SWEAT, ACARAJE, AND BURNT SOLES

Ohhhhhh. My. The pain in my limbs and in the blistering soles of my feet are bellowing to me in successions of excruciating throbs. I oh so gingerly hobbled home tonight, pressing all my weight into the heel of my foot, such was the pain.

Today after class we went to the ACBEU theater where we were promptly introduced to a Brasileiro with a sprout of dreads on his head, a wide-toothed smile, and a peculiar taste for the fah-bu-lous in all that is Samba. Introduce: our samba instructor for the day, who could do the most flabbergasting array of twists and turns with his body, gyrations smooth enough to get a creaking wheel-barrow oiled flat, and a methodology in his dance which preached purrs, hisses, and deep grunts... We all lined up, the bewildered and brazen alike, and proceeded to partake in what would become a two-hour fiesta of magnanimous proportions. We two-stepped, ladies and gentlemen, we shook our heinies with dizzying ferocity and twirled like ballerinas, grunting and purring like the feline creatures we were, and arched our bodies like circus de soleil acrobats.... *ahem*- or something to that effect. No, but it was an extravaganza, or a bonanza, as I like to call it, as we all embraced the seduction, the romance, the sensual vigor of the dance we only dream dreams of...

Thereupon we were whisked away to the second part of our cultural "lesson", as we tasted the delicacy of Bahia known to travelers far and wide as Acaraje. Baianas (the women born of Bahia) wearing hoop skirts and headdresses introduced to us the food made on the streets and fed to the ravenous passerbyers, and tasty it was, fried to the marrow in dende and covered in black eyed peas, a pimiento salad, a tangy sauce and delicate sauteed shrimp. We indulged in bolo esutdantes- fried tapioca balls dusted in cinammon and sugar, snowflake coconut crystals, and fried plantains. Mmmm, como delicioso! Muito bom!

I was ready to call it a day, tired and full of acaraje, until Shannon pursuaded me to go to Capoeira class, despite the fact we had already gotten a two-hour drill in Samba earlier. Oi! I thought, but the idea of sweaty men with gleaming torsos entertained me long enough to drag my sore butt to class. We started with a warm-up, and within seconds I was sweating enough fluid to fill the Nile river. The only thing that got me through that class, I tell you, was daydreaming I would take on some semblance of the lean, cut bodies of the men and women surrounding me by three months end. We got to it, and as fast as the rivers of sweat turned into massive bodies of water, so too, did the steps quicken until I stood there, my brow furrowed in distress, my mouth turning inward in frustration. I fought the urge to cry as I bit my bottom lip, watching my classmates pick up the steps, feeling more and more like an incompetent fool as my mestre consulted me on several occassions, rearranging a quivering limb or lifting my drooping head from the floor... It's useless, I thought, for a moment; I might as well bow out now....

Just as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I recoiled, and all of a sudden, I remembered how anything deemed triumphant in my life perpetually began with an onset of tears . My first day at university; my first day selling books door to door; my first day in Portuguese language course- and all of sudden, that cherished quote of mine came to mind: "Live to the point of tears," said by the illustrious Camus... This quote never ceases to confound me, as ultimately, we are not growing unless we are moved to tears, and we are not truly living if we are not growing. I thought of how I had thought the world had come to an end in previous times of difficulty, how I had wanted to quit, but as cliche as it sounds, I had stuck it through and endured, and had, in the end, not only survived, but thrived. The bells clanging in my head simmered down to a dimunitive murmur, and I was at once cajoled. I'm going to stick with this, and look damn fine by the time it's all over, I thought to myself.

The aforementioned "tribute" to capoeira still does not surmise the elegance, grace, and power of this dance. Again, I was mesmerized today, just held in a comatose trance as the dancers flew into the air, extending kicks just barely grazing the other's shoulder, flipping like lightening bolts in the sky only to softly return to the ground on the balls of their feet, crouching low to the floor and then in one sheer milli-second grasping the inertia to rise into the air, bending their frames mid-suspension while delivering a round-kick to the other in one seamless motion. Me and Shannon were so spell-bound we literally forgot to clap, as all we could do was stare, our faces contorting in simultaneous expressions of horror, amusement, and reverence at the various sequences within the jogo.

I now sit at home, typing away on my mini-laptop, which by the grace of God is now connected to the web, as I sit and recount the spectacle that was my day... and I am once again filled with gratitude. Boa noiche, todos....