Glimpses

This past week has been full of company and traveling, Carnaval and more company. Hence, no blogging time. I can't even begin to do a chronological recreation, so instead I'll be indulgent with some meandering reflections.

While we were in Minas Gerais, in Ouro Preto to be exact, we went on the tour of a mine that closed down with the ending of slavery in 1888. Not a modern mine large enough for a cart to go through on tracks, this was a scratched out hole through the granite that depending on short adults and children - all slaves - for its labor. Our guide was 50. His grandmother lived to be 106, she died when he was 16. Do the math. She was 26 when slavery ended - already had 6 children although not yet his father. She carried her liberation card with her on a thin chain around her neck and she demanded to be buried with it. A friend of mine in the States - a little older than me at 45 - had a similar story, although her great-grandmother who was born into slavery and freed while still a baby, died when she was very young. I always forget how often history is really about something that happened yesterday, not only in some misty past.

Our tour was a strange mixture - like most of Brazil. Intense information about how the mine worked - did you know they killed some of the young men who grew too tall to stoop down deeply enough and most slaves died before they were 30 after first going blind and deaf from the sound of the pick ringing against rock and the silicate dust settling in their eyes? See how loud it is when I ping this pick against the side - and a very ringing sound called out that made my head ache - well this is what they worked with and now, this would be a lovely photo opportunity so stand here and hold the pick. Click.



That's Pat, my traveling companion. It has been funny trying to describe Pat's relationship to my family as we traveled: "She's my mother's ex-partner and one of my daughter's grandmothers but no, she isn't a mother to me, more like an aunt or a very very dear friend, something for which we have no word in English and no word in Portuguese."

Driving the main road from Rio de Janeiro to Belo Horizonte - kind of like going from Chicago to Indianapolis or from Los Angeles to San Franciso - there is one road. Much of the time it is a two lane road. People bike on it, a few horses graze along it, grass grows on some of its edges.

Carnaval, it's insane and I love it. We've taken Luca to quite a few kid's parties. I swear, she's going to be the first gringa child to actually samba. I wish for her flexible hips. Last night at the last party of the season - not that Carnaval is over but it's our last party - I had a deeper understanding of this Brazilian approach to pleasure and joy. Imagine a room full of screaming children who are dumping confetti and streamers on top of each other, throwing it in the air, throwing it on top of adults, dancing to traditional samba songs (including one lovely samba original about a dyke - sapatao ), following the adult group leader as he and she thrust and wiggled their hips and waved their butts singing about being sexy, everyone with great big grins on their faces. I love that here, when women are dancing mostly naked and body painted, they don't do that pouting "I'm so sexy" look that women in the States do. Instead, it's with an ear to ear grin. Lovely. Pleasure. Fun.

Taking Pat to Porcao (that's Big Pig) for an experience of Brazilian culinary excess.



I apologize to all those I love who are vegetarian or vegan. Pat was very happy.