having a Valentines Day dance.  It has already been a richly rewarding voyage, and we have eight more ports to visit!