The New People

As of Saturday our house has been replenished with new volunteers, replacing the ones that were only able to stay for a couple of weeks. It’s odd having new people around. The age and gender dynamic has changed a bit, now including a handful of men and the average age has probably gone up to about mid twenties.
Last Wednesday a couple of the girls and I attended a soccer game. Bahia (the local team) is in the third division and judging by their performance I would say they are in dead last. Besides the fact that the soccer was crap the atmosphere was crazy. The fans are so passionate about their team and their players. Being some of the only girls there and definitely the only white girls, we were the quite a spectacle. I was interviewed on the news, and during half time there was a huge group surrounding us, trying to speak English, as if we were celebrities.
Friday was a holiday of sorts for the Condomble God Iemanjá. Iemanjá is the goddess of the sea and every February 2nd thousands of people line the streets to give her gifts of flowers and perfume. The morning and afternoon of the festival is mostly people waiting in line to give their offerings, but when the boats carry all the presents out to sea at 4pm a full on block party begins. I was only able to brave the heat for a couple hours in the morning, but in those few hours I saw a woman become “entranced” on the beach, many different parades and hundreds of baskets of flowers being loaded into the boats to go out to sea.
That night we attended the Ballet Folklorico. It was an absolutely stunning performance of the different traditional Brazilian, Bahian, and Condomble dances. They even had a fire eater! The theater is the tiniest little thing and you practically sit on stage as men flip around with swords in their hands. After the ballet we went to dinner at a posh sushi restaurant. I was so excited to have something besides rice and beans for dinner. The food was great and the restaurant jutted right out into the bay, which made for a fantastic breeze and great view.
My activities for the rest of the weekend included a wide variety of alcohol and company. Sunday we went to a bbq at one of our Brazilian friend’s house and ended up staying there for close to 10 hours, talking, singing, dancing, swimming, drinking and more drinking. Needless to say this morning was a bit rough and I have taken the entire day to recover.
I have firmed up my travel plans for post Salvador and will be doing a 4 day Amazon tour with another girl here and then moving on to Rio. I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by.