bow down to the samba king (that's right)
Well, the world might just as well stop turning because I went out to a samba club with a bunch of people from the school last night and we had a blast. For those unfortunate souls who have the free time to stumble across my blog without actually knowing me, this was totally out of character. But since I had decided beforehand that this was going to be The Summer of Matt (swat at bee circling my head), I had no choice but to accept the offer when it came to go out.
We all met in front of the school at ~10pm, and until about 5 minutes before we left it looked like it was going to be 5 women and me, which didn't make me feel good at all. Thankfully a British guy named Daniel showed up in a tank-top, shorts and flip-flops, fresh from a Capoeira lesson.
So we get in some cabs, show up at the place which is about a 10 minute drive from Barra. It's $R5 to get in the door. The door being the door to the high wood fence of a narrow, open-air space in between some 2-3 story apartment buildings. There's a big yellow banner sign over it facing the street saying in red lettering that it's an auto demolition lot. That's right. Maybe they move the chairs in the morning. On the way in I'm thinking it's going to be some dimly-lit New York style dance club, but it was almost the complete opposite - brightly lit, with a bunch of white plastic lawn chairs and tables with red tablecloths, a very modest bar in the back, which was more like a kitchenette, and guys selling drinks and kebab-type meat sticks from behind stacks of milk crates. There was an old woman sitting next to the bar in the back who took peoples orders, gave change, and then gave you a ticket with the name of your drink on it which you were to hand to the bartenders. This woman ended up being a bottleneck for the whole process since she was pretty cranky and slow, a bad mix for a high-energy Brazilian samba club. When I went to get a water there was nobody in line but once I paid I had to push my way through for or so rows of Brazilians pushing forward to pay for their drinks.
The band, up front, was something like 8- or 10-piece, with a 6-string bass player, a couple of drummer/percussionists, a guy with what looked like a ukelele and sang like a tropical Tiny Tim, and a few other instruments that I can't remember and/or identify. There was no stage and the band all sat on low chairs or just leaned against the back wall.
We sat down at two tables we pushed together, everyone got drinks, and we talked for a while since nobody was dancing. There was one Braziliera who was standing up front near the band who was movin' and shakin' in such perfect sync to the music that I even wanted to dance. She was probably 35. Her boyfriend was like 45, drinking a beer, and standing there with such an ambivalent expression on his face you would have thought he'd been lobotomized an hour ago.
Then suddenly about an hour into it people just started walking up to the front and dancing, and then Rosaria, the woman from the school who organized and schaperoned the whole thing, got up and beckoned everyone else to come. Me and the two women I was at the table with were initially hesitant. The dance floor, though, was so crowded and chaotic that it was basically just a group of people standing shoulder to shoulder, some moving in a quasi-dance motion and others just standing there getting drunk, smiling and laughing. Who finds that kind of thing objectionable? Not me, so I went up there and started dancing like Steve Martin doing his King Tut skit. With everyone so closely crushed together this was no problem at all, and in no way uncool, which is quite a departure for me.
Our party included two tall German women who were very popular with the Brazilieros, particularly two guys, one who was very tall and pretty young, and another who was shorter but more built, about my height. The first guy was pretty drunk and the second guy was stinking drunk, but otherwise not terribly objectionable. The second guy, if you could get past his deadpan expression and lack of tact, was freakin hilarious. His "maneuver" to get women to dance with him was to drunkenly lean into them, grab them around the waist and slowly start to hump their leg, or whatever (still not smiling). He did this with about 15 different women, many more than once, for the next hour and a half. All but 1 woman I saw pushed him away or ducked out of his reach. Rosaria was vigilant and defensive enough to fend off and/or push away any of the Brazilian men (who are known to be rather persistent) once things seemed to get a little out of hand. She did a lot of waving of her finger at these guys which seemed to stop them dead in their tracks.
So I was feeling pretty good, I'm movin, I'm shakin. But everyone is so close together that I can't keep from stepping on people's feet, all of whom are wearing sandals vs. my thick-heeled oxford dress shoes. And Daniel, who is clearly running on fumes at this point, is dancing to my right and looking at his feet to try to keep to the beat, and keeps knocking his skull against my shoulder. But he does it so regularly that I'm guessing he either doesn't care or can't feel it, even though I hit him pretty hard. Eventually he goes to sit down, with total respect from me since he's been doing all-out physical exertion for the past 6 or so hours.
