The Yellow House On The Hill

A generous shower and two loads of washing later and I finally felt revived enough to mix with the rest of the group at Casa Amarelinho where around twenty five fellow volunteers found the hike up numerous steps under a stifling Rio sun up to the house almost as strenuous as I did. It was hard to get the head around such a mixture of nationalities ranging from Estonia to Colombia as well as the mélange of personalities. Most disturbing of all though was the inhabitants unusual kindness and immediate generosity towards each other which I simply could not adjust to, questioning their motives and quasi interest in my life and instead opting to keep a safe distance to such awkward behaviour.

With the Brazilian elections coming up in Autumn, why not vote for World Cup 1994 winning striker, Bebeto

On the Monday I decided to join my new colleague at my project, Alex from Vienna (he is so proud of his motherland that he should work at their tourist board), for the fifty minute bus ride to the communidade favela in Batam, in order to take a closer look at our social centre Tatiane Lima - run by Luciano, a good natured and jolly fellow, beside him his wife - a touch more school matron but a wonderful cook. For my first English class with Alex I prepared some thought provoking white board pictures of various fruits and meat for the children, only it being an overcast Monday morning nobody attended.

In the afternoon we took on the advanced English lesson - focused more for the community members who wish to enhance their language skills in preparation for the upcoming tourists opportunities that coincide with the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio and 2014 World Cup.

An hilarious misunderstanding occurred when our student, with his jesters facade, asked us mid demonstration on transportation, as to the translation for the word ´Banheiros´. Alex and I assumed his query was related to the transit world and when dumbfounded by badly sliced guesses we asked him to act out and draw up on the board what word he meant. It appeared that he wished to visit the loos. His actions and drawing were a little too graphic to share.

The lovely team at Tatiane Lima, Batam

On route home we conquered the unscheduled buses (there are no timetables and at times no fixed stops - so very Brasil) leaving through the streets back to Centro. An urban myth I cared to overhear is that the bus conductors are paid by the total distance covered during their shift which provides an easy answer to the soaring velocity at which the omnibuses blaze over the tarmac with little care for the pedestrians or swaying passengers thrown around like tarzan on a twisting vine (Jane is replaced by an irascible Carioca).

In store back at the Iko Poran office in Santa Teresa was an intensive Portuguese course that all the new intake had to prepare and attend to for four hours each evening on their first week of the programme. Orchestrating the ordeal was an ex-Melbourne-ite lady with snake and skull fascinations and between castigating us for our mispronunciations would divulge in glorious raw detail her perfume laced trail of seduction across the city with weekend millionaires and local biker boys.

Some light reading aimed at the children, found at the Tatiane Lima library

On our first free day on the Friday (hallelujah for three day weekends) a group of us including Bimo - Chicago, Alex - Vienna, Shakira - St Lucia via East 17, Nick - Boston, David - Santiago, Jen -Seattle, Elissavet - Greece and two Spanish senoritas, threw our worn beach towels over our shoulders and arrived at Poste Sete on Ipanema beach to make the most of the incalescence in the atmosphere. The highlight for all of us was spying a rather glamorous photo shoot in the distance featuring a long blonde haired and leggy naiad on the pier who on closer inspection was nothing more than a transsexual. A disappointment.

To make up for this disaster, Bimo, Alex and I found some sort of solace by eating a warm churros - a Brazilian version of a donut, layered in fine sugar and filled with ample warm dulce de leite sauce. An utter revelation.

In the evening, the group bought in a few of bottles of terrifically cheap vinho tinto and Antarctica chopp before meandering down the steps towards the well trodden and destructive Lapa. After a couple of muscular caipirinhas and some ill advised tequila shots sponsored by Shakira, what followed can be described only as...

[SCENE MISSING]

In the morning, wearing the same clothes and without my keys, Alex and I were joined for lunch at the nearby favela Cochina restaurant by Aaron all the way from downtown L.A. During mouthfuls of grelhado frango and a sheer mountain of batata frittas, he divulged to his two sunglass wearing and still slightly inebriated friends of what occurred the night before. Apparently Seattle Jen and I fell on a pile of garbage on our staggering route home and after sitting atop the mound for several minutes in fits of laughter we realised that we were in fact sat on a homeless man and his cardboard empire as if we were in the comfort of a leather sofa. Fom what I can gather, the bum was found rocking gently in a foetal position when we arose. Perhaps our initial good intentions for addressing social injustice in South America was not quite going the way it ought to have been.


Tatiane Lima kids try out some capoeira



At the project with (l-r) Eabhall, Me, Shakira, Aaron, Jen, Luciano, with Alex and Nick in the background looking shady

At the weekend, after a kind invitation from the team at Tatiane Lima, a swarm of us visited the social centre in order to celebrate Shakira´s imminent departure, though we found out on arrival that it was more of a general caipoeria dance fiesta aimed for all the community. However, after a noose enticing litter of speeches in Portuguese, we passed around heaps of local cuisine and plastic cups of Caipirinhas - which were more akin to pure liquor and some sugar. To close the evening the children at the project, aged from anywhere between three and twelve, proceeded to entertain and shock us in equal measure with their body popping and intimate grinding on the dancefloor. They learn at a very young age over here indeed.

Some of my kids get street

i-Pod Song of the Day - Orestes Barbosa - Chão de Estrelas

My first foray into the wonderful world of Brasilian music was through the film Woman On Top with the luminous Penelope Cruz. The album celebrates more the acoustic side of the country´s warm rhythms and tepid verse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UzrMiWr8fg

Lapa + Natasha = Certain Disaster

With Matty now long gone (after an eventful twenty six hour delay in both Santiago and Auckland, I am informed), I once again found myself marooned on an isolated emerald islet fending off the once decapitated thoughts of something close to being content.

