Tudo está terminando

Officially, as of today, my program is done! We had our Portuguese final exam and Brazilian history take-home paper, yesterday... and today, we gave little 10 minute presentations in our Portuguese class on whatever topic we wanted... then at 12, our HM´s came, we had a cocktail (or.. cah-kee-tail) reception with the distribution of our certificates of class-completion... then, all was done!

I´m ready to come home (ah... ASIAN food withdrawal to the MAX!), but at the same time, I still can´t believe that my 6 weeks in Brasil have passed by SO quickly, and there are still some things that I could´ve taken advantage of! But then again.. my wallet is kind of crying in a corner, in agony, so... perhaps it really IS time to leave, haha!

Meanwhile... I didn´t talk about/show some things that I found to be pretty important parts of my trip - or, at least, things that I´ll remember distinctly. So... here they are!

1. Candomblé - although we couldn´t take photos (see the photo for a doll-representation, haha!), we went to this Candomblé ritual last weekend (at night, pretty late!), which is the only ritual that `outsiders´ are allowed to see. Everything else is done in secret.

We got there around.. 7pm. First off, people are supposed to wear light coloured clothing (preferably white) to this ritual- since dark colours are associated with just, being dark/not welcoming the orixa´s presence. Women are supposed to wear skirts, but... haha, we got away with wearing shorts.. When you enter the building in which this ceremony takes place, men sit on one side of the room, women on the other.

During this ritual (which... probably FINALLY started around 8pm.. it´s Brasilian time, what do you expect? haha!), ladies dressed in `tradional´ attire (big white skirts, blouses, jewelry/bangles on their arms, coloured little cloth/sash tied around waist or shoulders, hair tied up or in a little head wrap) first come out, dancing with special arm movements in a circle, while drums are going, people are singing chants (Yoruban?)... singing about different orixas..

After a while, the ladies exit the room, then re-enter the room with food on their heads, still dancing, and eventually putting their plates of food onto a table in the center of the room. This part of the ceremony was very impressive, not only because of the crazy amount of food that they had (which they eat at the END of the ceremony, probably around 2/3AM!), but because it´s during this part of the ceremony that some participants just, suddenly start jerking around a bit, yell/moan out a bit, and are put into a trance - because they´re being enspirited by the orixas. One women, in particular, I remember, because she was carrying this CAKE on her head, supporting it with her hands, but at one point - this other woman started assisting the cake (by lending a hand), but, all of a sudden, the woman (originally holding the cake) just got into a trance, that the cake nearly FELL! Fortunately, the supporting woman caught the cake, and the woman (in trance) was successfully/safely enspirited by her orixa.

Anyways. There were about more than 10 people or so who were put into a trance (eyes closed, some people´s lower jaws were quivering, some people would randomnly yelp out) - including these two little (9-12 year old?!) girls. What´s kind of freaky/cool, is that once these people are enspirited, they start dancing according to how their orixas dance - so, you can tell who some of the people are enspirited by, based off of how they carry themselves/arm movements, etc. These people/orixas just, dance and move around the room, freely, so when they came towards a person, the person would hold up their hands (palms facing the orixa), `absorbing´ the energy of the orixa, or else, if permitted, hug the orixa person.

This part of the ceremony went on for a long time, as it seemed like each orixa had their own special song to dance to, and there were a lot of orixas. But, finally, all of the orixas exited, then came back into the room with their special clothing on (wearing their colours, holding their symbols/tools, wearing head-dresses), which makes it much easier for viewers (like us!) to distinguish each orixa from one another. However, by this time, it was already 10.. 10:30 pm, so we left RIGHT at one of the cooler parts of the ceremony!! oh well... it was still, a very impressive event, all the same.

The following day, we visited another Candomblé community, which was a bigger/more established Candomblé community/village than the one we saw, the night before. It´s crazy, because - the candomblé religion believes heavily in nature´s power, so there´s a ton of greenery around the village, yet... this village is seriously, in the MIDDLE of the city/urban area!

Currently, it´s safe for the villagers to practice their religion - however, they still need to alert the police when they´re going to hold ceremonies. Back in the earlier 19/20th centuries, candomblé rituals were highly scrutinized, and police forces used to raid and severely punish people for holding them (just like how police forces also used to raid/arrest people who practiced capoeira!). However, one of the Candomblé leaders (Mãe.. Nina?) approached Pres. Vargas, who at least understood a bit, the importance of this religion to its practicers.

2. Social programs, especially for African-descendants: Unfortunately, we didn´t visit an African-descendant-support-organization until this week... and I definitely wish we had visited, earlier, since the experience was just so... inspiring.

The organization that we visited is called `Omi-dùdú´, and they provide after-noon classes for Afro-descendant youth. We went to a school of this program and stopped by two classes, I believe an Ethnomedia class and Ethno/gender class. While we in the classrooms, we were asked questions / conversed with the students (about high school age?)... and the whole experience was just, so... empowering, since it just (at least for me) made me feel like, despite our origins, we all as human beings just want to have equality/justice in the world... and it made me feel good again to be put into a setting where people were questioning society´s stereotypes on people (racially, with gender, as well). Although I´m not interested too much in education, this experience made me just want to spread my wings to connect to people around the world (and in my case, extend medical outreach) even more.

What´s even more inspiring, is that these teenagers/participants of the program are from very poor neighborhoods. In fact, the school was RIGHT next to this type of `favela,´ and I just.. find it so heart-warming that these youth were actually, interested in trying to improve their futures by seeking programs like this to question the world and educate/empower themselves in order to make change. It just makes me so mad/sad/disappointed in individuals who aren´t thankful for their educations, spend their days just wasting time on nothing, or just, not putting their education/skills to use.

Another organization (there are several, but we only really looked at Omi dudu, this one, and Ilê Ayê) that´s important here in Salvador, is Olodum. Olodum was created in 1970´s soon after the first all-African `block´, or, group, was created to participate in the Carnavál that is held in Salvador every year (February). The group is distinguished as being a drumming group that involves Afro-descendant youth, kind of as a way to incorporate music in youth´s lives and keep the youth away from bad influences. Olodum´s mission is basically to spread the word of Afro-Brasilian pride, empowering minorities, and of course, unity - and it was helped greatly by Michael Jackson, as MJ (and Spike Lee) came to Salvador to film his music video, `They Don´t Care About Us´ with Olodum. The photo to the left was taken when we went to Pelourinho, and I believe that this is the same courtyard area where MJ filmed his music video...

So, as you can expect, it was a pretty big deal when MJ passed away - even though I´m.. HOW many miles away from the states?! - since, many Salvadorans loved him as being a supporter of Olodum.