So I understand that Brazilieros are persistent with women - no problem. But I'm not a woman, so I'm not used to this kind of thing. And so the women I'm with are having no problem fending off guys, and to some degree I'm sure are flattered by it. But as the reluctant descendant of Puritans I'm dying over here - and lets face it, what really matters in this situation is my feelings. This 50-or-so year old guy is pawing the woman from our group next to me. She's smiling, and pushing him away a little. He's smiling, and then they both look at me and I'm not smiling. He offers to shake my hand a couple of times which I do with reticence, but I decide to just go on dancing but keep close to the women I'm with because I'm freaked out (probably for no reason) about what the Brasilieros might do.
Eventually everyone is sweating enough so that I can feel all of my clothes sticking to me and getting soaked (yuck). Around 00:15 I look at my watch, a couple of people ask me what time it is, and we decide to go. I'm still so into the music, though, that I dance/push my way back to the fence and out the door, and still can't keep from tapping my foot and doing the occasional hip shake (it's contagious, people) once we're out on the street. Which is swarming with cops, who in Salvador look like military. They are wearing brown fatigues and berets, bullet-proof jackets, and at least 2 pistols each strapped their thighs and legs. Later the guy at the pousada tells me that they go specifically to the places that tourists are known to frequent, and also that sometimes schools, when they plan social activities, will call the cops to tell them where the students will be so that there will be a police presence there. I'm guessing Rosaria did this.
We're standing outside and the woman from our group who was being pawed next to me pops her head out the door and is like "Why are we leaving? I was just starting to have fun ..." We get into cabs and head back to Barra. Rosaria wants us all to be dropped off just outside our pousadas, but we decide to get out on the corner at the convergence of all our routes and walk the rest of the way, which at this time of night is not necessarily advisable. I make the 3-or-so block walk home all right, but stay tensed to break into a full sprint if necessary, and keep looking over my shoulder. Things are fine, though. I get back to the room, peel off my clothes, and cruise the 'net for an hour because I can't get to sleep.
And here we are.
We all met in front of the school at ~10pm, and until about 5 minutes before we left it looked like it was going to be 5 women and me, which didn't make me feel good at all. Thankfully a British guy named Daniel showed up in a tank-top, shorts and flip-flops, fresh from a Capoeira lesson.
So we get in some cabs, show up at the place which is about a 10 minute drive from Barra. It's $R5 to get in the door. The door being the door to the high wood fence of a narrow, open-air space in between some 2-3 story apartment buildings. There's a big yellow banner sign over it facing the street saying in red lettering that it's an auto demolition lot. That's right. Maybe they move the chairs in the morning. On the way in I'm thinking it's going to be some dimly-lit New York style dance club, but it was almost the complete opposite - brightly lit, with a bunch of white plastic lawn chairs and tables with red tablecloths, a very modest bar in the back, which was more like a kitchenette, and guys selling drinks and kebab-type meat sticks from behind stacks of milk crates. There was an old woman sitting next to the bar in the back who took peoples orders, gave change, and then gave you a ticket with the name of your drink on it which you were to hand to the bartenders. This woman ended up being a bottleneck for the whole process since she was pretty cranky and slow, a bad mix for a high-energy Brazilian samba club. When I went to get a water there was nobody in line but once I paid I had to push my way through for or so rows of Brazilians pushing forward to pay for their drinks.
The band, up front, was something like 8- or 10-piece, with a 6-string bass player, a couple of drummer/percussionists, a guy with what looked like a ukelele and sang like a tropical Tiny Tim, and a few other instruments that I can't remember and/or identify. There was no stage and the band all sat on low chairs or just leaned against the back wall.
We sat down at two tables we pushed together, everyone got drinks, and we talked for a while since nobody was dancing. There was one Braziliera who was standing up front near the band who was movin' and shakin' in such perfect sync to the music that I even wanted to dance. She was probably 35. Her boyfriend was like 45, drinking a beer, and standing there with such an ambivalent expression on his face you would have thought he'd been lobotomized an hour ago.
