The week in Campo Grande brought its own interesting
experiences and wonderful personalities. The group Juanita and Paulie had been
working with had recently moved into a house where they were allotted a bedroom
which I promptly moved into. The house was named Casa Viva and housed an interesting
hodge podge of people. Besides us, there was Marcus who was the most proficient
English speaker in the house (though not always the best translator) Wagner of
course, Elder and Maycon (we only found out Maycon’s name later, we called him
Michael for the whole time we were there. Elder is a tall 46 year old of Indian
decent. He has children that are almost our age and he makes boxes. Literally
boxes. All day long he would sit in his studio, or dance in his studio, or sing
in his studio and attempt to make boxes which he would sell to people for their
weddings. He spoke English like Juanita spoke Portuguese (in a flurry of words
that grammatically don’t connect but somehow create the best of stories). The
music from his studio ranged from traditional Brazilian to the soundtrack of
The Sound of Music and we constantly would sing “Little boxes on the Hillside”
to him as we passed.
Maycon or Michael as we called him was my age and an
architect -Though I mostly just saw him sanding long wooden poles for lamps he
was making. He must have been some sort of genius because I taught him ukulele one
day and the next day after some focused practice he was basically better than
me. Similarly when I arrived he didn’t seem to know a word of English but seemed
to have a passion for it and by the end of the week we were having a 3 hour
Portuguese-English conversation (with a little help from google translate).
Every day seemed to be full of surprises at this Casa Viva. It
seemed to be the only place that had some sort of WIFI and waifs and strays
came in daily to use it. They all seemed to be able to play an instrument, one
way or another and I spent a lot of time with my ukulele, learning songs,
teaching songs and playing together with others. Ah how I wished I knew more
Portuguese so I could sing their songs with them, their folk songs were just so
beautiful. At Paulie and Juanita’s going away party all their friends they had
met in Campo Grande, singers, musicians, artists all gathered and played music
together and sang and ate delicious food. Heavenly.
Flavio continued to give us entertainment and he arrived
daily to take us on some adventure or other. We went to a wonderful waterfall
at sunrise (though we were so far away from the sunrise I didn’t understand
that part of the mission) and he took us to an animal rehabilitation centre
where we saw the CRAZIEST of animals. From Tapiers (which looked like a cross
between a pig and an elephant) to giant macaws and all sorts of cats-
quasimodos were running all over the place and ridiculous anteaters with the
smallest frowns in the world. The best thing about Flavio is he always knows
someone and he knows how to talk his way into and out of everything. Everywhere
we went, I suppose, we were not REALLY supposed to be there and we jumped over
fences, through secret roads because of some friend or family member he knows
somewhere. Brazil is an expensive country so we were eternally grateful for the
cheap entertainment and adventure he brought.
And then finally, Capoeira. Ever since I began Capoeira in 2006 I have
dreamed of doing Capoeira in Brazil. Everyone I knew who did Capoeira was mad
about Brazil, the flag was in our dreams, we drank Capirinha at parties (Cane,
lime, ice and sugar- a Brazilian specialty) and sang in Portuguese. And finally
it was to be a reality- that is, Capoeira in Brazil! We cycled there to the
university across town that had the class. We only had two bicycles and
resident WIFI-user/ musician Marcello decided to join us so I sat on his bag
carrier while he meandered through the mad streets of Campo Grande. IN fact
traffic is kind of chilled but bicyclists are not. I started off the journey
with my bum super sore and thinking that we were to capsize any minute, into
car, into curb, as he was driving up down and around and cars were chasing us
left right and centre. After some very loud mental freaking out I remembered
that regardless of whether we crash or not, there is no point in worrying about
it as I didn’t think I was about to change Marcello’s Brazilian bicycling
style. Through bumps and heart attacks we came upon the university, 30 minutes
later and I heard the delicious sounds of capoeira. Ah finally! I was so
excited and I had to stop myself from excitement as I was so scared it was
going to end in disappointment. Disappointment I think is my worst emotion and
I do everything in my power to quell it. Nonetheless, the excitement had
started and there they were. Real Brazilian Capoeiristas! And after a wile of
feeling shy I realized that honestly, they weren’t really much better than us
in little South Africa. I played capoeira, got mad sweaty, impressed them I
think considering I was a girl who could, well, at least stand on her hands for
a long time and then Juanita told me to look behind me and MY WORD! The
scariest animals sauntered across the courtyard unnoticed by any of our
Brazilian friends. They were huge rats the size of pigs, wet from hanging out
in the swamp and my first Capybarras! Juanita laughed at my complete amazement
as no else seemed to care that these terrifying beasts walking nonchalantly past.
