Rio de Janeiro

I am leaving Rio tonight to Salvador de Bahia where I decided to spend my Carnaval time in.

The begining of my Rio time was shocking. I think I had food poisning from the seafood I had on the day before of my flight. As soon as I got to the hostel, I started feeling sick and spewed, had diarrhea and the whole night kept going to toilets. It was terrible being sick in the bank bed with shared bath room especially when you got to the new place without knowing anyone there, but the room mates were really good and they looked after me so well. It was also fortunate that it didn't happen during my flight. The toilet was very crowded then too, I can't imagine how I could survive if it occured. Anyway I couldn't eat anything and stayed in the bed for the first two days in Rio.

Now I am totally fine and had a good time. With the people who were staying hostel, we visited the favela(shanty houses area) for the community project for youth. (by the way there are some Aussie travellars staying in the hostel and twin boys from melbourne band De jah groove are here too. I saw the band earlier last year at Night cat, they are good band. )
According to the staff from our hostel, there happened a very bad and sad incident between gangs in favela and polices in 1993 in Favela. As a result of drug war a few of policemen got shot dead and the next day a group of armed officers came to the favela for revenge. As a result so many people including inocent and unarmed ones were indjured and killed in the favela. The impact of this incident was huge not only on the favela comunity but on the whole nation. Then the few young men who was publishing free papers called Afro reggae dealing with Afro Brazilian music and black issue thought they have to start something to lead the young people in favela to engage in something productive and start positive life. They formed many different workshops like recycle, dance and drumming and this band "Afro reggae" came out of the workshop. There are many other band came out afterwards too, but this is the most famous one. They now even go overseas to perform. Every week they have a gig inviting a lot of children for audience so it can also encouredge little children to follow the good positive path of life. We saw this biggist band of the project "Afro Raggae" and that was sooooo fantastic!! I even wanted to invite them to Womad in Adelaide. They play as they dance and therir performance is full of energy. Especially I liked three drummers in front of the band dancing together and playing crazy good.
Here is the footage I updated on you tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avzUYs6gck4
This is just a part of it and they went even more crazy and fantastic.


When we were waiting for taxi, the children came to me with bog smile on their face and danced around as saying that they saw me dancing like that during the gig. So I danced with them. The taxi didn't come for a while so we walked down the very very steep hill with a band member and a organiser -otherwise we were not sure how safe it would be to walk down the favela. It was good to see the life in favela though. We saw the hairdresser in favela and people were everywhere just hanging around outside their house to socialise other people. I also found that the favela has got the best view in Rio! as they are high up on the hill. That was amaging view.


As I decided going to Salvador for the carnaval, I went to the rehearsal of Carnaval yesterday. Since this past weekend each samba school started the rehearsal. They do exactly same except for the costumes, mobile stage and big things to carry with them. There were one mobile stage for each school and one big statue was there and some were dressed up with costumes but not everyone in full on. but still that was enough to see the whole thing how it will happen. It took place in Sambodrome where actual carnaval happens. Studium was full of people and so hard to get in, but we were lucky to get in and kept pretty good spot too. that was most expensive seat area for the carnaval!, but it is free for the rehearsal. Even though it was a rehearsal, there were food wagons and drink bars happening. It was a very big event. Yesterday was a day for Mangueira and Beja flor. I like the both schoos, so it was really good. I had been wondering how the judges can give score for such a big parade, but when I actually saw tha parade, you can tell which school is good. As for the rehearsal, Beja flor was much better. each group was very well organised and had more variety and interesting caliography. It would be so good with all the full on costumes and more mobile stages and statues. Mangeuira finished first, and when Beija Flor's turn came, they started playing Mangueira's old song which I used to play in melsamba before they started their parade for the friendship. There were so many Mangueira's fun in the studium and it was really nice to see the whole studium singing the song together. Each school's parade can last about 1 and a half hour. It is so hot and humid here. So hard for both dancers and audience, but everybody was enjoying so much of the good time forgetting baout the heat. i thought the hardedst worker is the people who were selling the drinks. It was so crowded and it is so hard to walk around the crowd, plus just by standing there you sweat so much but these people were carrying such a big heavy box of drinks with ice on their head and selling around in the studium. Their shirts were soaked with sweat and you can see their face with running sweat as well. Anyway I had a really good time here and tonight I am flying to Salvador.