Then suddenly about an hour into it people just started walking up to the front and dancing, and then Rosaria, the woman from the school who organized and schaperoned the whole thing, got up and beckoned everyone else to come. Me and the two women I was at the table with were initially hesitant. The dance floor, though, was so crowded and chaotic that it was basically just a group of people standing shoulder to shoulder, some moving in a quasi-dance motion and others just standing there getting drunk, smiling and laughing. Who finds that kind of thing objectionable? Not me, so I went up there and started dancing like Steve Martin doing his King Tut skit. With everyone so closely crushed together this was no problem at all, and in no way uncool, which is quite a departure for me.
Our party included two tall German women who were very popular with the Brazilieros, particularly two guys, one who was very tall and pretty young, and another who was shorter but more built, about my height. The first guy was pretty drunk and the second guy was stinking drunk, but otherwise not terribly objectionable. The second guy, if you could get past his deadpan expression and lack of tact, was freakin hilarious. His "maneuver" to get women to dance with him was to drunkenly lean into them, grab them around the waist and slowly start to hump their leg, or whatever (still not smiling). He did this with about 15 different women, many more than once, for the next hour and a half. All but 1 woman I saw pushed him away or ducked out of his reach. Rosaria was vigilant and defensive enough to fend off and/or push away any of the Brazilian men (who are known to be rather persistent) once things seemed to get a little out of hand. She did a lot of waving of her finger at these guys which seemed to stop them dead in their tracks.
So I was feeling pretty good, I'm movin, I'm shakin. But everyone is so close together that I can't keep from stepping on people's feet, all of whom are wearing sandals vs. my thick-heeled oxford dress shoes. And Daniel, who is clearly running on fumes at this point, is dancing to my right and looking at his feet to try to keep to the beat, and keeps knocking his skull against my shoulder. But he does it so regularly that I'm guessing he either doesn't care or can't feel it, even though I hit him pretty hard. Eventually he goes to sit down, with total respect from me since he's been doing all-out physical exertion for the past 6 or so hours.
So I understand that Brazilieros are persistent with women - no problem. But I'm not a woman, so I'm not used to this kind of thing. And so the women I'm with are having no problem fending off guys, and to some degree I'm sure are flattered by it. But as the reluctant descendant of Puritans I'm dying over here - and lets face it, what really matters in this situation is my feelings. This 50-or-so year old guy is pawing the woman from our group next to me. She's smiling, and pushing him away a little. He's smiling, and then they both look at me and I'm not smiling. He offers to shake my hand a couple of times which I do with reticence, but I decide to just go on dancing but keep close to the women I'm with because I'm freaked out (probably for no reason) about what the Brasilieros might do.
Eventually everyone is sweating enough so that I can feel all of my clothes sticking to me and getting soaked (yuck). Around 00:15 I look at my watch, a couple of people ask me what time it is, and we decide to go. I'm still so into the music, though, that I dance/push my way back to the fence and out the door, and still can't keep from tapping my foot and doing the occasional hip shake (it's contagious, people) once we're out on the street. Which is swarming with cops, who in Salvador look like military. They are wearing brown fatigues and berets, bullet-proof jackets, and at least 2 pistols each strapped their thighs and legs. Later the guy at the pousada tells me that they go specifically to the places that tourists are known to frequent, and also that sometimes schools, when they plan social activities, will call the cops to tell them where the students will be so that there will be a police presence there. I'm guessing Rosaria did this.
We're standing outside and the woman from our group who was being pawed next to me pops her head out the door and is like "Why are we leaving? I was just starting to have fun ..." We get into cabs and head back to Barra. Rosaria wants us all to be dropped off just outside our pousadas, but we decide to get out on the corner at the convergence of all our routes and walk the rest of the way, which at this time of night is not necessarily advisable. I make the 3-or-so block walk home all right, but stay tensed to break into a full sprint if necessary, and keep looking over my shoulder. Things are fine, though. I get back to the room, peel off my clothes, and cruise the 'net for an hour because I can't get to sleep.
And here we are.
posted by n10471 at 12:27 PM
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