TDSounds

Heading back to London tomorrow. Its been strange staying so long after carnival - past the post carnaval blues stage and well into the normal swing of life here.

After weeks of unbroken skies and sweltering heat of 40+ degrees, a cold front swung in a week ago and temperatures have plummeted by 20 degrees or so. Suddenly everyone is wearing long trousers, boots, cardigans. The beach has been rained off for over a week.

Rio is changing fast. I´ve seen things that I wouldnt have believed possible after first visiting this amazing city 13 years ago.

1. Not only have they introduced a no smoking indoors rule, but it is enforced everywhere with general cooperation from the public (well prob not in the favelas)

2. The Lei Seca (the law about not drinking and driving) is being enforced rigorously with roadblocks pulling out random cars and breath testing the drivers. The road accident rates are already falling all over the state of Rio de Janeiro.

3. I have noticed speed cameras here this year. People are driving slightly less crazily. But its still not safe to for a car to stop at a red light in the wrong part of the city.

4. Municipal creches and community restaurants are now well established on the fringes of the poorer districts.

5. I´ve seen far fewer pregnant women this year - the birth rate must be dropping like a stone.

6. The current governor of the City of Rio de Janeiro is actually proposing legalising drugs, to remove the money flow that feeds the gang violence in the favellas.

7. The metro has opened a second line and has consequently become so innefficient and uncomfortable that I ended up taking buses everywhere. Improvements are promised by next year.

And here´s some of the things that have stayed the same

1. The complete lack of a concept of customer service in the shops here.

2. The violence - just last night bandits hijacked a bus in the suburbs, and set light to it with all of the passengers still inside. In a separate incident a roving reporter got closeup pictures of a shoot-out in the streets that left at least one person dead. And elsewhere somebody got shot dead for asking another passenger in a bus to close the window.

3. The warmth of the people. As long as they are not serving you in a shop, or participating in gun warfare, Cariocas continue to be welcoming and helpful and warm.

4. The dodgy infrastructure. Parts of Rio still suffer from random electricity and water cuts. The roads continue pockmarked.  The telephone system is dodgy. The sewerage system can't cope. Public officials continue to be paid so little that they can't live without either a second or third job, or a dependance on bribes, and can't put time or mental energy into the beaurocratic organisation that is needed to put this right.

5. The wierd attitude to animals - I´ve seen dogs here with sunglasses, raincoats, tutus, ribbons. In Copacabana alone there must be well over 50 pet beauty parlours.

6. The corruption. The papers are full of stories about various high officials being in trouble. But this has in fact changed - in years gone by it was never the people at the top who got caught, just underlings. Now they´ve just imprisoned the State Governor of Brasilia for accepting bribes. But jobs and promotion are still available largely on a 'who you know' basis, resulting in many complacent or incompetent people fouling up the organisation and running of the city, and many talented and capable people  stuck at the bottom with no chance of advancement.

I´ve posted up all of the results of all of the leagues of samba schools in Rio Carnival 2010. You can find them here.

In the end I DID parade with Salgueiro on the Sunday of carnival. The costume was indeed hot, and heavy, but it was all manageable. The trick is to drink pots and pots of water beforehand, and not to put on the thickly padded cloak, or the hat and shoes, until the last possible minute. Once you get inside the area reserved for costumed participants, theres plenty of chemical toilets, and theres plenty more at the end of the parade, too.

There was a certain amount of unease at having a foreign gringa in the ala, but in truth I was far more experienced at parading in the sambodromo than many of the others in the Ala, who were largely Brazilian tourists and rich first timers from Zona Sul. And parading in an ala is much shorter than parading in a Bateria. And parading so many times in various baterias gives one excellent training in how to behave in a Grupo Especial samba school parade.

Theres 3 important jobs an ala member has to do. The first is to sing the song, which is achievable even by foreign gringos if they are persistant. The second is to be animated and to keep dancing, or at least moving around, throughout the parade, without losing your place in the line. The third is to look ecstatically happy throughout.

Jobs 2 and 3 are hard to do if the costume is too hot and heavy and the shoes too uncomfortable. Even the Salgueiro veterans in the ala were having problems looking as if they were enjoying it by the end.  By a third of the way down the sambodromo the burning pain from the simple flat shoes extended from my feet up past the knees. Still, had to keep moving, smiling, singing and dancing.

But as a veteran of the sambodromo I was prepared. I drank enough water before the parade to avoid dehydration, despite the liters of sweat produced by 40 minutes of dancing in that sweltering costume in nearly 40 degrees of heat. I had paracetamol and light clothes in a bag hidden inside my voluminous padded trousers. And a pair of super comfortable sandals hooked over the back of the bra, completely hidden under the huge  padded swirly cloak. Immediatly after the parade, whilst others stood there, sweating,  it was off with the costume, on with the clothes and sandals and down with 2 paracetamol.

I even remembered to pack a large plastic bag inside my trousers to carry the costume home afterwards. Thick plastic, because the costume was now much heavier, being totally soaked in sweat. If only I hadn't misplaced the Dr Scholl insoles before the parade (brought from England specifically for the purpose) it would have been far more enjoyable. Preparation is all.

