Salvador, Brazil SOUTH AMERICA

Salvador Brazil Blog

Highlights:

Dancing!
My gosh these people are beautiful and can dance! It is a very physical, easy type of dancing and so much fun, you just follow the leader and soon the whole room is dancing with you making up new steps that everyone follows. The beat is great and energy high, everyone smiling and laughing, hugging and enjoying life. Upon arrival to Salvador a group of about 60 of us were welcomed by the University students with typical Brazilian food and dance. Did I mention these people are absolutely drop dead gorgeous? Beautiful faces, smiles and bodies. I could do this every night for sure.

Food!
Brazilian food is full of wonderful flavors. Many tropical fruits in their cocktails and they sure know how to BBQ ! A group of us went to a Brazilian BBQ where they come around with big skewers and shave it onto your plate. The guys were in heaven. The meats are all BBQ’ed with a salty flavorful marinade. I even tried chicken hearts and they were great! They also have a lot of bean dishes and fried many foods in palm oil.

Insights:

Brazilian history is fascinating, a city of contrasts between the rich and poor, 20% live in homes, mostly white people, 80% , mostly Afro-Brazilian, live in the slums.
The Portuguese colonized Brazil and brought over many slaves from Africa in the early 1800’s to work the sugar cane fields. Unfortunately the Afro- Brazilians have been discriminated by the small white population and forced to live in the slum areas or favelas of the larger cities, including Salvador. We visited one area called Salamandaia which is known to be quite dangerous, 43 children murdered in the past 6 years and a lot of drug activity. Passed by a 12 year old with a gun in his pants, I did not see it but a guy in back of me did. None of us felt threatened but the guides were extremely cautious about anyone wandering at all, felt like a heard of sheep and the wolf would pick off the last one!
It was HOT, I made out ok but not my favorite afternoon, at the same time, I would not have wanted to miss it and was glad to be there.
There is a grass roots project called arts conscientious who have inspired the kids to take classes from them in dance, circus acts and boxing skills to keep them off the street. The kids did a great job performing for us and our money went to help them finish building a place to practice their arts.
A big thank you to the ladies who donated pens and pencils- they have found a good home and the children were very happy! There is a photo in the slide show of Alex and Phil who help run the program holding the bag of pencils!

Unfortunately this is a pretty dangerous place for tourists and especially those traveling alone. RESTRICTED is the best way to describe it. I feel I cannot wander off by myself to explore, too dangerous, one wrong side street and the people will come off the streets to warn you to turn around, “not for Americans, too dangerous.”
So far, on the 3rd day we have had 3 muggings of students and money stolen at an ATM from another student. The SAS tours seem to be the best bet now.

At this point I am taking it slow. The excitement of the voyage, all the new people and a big, hot, dangerous city has me a bit tired.
I am enjoying the community on the ship, hanging around mainly with faculty,and loving what they stand for, openness and awareness of other ways of thinking and helping others less fortunate than ourselves. I am also enjoying that there is very little whining about anything, a very adventurous group!

We are now crossing the Atlantic! Not too choppy and no storms predicted on our way to Namibia, Africa!

Thanks for all the great notes, it is fun to stay in touch and hear what is going on with you too.


xox
Margareta

msbancroft@semesteratsea.net