In order to keep overheads low, I downgraded my five bed suite at CabanCopa in favour of a more industrious eight bedroom dorm – located at the West Wing of the hostel with the window facing the kindergarten next door. I now had to get used to a seven am wake up call comprising of a deep swell of chanting children singing nonsense nursery rhymes in Portuguese as well as the Brazilian national anthem screamed in a joyously haphazard chorus; the perfect initiation to a new dawn, and an immediate nuisance to the temples. Attached to the bunk bed above me harboured a rotation of nasally challenged sleepers, drowning out the infants´ shrieks with a tinny detonation of exhaling lungs.

Classico Copacabana Scene - a touch wonky, mind

It was not all insomnia in Room 31. A quartet of Dubliners were kind enough to give me some company for the week; Marc - rivalling Ainslie Harriet in the kitchen (with his cooking discipline rather than camp manner), Karen, Mona and Ciara who all provided me with the pre–night ritual of ´chatsies´ as well as tormenting my patience with the habit of flicking my damp travel towel off the hook and on to the wiry haired floor.

On the street corners when the sky was not aging with a surging gloom, I discovered a myriad of snacks and treats (salgados) within the glass displays of neighbouring stalls. These ranged from the delicious and thick Açaí - a purple rainforest berry blended into a smoothie with granola and bananas. The light and spicy Arab influenced frango Esfina pastries also mounted my lunch time hit list alongside the teardrop shaped Coxinha, where salt water was replaced with a generous helping of minced chicken. At thirty pence each, the balloon sized mangos sold at the fruit stand comprised a plump and exotic finale to midday consumption. In order to burn off the snacks, Marc and I attempted to play ultimate frisbee against an American and Australian on Copacabana beach. Our thunderous strides upon the velvet sands ensured that we lasted a breath taking seven minutes before the four of us were glistening in moisture to rival the nearby Atlantic and nursing a faltering heartbeat.

The Lapa Steps

Marc and I were more successful playing beach soccer, spraying liberal shots which cannoned against the ample oily buttocks of leisurely Carioca ladies as Karen and Mona wisely sunbathed by the raging tides and feigned little acknowledgement of our mischievous existence.

On an eventual clear day it was time for me to visit the Lapa Steps and to finally meet the eccentric and brilliant artist Jorge Selarón, who managed to compose the 2000 or so vibrantly coloured and themed tile montages covering 250 steps - his opus over the past twenty years. His most famous pieces of art depict him as a pregnant lady, which is fairly disturbing to say the least, especially as his only comment on the In Utero themed paintings are that it represents a personal problem from his past. Dressed in a red beret and Super Mario crimson overall, I took my chances to speak to him during his exhausting process of replacing chipped tiles. He didn´t seem to understand what I was saying and instead simply turned his back on me and ran away into his house.

Lapa Tiles of Lord Krishna and Ma Durga

On my way back down the stairs I bumped into two Danish students whom Matty and I had met during the Salt Flats Tour in Uyuni, Bolivia (they were in the working JEEP in front of us, often helping to re-start our faltering engine). After a quick thimble sized espresso that I somehow had to pay for, I caught up with two mischievous souls from London and somewhere near London - Chris and Roberta, who both had a penchant for mocking anyone nearby in good jest, which was fine by me. After that I met the Dubliners for an extraordinary Thai meal at Go Wok in Ipanema, followed by a chopp or eight of local brew at a bar whose cache of flamboyant clientele had not been registered by us until close.

Ipanema, Go Wok dining
l-r - me, Karen, Marc, American, Mo-Jito, American

On the Friday, my final night at Copacabana, I managed a swift reunion with Josepha ´Totten´ from my skydiving glory days in New Zealand, who was also touring South America with her friends Ellie and Laura in close pursuit. I foolishly gave in to their siege of Natasha Vodka and squeezed limes and agreed, alongside Marc and some American brothers from Connecticut, for one last night in Lapa. Amid a whirlpool of samba, a confusing amount of transvestites sauntering down the streets with heavy hands and veiny feet and barbecued meat on a stick, we eventually crashed back in the hostel in the early hours.


Pre-Lapa with Natasha and Ruthy, L and Ephy

My alarm did not turn on the following morning. I awoke at eleven, bleary eyed and with the taste of sewer on my lips and already an hour late for my induction at Iko Poran in Santa Theresa along with the other members of my intake.

Arriving at midday by a casually paced taxi and with a half packed roller-pig, day old stubble, blood shot eyes, no shower, four hours sleep and the breath of death, I was introduced to my fellow volunteers and Program Director who were all sat in a formal circle in the magnolia dining room exchanging pleasantries.

It was not a positive introduction to the project.

Rio Song of the Day: INXS - Beautiful Girl

What a treat to listen to VH-1´s Moods on Thursday with an early nineties theme as I sat in the CabanaCopa bar awaiting to be fed by the Dublin crew. Apparently this song was written for the INXS keyboardists birth of his newborn child. Which is nice. Like the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH986VE47M8

i-Pod Song of the Day: The Strokes - You Only Live Once
There is a new Brooklyn indie rock band on the road called Strokes who I reckon will be the next big thing, watch out for them. This is the opening track from the awesome First Impressions of Earth second album.

Twenty ways to see the world

or twenty ways to start a fight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQq4UEL__DI