The past week i have really gotten to know to Afro-brazilian culture in Salvador. It really funny because what we are covering in class is directly relating to my life in Salvador... super crazy and weird. In class we are learning about Candomblé (religion consisting of many different gods) , Capoeria and everything involving afro-brazilian culture.. we even had a paper due on Tuesday that was about the service jobs in Salvador. The prompt was to simply answer this question: Who performs the service jobs in todays society? and then we had to relate it back to the material covered in class. My host family's maid, Zileeta, is the one in my household who does all the laundry and cleaning and cooking and she was a large part of my paper. But whats great is that i spent all day sunday with her!
She has the day off work on sundays, and it made me feel so great when she asked to spend the day with me! Of course it was a little difficult to communicate with her, but it was so fun! We spent the day at her daughters apartment ( i got the sense that she was housesitting while her daughter is out of town..) I used the gym and went swimming there. And then she made the both of us lunch, we watched TV together, got ice cream and then i went back home! It was so great to be around her outside of the environment where she "works" for me.
Today ( wednesday) after class our EAP leader and her husband took us to his home neighborhood, ( a favela). There we got to sit in on a Capoeria class! ahhh it was amazing! the first class was a bunch of little kids ages 2-7 and they were all so cute! after the kids class was the more advanced class and it had adults and younger teenagers! it was so amazing to watch! everyone was so good and the room was full of energy!
If you dont know what capoeira is, it is related to Candomblé and a huge part of the Afro-Brazilian culture. Capoeira is a mixture of dance, martial arts and like an extreme dance battle fight. Everyone in the class was so great at it, they were doing flips and kicking everywhere. At the end of class, the capoeria students grabbed a bunch of us to "battle" and to give it a try. I gave it a try and i may have failed... it was really fun though! now i really want to get in to it more and start taking a Capoeria class!
Spending the day with Zileeta and watching everyone play capoeria really immersed me into the Afro-Brazilian culture. Living with an upper middle class "white" Brazilian family i am not really exposed to the afro-brazilian culture that salvador has to offer! But this past week it was been so great to be a part of it, i feel so welcome and i am so anxious to learn more!!
ALSO this weekend i'm off to Praia de Forte, about 2 hours out of salvador.. it a beautiful beach were sea turtles hatch! I AM SO EXCITED! and then also a group of us booked out flights to RIO for the end of october!
AMOR!
this is me attempting Capoeira!
Love the picture of you doing Capoeira!!
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