New Year's Eve
On the road into town from the airport we pass favelas with their orange bricks; shopping malls; a giant Santa hat on top of a local Home-Depot-type box store; and numerous billboards for local singers, drum ensembles and bands who are performing during the holiday season and on up to Carnival. They often refer to these performances as “rehearsals,” but they are in fact completely worked-out shows. The rehearsal reference implies that it’s all a lead up to the “real” performance — the one during Carnival. I see a billboard for Olodum, the famous percussion group, and one for Chiclete Com Banana (Banana Chewing Gum), a local pop band that has been around here since forever. Every big intersection has more music billboards. These are all local acts, proof that Salvador continues as a breeding ground for music.
In a way this town is like New Orleans, another place where European Catholic culture met Africans, and where a new musical and cultural hybrid was born. Also like New Orleans, many of these acts tend to remain local — their appeal is limited to either Carnival crowds up here, or to the Afrocentric culture that flourishes here much more than in Rio or São Paulo. This is, after all, the westernmost African city.
Paulinha, Caetano Veloso’s wife and a serious movie producer, invites us to join them on a friend’s boat which is going out into the harbor to view the fireworks at midnight. We stop by their house overlooking the beach and rock at Rio Vermelho. The house is modern, clean and uncluttered, with a few abstract paintings on the walls. A wall by a stairway has a kind of Mondrian 3D arrangement of white shelf-like projections upon which various souvenirs and items of personal significance have been draped and placed: some Candomblé beads, a Filhos de Gandhi turban, a traditional Northwestern cowboy hat, bottles of dende. Large balconies overlook rocks down below where waves crash in the darkness. There’s a cool breeze from the sea despite the fact that it's summertime here.
We have some dinner and drinks, and drive to a tall apartment building in the well-to-do Vitoria district where we head to the rear of the building, and take a four-person gondola down the steep forested cliff face to a tiny dock. The gondola is a little ball that dangles and sways, with 60's modernist styling that makes it seem like a remnant from an imaginary future. The ball descends into the darkness through a miniscule trace of the once-great Atlantic forests that covered the coasts here and in much of Brasil.
We end up on a little dock where others appear and eventually board a sizable motorized sailboat that heads for the lighthouse point where the fireworks will go off at midnight. Almost everyone is dressed in white (C and me included) — a reference to Candomblé, the Afro-Brazilian religion, whose Goddess of the sea, Yemanja, is honored tonight in many parts of Brasil. In Salvador the larger seaside event for her occurs at the beginning of February, when thousands place offerings into the sea, but tonight most pay their respects simply by dressing in white and offering a few flowers to the sea. The fireworks go off in other parts of town at the same time. It’s a long display — my favorite firework is one I can best describe as a twinkly blob or cloud. This one wasn’t a blossoming globe like most of the others, but an amoeboid shape that hung in the sky, almost stationary, and sparkled. We throw flowers into the water. Some people jump into the dark waves as well — a symbolic clean start. Feliz Ano Novo. The husband of the boat owner acts as DJ; he plays some incredible Brazilian recordings I am unfamiliar with, and he also mixes in a hilarious recording of Charro singing “Let’s Spend The Night Together” with the Salsoul Orchestra. Cuchi cuchi!
There are bands playing in tents and outdoors on the various beaches and beachfront areas tonight.
Jesus on Board
I mentioned a religious procession C and I hope to see tomorrow on the 1st and Paulinha, producer that she is, arranges another boat trip. In the morning we head to a spot just inside the breakwater in front of the Nossa Senora Da Conceiçao church, near the base of the iconic elevator that has become the symbol of Salvador. This is where Our Lady’s son (Jesus) has been visiting for about a month. Today, via a small boat, he will return to his own church further down the coast at the Boa Viagem neighborhood. This particular Jesus is Senhor Bom Jesus dos Navegante, the patron saint of Navegantes (sailors and fishermen), so a large floating contingent has turned out to accompany him on his return trip.
Some of these are basically rowboats with motors, some are cabin cruisers, and some are old wooden boats configured to hold a bunch of passengers. Some of the last have been hired by various groups of worshiper/supporters, who all wear matching T-shirts. One of these boats has a brass band gathered around the prow that energetically blasts out samba-ized versions of anything in their repertoire, including a raucous version of Neal Sedaka’s song “Diana.”
Another boat has an Afro-Brazilian drum group on board; we can feel their grooves and see the dancers gyrating. A few boats have DJs on board with keyboards, playing and singing along with programmed tracks. A fireboat squirts a fume of water into the air and the tiny little boat that will carry the saint (the Jesus statue) arrives at the shore. The statue is surrounded by revelers on land, many of them dressed in white. He is transferred to his boat, nestled amongst a large pile of yellow flowers. A group of men in sailor outfits begins to row the saint to his home church. A blast of firecrackers goes off as they depart.
Now all the boats point towards the peninsula where this Jesus is headed. After a few minutes, the rowing of Jesus’ boat is replaced by a rope that allows the little craft to be towed most of the way by a police boat. People wave at one of our passengers, Lazaro, who is a young movie actor. He waves back and gives everyone the thumbs up.
At Boa Viagem the rowing recommences as the little boat with Jesus on board passes inside the breakwater close to the shore. The beach is packed with people, many of whom haven’t gone to sleep. From the nearby church emerges his mom, also nestled in yellow flowers. The two statues meet on the beach and a whole lot more fireworks go off — pow pow pow, all bangers — which gives their meeting a slightly sexual overtone. This is the highpoint of the procession, the climax, and now the two of them, mother and son reunited, go off together back to their home for the next 11 months. The flotilla begins to disperse.
Our boat now heads across the Bay of All Saints towards some tiny islands next to the larger island of Itaparica. We rendezvous with the larger boat that we were on last night, where more folks are waiting, and head off for an idyllic lunch in a beautiful old house on a tiny island owned by the family who has the large boat. This house is the only house on that particular island; the rest is a kind of nature reserve. Naturally, we have moquequa da piexe, a local fish stew flavored with coconut and dende (palm oil), which is delicious.
