Caged Futebol, Caged Spirits

In the space of five days Casa Amarelinho had the fortune of celebrating the birthdays of three of its most notorious members. After Alex´s ocean view fiesta in Ilha Grande came the turn of Seattle Jen who toasted her 23rd at the well known establishment down in the centre of Santa Teresa - Bar do Gomes. The bar´s previous incarnation was in the form of a pharmacy in 1919 and little has changed since; old newspaper clippings line the walls, glass cabinets and counters of its pharmaceutical past lay in the presence of leaning regulars on the wooden bar as they snack on the various salgados and half drunken chopps.

In Bar do Gomes, Santa Teresa
(l-r): Sue, me, Jen, Bimo, Aaron, Sofie, Sarah, Magali and Lea

After sampling the sublime tonic of the more hazardous of the 32 types of cachaça available, we once again bumped into a colourful character with whom we had already made a memorable acquaintence with. We first met this Carioca individual, alongside his volatile partner, on our very first Sunday in a local live music bar where they demonstrated their richly assorted shambles of samba, sleaze and dipsomania. They persistently attempted to take the group of us back to their house for what they called a ´late night barbecue´ but we were savvy enough to awake to their real intentions.

Birthday girl Jen, Aaron - enjoying the reunion a little too much, the swinger and I

Being nothing more than swingers we had to rely on our cunning and guile to escape their amorous invitations on numerous occasions. Rio, it appears, is not as large as one would like to think as in the past two weeks we ran into the couple on four unattached occassions in four separate establishments and precincts of the city. We thought the previous attempt to feed us peanuts with the lurid broken sentence that "it is good. It is an aphrodisiac" would be our concluding chance meeting.

Towards the end of the week our Programme Coordinator at Iko Poran and avid Botafogo F.C. supporter, Felipe, invited the casa for a traditional Brazilian barbecue. The early arrivals - myself included, were slightly baffled at being greeted with a chopping board and a few blunt knives as we were asked to prepare some of the vegetables for the ratatouille and garlic bread. However, we were soon able to savour the rewards from the charcoal grill in one of the finest feasts to date as well as watching ominously as Felipe provided the group with an expeditious lesson in constructing the perfect Caipirinha, revealing that the secret is all in the revolutions of the cocktail mixer.

Felipe, you have been pouring in the cachaça for almost a minute now

Brazilian barbecue. No swingers in sight.

Back within the seminar room´s walls in Batam all was progressing rather admirably with my students. Teenage Lucas´s pronunciation of the weather forecast variants was coming on fantastically; middle-aged Eliane, who works in tourism and already loaded with a good grasp of the language, was improving her future tense construction; little Vanessa continued her exhaustively slow copying of the whiteboard but more than made up for it by staying late after class to help me clean said whiteboard and tidy the room - what a sweetheart; tiny Laurany was overcoming her shyness and shining like a star with the topic of transport. All of whom entertained Alex, Jen and I with their desperate cries of ´Teacher!´ every time we attempted to clear the board before they had finished writing in their exercise books.

Turn your back for one minute and the rotten brats cause havoc on the whiteboards

Little Laurany offers some sound advice on presentation

Due to a week of temperatures stable in the mid thirties and a searing atmosphere I opted to shelve soccer school in the midday sun and instead retired in the cool still air of the classroom and made the most of the delicious meals on offer at Tatiane Lima - this week´s favourite included spicy fish fry with the usual sides of rice and beans with farofa. Always rice and beans with farofa.

Lunch is served at Tatiane Lima - and like detention at school, eaten on our own in the classroom

The one lesson that did manage to stick out in the memory was the one with the precious six year old boy Daniel, sat on the back stool with his legs dangling endearingly and alongside him, and the only other student for that particular lesson, sat a fifteen year old transsexual whose splendid princess facade was only marred by her / his husky bass voice. It was an awkward class but Wesley was an otherwise conscientious pupil.

One last Lapa for Alex - as he looks on at our favourite ´Caiprinha lady´

On Lapa Friday for Bimo´s birthday - the third feliz anniversario in a busy week

The start of the week brought an end to more volunteers´ tenures in Brazil. Alex flew back to Vienna with his endorsement of Austria still ringing in everyone´s ear and effervescent Éabhall with her bottle of Bohemia returned back to Cork. I was now desperately in need of some replacements for their departed company and instantly found refuge with two easy victims: Ailton the Brazilian housekeeper and David from Santiago. The fact that neither of them were fluent in English made the transition all the more sweeter for now I didn´t even need to pierce the thin fabric of their opinions or thoughts.


On route to the street cage soccer in Santa Teresa - no pictures taken on court amid safety fears

The two of them offered me to join their five a side team at the local favela park up on the hill during Independence day. After some gentle conversation on route (namely any Portuguese in the present continuous - I am hungry and I like Manchester United) I resigned myself to playing in goal due to arriving bare foot (I thought that was how they played street football in these parts) and I did not own any trainers. Surrounding the concrete playground that was the pitch was a looming rusty wiry cage fence, a group of rowdy youthful supporters, and the presence of heavily graffiti tagged derelict housing on either side.

All very downtown L.A. thus far and the teams made up of roaming rogues with torn vests, cheap jewellery, shaved eyebrows, obvious sneer and loosely worn baseball caps all added to the drama. The game rules were of two goals and the winner stayed on, with around five squads taking part. Once playing, our team of makeshift scoundrels provided what can only be described as dynamic street theatre. My goalkeeping display was a revelation after conceding only a solitary goal in six unbeaten futebol matches - though my aerial prowess was much to be desired, for obvious reasons. The opposition and boisterous crowd even began to heckle my elastic athleticism with aghast swearing and abuse for keeping the goal ratio down. It was a most satisfying ordeal, almost worth the portfolio of bloodied and bruised feet, elbows and knees. I believe only I could have come to the land of entertaining soccer flicks, mazy dribbles and tantalising skills and numb it with European styled stubborn resilience.

i-Pod Song of the Day: Paulinho Moska - A Flor E O Espinho

A flute assisted guitar strummed turn from Rio born songwriter Paulinho Moska who used to be in a band in the seventies called Deep Throat. This has given me wonderful company when looking out from the roof terrace of the casa over dusk lit downtown Rio when no one has been around to break the silence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_-Y7zS82VM

Many thanks to Miss Frazer and Miss Stevens for some of the photographs in this installment. My camera has decided to fail me.