Volta.

This past weekend was probably one of the best weekends I`ve had yet, in Brasil. Simply put, it was amazing, worth every reais e centavo spent.

Friday late night, I went with some friends to Rio Vermellho (the `bohemian´/college student hangout area) to go eat some acarajé. Typically, students/people come here during the evening/later at night to enjoy a plate of acarajé, washing it down with few bottles of Nova Schin or Skol. I forget if I`ve already explained what acarajè is, but it`s basically a lump of mashed black-eyed peas, fried in palm oil (the use a TON of palm oil here, dendé), served with some sundried shrimp (optional), hot pepper sauce (pimenta), vatapá (a paste made of shtuff.. I think it has meat in it.. woops!), and a light chopped onion/tomatoe/parsley salad on the side.
Although, on Friday night, I had abará instead of acarajé (hey! Saving calories, right?? haha!). Acarajé is fried in palm oil, and abará is steamed in banana leaves, basically looking like and having the same consistency as a tamale (with no filling). SO GOOD.

Saturday, I woke up early to meet at my school (7am) with a smaller group of our program to go to Chapada Diamantina, a national park in Brazil - still located in the same state as Salvador, Bahia. Just as a reality check - Brazil is the same size as the US (minus Alaska), so getting around Brazil DOES take a long time, especially if you`re taking a road trip! So, Chapada Diamantina is in the same state as Salvador (more interior)... but it took us SIX hours to get there!! (kind of like LA to SF, right?? haha!)

Words just can`t describe the beauty. PLUS, I still want to be able to present my stories to you guys when I get home without the grumble of, `Julie... we´ve ALREADY heard this ALL before!´so! I shall keep this short!

Saturday:
1. Morro do Pai Inácio - although it was raining when we got there, the hike up was just, SO rewading - I miss hiking SO much. Basically, we went on top of this `plateau´ which was VERY high up, and overlooks a great forest with other mountains and plateau. What`s even cooler is that Morro do Pai Inácio used to be underwater, so gradually the water just sank/eroded things along with it. So, in a way, it`s KIND of like the Grand Canyon, except there aren`t really canyons, and it´s very green. so beautiful.
2. Lençois - a town right outside of Chapada Diamantina, that has residents, but mainly serves as a tourist spot for people visiting the national park to stay in. Back in the day (or... still?) Chapada Diamantina was a really important spot for mining diamonds (hence the name, Diamantina), so Lençois used to house many miners, as well. This was a really cute town, too, since it had cobble stone streets, colorful Portuguese/colonial-inspired buildings... basically, a CLEAN version of Pelourinho (in Salvador). We stayed in a pousada (an inn) in Lençois.

Sunday:
1. Gruta da Lapa Doce - a cave that used to have water in it, but is now very DRY (and relatively warm) and is actually very sandy inside. Good thing for claustrophobics - this cave was HUGE! Plenty of stalagmites and stalactites of interesting shapes... including some that cast interesting shadows (ex. if you waved a lamp around this particular one, it looked like a dog/wolf opening and closing its mouth. Or, another one where if you stood near it with your arms out, looks like you`re riding a lion... haha! seriously, some of those cave people had time on their hands!). At one point of the tour through the hike, our guide and other guides completely turned off their lamps, and someone was playing this very calm/almost mournful tune on a recorder/flute/whistling (?). The experience was just.. so surreal. Being left with nothing but a little quiet tune, yourself, and darkness.
2. Poço de Diabo - a waterfall that was just, BEAUTIFUL. The whole time, I had to keep reminding myself that it was all NATURAL - I think this was my favorite part of the trip (water plus GREAT hike, YES!). Basically, we parked our omnibus, went down this trail across a stream, through bushy/rockyness, hiked over more streams, down a cliff, and arrived at this waterfall that was just.. overwhelming. Interesting note - the water was clear/clean, but.. brown?? In my opinion, the brown water just made the waterfall even more beautiful, and the rock formation and lush greenery around it was just, AWW..

Monday:
A few of us got in this safari-style jeep to take a 40 minute drive to a quilombo. Basically, a quilombo is a type of small village that was made in the 18-19th centures in Brasil by slave fugitives. They are typically characterized as being VERY remote / hidden in the jungle, apparently having only one main road leading to it (that only residents knew about). Our program director had let us know that this particular quilombo (which is actually NOT in the original quilombo location, but was relocated in the 50`s, just across the river) didn´t know about TV´s until only about 5-6 years ago. SO! Basically, I was expecting the village to be almost like an African-tribe-village thing (like what my friend showed me pictures of in Kenya, where the people still build huts/houses traditionally, have a few modern-day clothes, but are relatively tight-culture and not familiar with outside technology nor events). However, I turned out to be very wrong - the village was kind of just, like a rural town. There were houses, an elementary school, electricity (due to a government campaign about 5 years ago to give all Brasilians, light), a few cars, water, everyone in modern day clothes, a youth-soccer team.. There even exists an international quilombo association (which, so happens, the leaders of the quilombo we visited were at a conference for this association, that day!).
Basically, it`s a very tight-knit community where all the residents are of slave-heritage, only about 40-50 families living there. Their only source of income is really, donations from people who visit (we donated 2 reais each person), honey, fishing (although fish levels are declining)... and some residents live in Lençois during the week for work, there. For food, they have their own community farm, and even a mill for making flour (farinha, I believe out of aipim) - so, really, they are very self-sustaining.
One of the crazy things, though, is that this community (which was recognized by the government as a true `quilombo´only within the past 10 years or so) has to pay taxes, even though they really don´t receive benefits (well, perhaps electricity and water are benefits?). The man that we were talking (nickname, Leão, which means lion! haha!) to really made it seem like it´s difficult for the community to financially get by (to pay taxes), and that it´s really only the visitor-donations that are helping them. There IS a health center, but Leão said that doctors come VERY rarely - sometimes only once a week, once a month.. VERY irregular. Children go to the local elementary school, but for middle school (or even higher educations), they must go to Lençois (which, I remind you, is a 40 minute drive away, on a dirt road through the forest, a pretty rough drive). Additionally, school there is from 6-10pm?! So, only a few students are really WILLING to go pursue a higher education, unless they stay in Lençois during the week.

So, I think this whole living situation left a lot of us students wondering... WHY would people want to live here, if there really don´t seem to be too many benefits - health, education, financial - here? We kept on asking Leão about people who leave the community for work or other opportunities, and whether they really DO come back or not. Repeatedly, he kept on answering, `Volta,´(They return) SO matter-of-fact-ly. This is their home. The community IS their family (sidenote: there basically isn´t any crime here, since everyone´s either related or very close) that they identify with.

Less than three weeks `til I volto. Bittersweet.