And then the samba circle started. My worst and most
self-conscious part of Capoeira. In Fact, back at home we barely do it coz
no-one knows how to samba or feels comfortable trying to pretend to. But it’s a tradition and we are foreigners so they
forced us to dance with a male partner in the middle, me trying to copy some
sort of kicky samba-y style and some bum shakes while failing profusely and
when Juanita got pulled in she just jumped around like a funny hippie which
they liked just as much, if not more than real Samba. Ah brilliant. My
heart was filled, my excitement did not
fall into disappointment, we cycled home (this time on my own bike) exhausted
with soo much exercise and high with the wondrous of times and ridiculous
amount of endorphins.
I carried my slackline with me to Brazil and if you don’t
know a slackline is kind of like a tightrope yet of course, a slack line. It’s
a great thing to play with in a park between some trees and a bunch of friends.
Or no friends. I love it regardless and as Juanita says, if only we didn’t have
so many hobbies our rucksacks would be so much lighter. Anyway, the residents
of Casa Viva were MUCHO interested in my slackline and needed it to become part
of their life. Yet of course, because they are of the farmy sort who do
everything themselves (maybe by next year but it happens eventually) it was not
for them to simply find some trees to slackline across but to make their own
tree or pole to use as a salckline tree. I missioned across the town with Flavio
for a strong stick and by the time we arrived back they had dug a strong hole,
ready for the line. They lived right next to the towns evening exercise strip
(bicycle path, skateboarding parks and exercise machines) and so everyone came
along to try our toy. The next night however we got overzealous and decided to
try 2 slacklines from the same pole in different directions. It was all very
well until two people tried to slackline and CRACK! the pole was broken, and
both slacklines were useless on the ground. But no fear, another mission was
had for a bigger stronger looking tree stick thing and it was found and we
began to dig a bigger hole when the police showed up to ask us what we were
doing on public land. Flavio talked himself out of the first bicycle police and
then another group of police came by. Again another long conversation ensued in
which Elder brought out deep fried cheese pasties (deliciously bad for you) and
gave them around. Then another police group appeared and they were talking
about signing forms then finally it was ok again (I suspect because of Flavio’s
talking engineered with Elder’s cheese pasties). What had happened though it
seems is that the neighbours saw it and didn’t like us doing what we were
doing because of some vendetta they had as apparently Casa Vivo was encouraging
ants to eat their roses. People and their issues!
This was our last
night in Campo Grande and Paulie said, “I don’t mind going to jail but JUST
not tonight” as he had his flight back to England that night and couldn’t
afford to miss it. I agreed, Juanita and I had bought bus tickets to take us to
Bolivia and (my word) they were expensive enough to really not want to miss that
bus. Luckily the police didn’t think that a neighbours vendetta was
enough of a reason to chuck us into jail and the fun continued.
Flavio and Wagner took us to the bus terminal and we were
all rather emotional, Paulie and Juanita had been there some time but even
though I can hardly boast more than 10 days with these people I was really sad after
meeting such good friends in such a short while I promised to return, to play
more music, to learn more capoeira, Portugeuse and with the Brazilian attitude
towards time, maybe a little more patience.
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