Salvador - Bahia

Sorry that this is so late but this past week has been an absolute whirl-wind of inside jokes, new experiences, food and friends.

There are so many stories I can’t pick just one to tell, but for the sake of time I’ll try my best to condense all of them into an all-inclusive compilation of my adventures in Brazil.

Salvador was a perfect port for us to get our feet wet as world travelers. I believe that some regarded Brazil as a good “starter” country due to the native tongue, Portuguese, being a romance language. This provided an accessible resource for those who spoke Spanish as they could mostly communicate with the locals.

My approach to the language barrier included graceful pantomiming and pointing to things in my Brazilian Portuguese dictionary. To be honest my life-savors during my stay in Salvador were my friends Juliana and Duncan. Without them who knows what sorts of trouble we could have gotten into. Duncan, our fearless leader on our first day in port, carried around a travel guide to Brazil and acted as our main communicator.

Our first day in port was defiantly one of unexpected ignorance. The poverty stricken area that we encountered immediately following our embarkation from the ship caught me slightly off guard. Although it could have been worse in hindsight, it was shocking to watch yourself neglecting to give money to begging street children. The thought of the world still being on this level is disheartening. On the other hand, it was amazing to see how happy most people were.

In contrast, our touristy persona in port entertained the local Salvadorians, as our awkward faces and gestures said it all...we had NO idea what we were doing. Sunday was Brazil’s independence day, when we initially got off the boat there was no one on the streets. It was a little bit eerie how quiet the city was. A group of ten, including myself, went out to explore the city of Salvador; there are two levels of the city known as the lower and the upper cities. The upper city was filled with street vendors and groups performing Capoiera, Brazilian dance fighting. All of the buildings were painted in bright hues as the remnants of colonial Portugal stared at us from tiled roofs and Baroque columns.

The first conquest of the day was to find food. We hadn’t gotten very far into the upper city when we found a local place serving rice, yellow corn mush, chicken and assorted fresh veggies that I stayed away from for fear of malaria. The boys were excited to finally get their hands on some local beer. (This played a common theme during most of our days spent in the city.) We continued into square after square of activity. One of the squares that we had wandered into had churches at either end of the square. These were only the first few that I would see during my stay. Catholicism plays a huge role here. Crosses are everywhere around the area. I think that I could do an entire photo essay on crosses alone.

Eventually we stopped for these amazing drinks called caipirinhas. In essence, the drink was a mojito made with the local sugarcane liquor. They were incredibly sweet and packed a punch.

That same night a HUGE group of us went out to dinner at a chuhascarria, a Brazilian barbeque. I have fallen in love with Brazilian food all over again. I’ve had this type of food back in the States, but there is nothing like eating food where it originated. Needless to say it was amazing and incredibly fulfilling after living off of the same ship food for a week.

The next day was spent mostly on the boat because I had signed up for a visit to one of the local family planning centers. This particular center had a free clinic dedicated to reproductive health in men and women. Although, the majority of the services provided there were geared toward Brazilian young women. One of the center’s doctors was kind enough to have a Q&A session with us. I think that I learned more from that discussion than in the entire time spent reading on the boat and tour of the institute combined. The statistics of young mothers in Brazil are astounding. Most girls become sexually active around the age 13-14 and the average age of first time grandmothers is 37.

As a Catholic nation, Brazil does not allow abortions or sexual education in schools. There is a slow movement currently trying to get education into schools but the congress has a tight hold on the issue. The private institution/clinic that I toured provides educational lectures for the community as well as reproductive health care Monday-Friday from 8:00-1:00 pm. I could go on forever about all that I had learned there. It is hard to sit here as an American woman and to think that most of the rights that we have are privileges in other countries. I can already tell that these experiences are beginning to change me and this was only the first port.

On a lighter note, the following day I went and joined the circus. I have video of me on the silk rope spinning 15 feet in the air. I was actually kind of good at it! I have a nice bout of rope burn as a result, but how often can you say that you actually ran away to the circus? Along with the rope, we also learned skills in juggling, tightrope, flying trapeze, tumbling and how to ride the unicycle. The unicycle was defiantly my worst event. My little legs didn’t quite reach the pedals. Oh well! ?

Our main instructor was only 22 and had been training for 13 years. The Brazilian circus is actually a service project geared for the Salvadorian slums known as favellas. The project was started for street children beginning with boys and expanding to girls later on. Our instructor was a direct product of this program. Along with their circus studies, the students also go to school to learn arithmetic, history and other mainstream subjects. Many of these students make it into major circuses around the world. Without programs like this one, young boys are only projected to live until age 15.

Although it seems like there is such disparity in the area that I had experienced the city of Salvador ‘s mix of Afro-Brazilian culture, food, music and life all culminated into a beautiful experience.