if you havent heard/dont know what a Brasilian CARNAVAL is, i am insulted that you are reading my blog
..but not tooo insulted to describe it to everyone.
CARNAVAL is celebrated immediatley after Lent in almost all Roman Catholic countries. This festivial usually involves costumes, parades, masquerade, circus elements, and lotsssssss of partying. CARNAVAL in brasil is especially "grande" and referred to many brasilians as "the greatest show on earth." Rio de Janerio is one of the biggest cities to celebrate this hoilday, in all the world, and often attracts millions of people because of their "samba schools." In Rio, 12 schools of samba march in what is known as the Sambódromo where each school choses a theme and thousands of samba dancers join in with their elebrate customes. The customes are outt of this world; every color, animal print, wild design imaginable. Each night of CARNAVAL, the 4schools of sambas march and after all 12 show their best performance, the victor is announced and has bragging rights for the entire year.
Other cities that have famous CARNAVALS are: São Paulo, Recife, Salvador, Ouro Preto, and Diamante. Some of the smaller and historical cities, such as Ouro Preto and Diamante, have litttle "blocos" where a minature school of samba choses a theme and anyone can make their custome and join in. Whenever you go to a city where CARNAVAL is celebrated, you hear alot of Axé music, typical music from the state of Bahia; you dance a lot of sumba; and often "bebe bastante."
i knew CARNAVAL was almost here by the way it was constantly being advertised. A brasilian TV channel, Globo, had this commerical that had my eyebrow raised (being the conserative american and alll) a women, obviously from the northeast of the country, had absolutey no clothing on, her whole body was painted in a raindow-glitter-colorful fashion and dancing sumba the way i wish i could. the camera would zoom in on certain parts of the body where obviously paint was less likely to appear and i just had to laugh because this is sooooo brasil. i asked my brother one day, after seeing his eyes glued to the screen while this broadcast ran across the screeen, if this is allowed, i mean Globo is a family TV station.
he found absotutely no problem with this commerical, of course he didnt.
he asked if we have CARNAVAL is the US and after thinking for some time, we doo.
...
helllo, Mardi Gras? Lousiana? the famous beads?
that is our CARNAVAL ..although it is only celebrated in one whole city in the entire US.
I'm sure you are waiting to hear this crazy party that i went to for my CARNAVAL and see pictures of me dressed in a beauitful custome while dancing and rolling my hips to sumba.
unfortunatly, i cant say that i had a typical brasilian CARNAVAL.
i was in mutum
AKA the middle of nowhere.
being with my new family, we traveled around 4hours to mutum, a city with dirt roads and i can possibly say, more cows than people, in order to celebrate my father's mother birthday, my new grandma.
we left saturday morning and arrived later that afternoon to meet the entire side of my father's family. he is one of seven children, i think all are married with children and all where staying at grandmas housse (althought not alll the children came to mutum for CARNAVAL)
i remember when we arrived my father looked to me and was like, my parents are very simple. they live a very simple life.
simple: yes.
potential candadite for one of the craziest familes i have met: absoluetly.
we had a big party for grandma that saturaday night, with matching tshirts and alll and it was realllly a goood time. to be honest, family time is always bittter sweet for me. because if you get the right family, they will always welcome you with hugs and kisses and you feeel right at home (which usually happens) but more often than necassary, i start thinking about my own family which eventually leads to "saudades." but at this family, there were a lot of cousins my age and we had some extreme cousin-bonding-time. (one night i remember, we literally sat around the table for atleast 6hours and just talked. just talked. ive come to believe that i am extremely awakard in conversations esp. when they are talking about situations where i wasnt there and people i dont know, but my family always made sure i knew exactly what was happening and understood everything.)
i had one cousin who asked me, ariana do you miss your family? (i get this question a lot and have a hard time anwering it) i usually reply, "as vezes" (sometimes) becasue realllly, depending on the day, i miss you all back home. if im having a crap day, bad mood, and just hating everything, of course i miss you alot more when for example, i am having the time of my life here in brasil. my cousin, who is around 22, said i dont think i could do what you are doing. what if you are put into situations that you dont want to be put in, like if you have to sleep on the floor (thankfully i didnt) what if you dont want to? and i said, mann, i gotta be flexable, i have to be willing to do whatever and just suck it up sometimes. can you go home? she asked.
going home is never an option and never will be one.
the weekend of CARNAVAL brought horrible weather all over brasil. it rained alllllllllllll day, everyday, except in the northeast where it was sun bathing weather.
so we were stuck inside all day where we slept, ate, talked and just relaxed.
i had a cousin who lovesssss english, apparently he speaks it all the time at home with people who dont speak it.
usually when people speak english with me, i get somewhat annoyed. i can speak português, i am here to learn how to speak português, speak it. but my poor couisn, he just wanted to practice his english with a native speaker and although my other cousins gave him some crap about it, he spoke english and i replied in português haha
so that was my CARNAVAL. not the CARNAVAL of my dreams but it was a realllllllly nice time to get to know my new family.
