Live from Salvador

So I finally arrived in Salvador after a bit of an epic journey which must have lasted a good twenty-four hours in total, involving long queues, missed connection flights and what turned out to be a seven hours´wait at the airport in São Paulo. It´s fair to say the whole experience did feel like a bit of a saga but the gentle pace of life in Salvador, the sun, the heat, the sweetness of the sound of the Portuguese language, the delicious food and the litres of sucos that I am religiously downing every day are working their magic to heal me - completely, mind and body.

Three months in Brazil, a country that I had heard a lot about and that I had learnt about indirectly through Capoeira.After so much anticipation for this, it is hard to believe that I am here.

There are so many things that I expected about Brazil before arriving while, at the same time, I was very aware of the fact that all of these expectations may well be shattered the minute that I arrived. Perhaps the truth lies in the middle, where Brazil it is turning out to be all that I expected it to be and - at the same time- nothing like I thought it was going to be! In a good way, as far as both sides are concerned.

Brazil is immense. Anywhere you are you feel like a tiny little drop in a vast ocean. Arriving in São Paulo the morning of after I took an 11 hours´flight from Heathrow, I was struck by the sheer quantity of domestic flights. It wasn´t just the number of flights but the number of multiple connections of each flight - a plane to Salvador is not just a plane to Salvador; it also stops at Recife, Fortaleza and São Luiz. The distances are so big that it is worth and probably just more efficient to have a network of domestic flights organised in this way.Salvador is a relatively small town, but it still has 3 million people.

The Brazilians are very open, friendly and  - above all - always there to help. Perhaps one of the highlights of my first day of classes at the language school was to hear from Professora Kelly that if someone in the street asks ´Tudo bem?´ ( ´All good?`) and you answer `Mais ou menos´ (`more or less`) you will be asked why and how, just because people are generally ready to help. So if your Portuguese vocabulary is not  the most exhaustive yet, just say that all is well, or you will get stuck in trying to explain....Noted!

Many capoeiristas are Brazilian, but not all Brazilians practise Capoeira. I had this first  perhaps obvious but important realisation when I got on the plane to Sao Paulo and - I confess- in a slight moment of panic thought  ´Why am I doing this again? Three months in a country that I have never been to, away from home and all that is known to me, apart from Capoeira?´. Sitting there in a plane full of Brazilians from many walks of life, it suddenly dawned on me that I may have to accept the fact that this trip is also about broadening my horizons into other aspects of the culture to  then be able to go back to Capoeira and bring to my experience of it everything else I have seen, felt and understood in other contexts.Yet the first person I had the pleasure of speaking to when I got off the plane in Salvador was Francisco, the taxi driver that took me from the airport to my host family and who - as I learned during a long conversation while stuck in the six o´clock  traffic jam in the outskirts of town- had trained with both Mestre Bimba and Mestre Pastinha, the forefathers of Capoeira as we know it today. My expression of surprise made him smile. To me it was a reassuring sign  that Capoeira is going to accompany me throughout this trip - as supersticious as this may sound.

Salvador - but perhaps many other places in Brazil that I have yet to see- are an incredible blend of different worlds. In the few days I have spent here I have constantly been tricked by my surroundings. The Barra Shopping Mall in the port area of Salvador may as well be the Friars Shopping Centre in Guildford - same number of shops, variety of goods, brands. In short, same bombardment of choice and prices. Yet walking around the corner from the shopping centre, through the small roads that connect the port to the ´cidade alta´(the high part of town) the most amazing stalls of fresh fruit, coconut, juices and bahian specialities all run by the locals make their appearance.

I have loved being caught by surprise by this and other sights which are everything but European and  truly hope this sense of wonder and surprise is going to last throughout this trip.