Lapa

Things get crazy over carnaval, and its hard to keep up with a blog. But its Friday after carnaval, which was supposed to end on Wednesday, and I´ve just got back from Lapa, where the party is still going strong.

Tonight there was the bloco ´So Tamborins´, which I have always been curious about. And Afroreggae, who I adore for their philosophy, their work in the favellas and their funky, tight music which forces me to dance.

First, the ´Just Tamborins´ bloco.  Is it really a bloco of just tamborins? Do they keep themselves going with complicated arrangements? Isnt the sound of so many tamborins together painful on the ears? The answer is no, no and no. Theres a bateria of about 40 normal drums and 50 to 60 tamborins in front. The poor tamborim leader was rushing around exhausting himself trying to keep people playing ANY arrangement at all. Painful on the ears? Well there were very rarely more than 20 tamborins actually playing, and NEVER any two that hit the drum at exactly the same microsecond. Anarchy. Enormous fun.

 I joined the bateria for a bit but in the crush under the arches of Lapa there were so many blatent attempts at pickpocketing from the crowd around the bloco that I felt like a fish in a shoal surrounded by pirranhas. So mobile phone and loose change were transferred inside the bra. There are advantages in being a large older woman, sometimes.

Manouvered through the crush to the free stage and there were Afroreggae on stage, and as good as I expect of them, but on the last song of the set. Back through the crowds to see an olodum style band playing on the pavement, with large groups of people doing complicated improvised dance steps, all moving together. And then home. It was nearly midnight but clearly the night was just getting going for most people.

And no pee on the streets! This is a first for Lapa. The large banks of chemical toilets (which have finally been cleaned after several days of use) seem to be actually working. Who would have thought it!

Such heat

It´s hot in Rio this year for carnival. Really hot. Record breaking hot. One day last week Rio was officially the hottest city in the world. The shopping area of Saara has been hotter than the Sahara desert after which it is named.

Every where you go there is just one topic of conversation, Oh, What heat! Some people have taken to sleeping on the beach. Even in Copacabana, where the influence of the sea makes the temperature cooler, temperatures have topped 40 degrees. Inland in Bangul it reached 50 degrees one day. But the worst has been in one state prison where the governor invited journalists in to see for themselves - and the temperature registered 56 degrees!The governor is trying to persuade the state government to close the prison and move the inmates elsewhere before people start to die.

And this heat has serious implications for carnival, especially in Grupo Especial, the top group, where costumes can be heavy and padded. My costume for Salgueiro must weigh a good 10 pounds, but at least it isnt closed: air can get in. The poor Baianas, old women in costumes of many layers weighing 20 pounds or more, are in for a hard time this year.

This year Rio de Janeiro´s City Hall is working hard to clean up the streets during carnival. Literally.  Many males here habitually urinate on the streets, because of the very large amounts of cold beer people drink, especially in hot weather, and the very small number of public toilets.

Recent scientific study has found that public urination is physically damaging the Arches of Lapa and many road viaducts, which are showing signs of erosion caused by uric acid. And trees are suffering.

During the next few days hundreds of thousands of revellers will be following the many street parades that run along Copacabana and Ipenima beach, consuming many thousands of cubic liters of beer - which all has to end up somewhere. Traditionally, given the almost total lack of toilet facilities, people have urinated on the beach and in the water. But the volume of liquid involved leads to contamination of the sands and sea.

City Hall has initiated a two pronged attack. Firstly, this year all street parades have had to register, so that City Hall knows where and when to place chemical toilets. Secondly, severe fines and even prison terms have been threatened for anyone caught urinating on the street.There are plans to erect public urinals in Rio on a permanent basis to prevent the problem in general, but this can´t be done in time for carnival which starts the day after tomorrow.  Instead they are installing police lookouts on hydraulic lifts, to spot offenders - this may work as a deterrent.

Its may take a bit of time to change the behaviour of the average Carioca male though. I watched a technical rehearsal of one of the samba schools in the Sambodromo. The bateria completed their warm - up and stopped for a bit, and many men ran to the back to relieve themselves. They all ran straight past the line of empty chemical toilets, and used the wall instead. 

After 10 days in Rio and a week staying in Copacabana, I finally managed to make the two minute walk to the beach. It wasnt easy.

Firstly there was the excellent pagode going on on a table outside the bar on the corner. All the better for not being amplified - most pagodes here a ruined by appaling amplifiction. And the Mandolin player and the singing were actually in tune! But no - on to the beach.

30 seconds later and across avenida atlantica - and half way across this multi lane highway running along the beach there was the samba school Alegria da Zona Sul, getting ready for a parade down the beach. BUT NO!!! - on to the beach.

MADE IT TO THE BEACH!!

And then I heard a marchina approaching from the distance - the old style of carnival band more like a march than a samba, with great sing - along songs and a totally lunatic horn section. Then they tell me hat the samba school Beija Flor is parading along Copacabana a little later. But  I REALLY  need to get a tan and stop looking so much like a tourist.

So after an hour or so on the beach, have to leave to make it to the Salgueiro technical rehearsal. And theres Alegria da Zona Sul, still getting ready to parade. And I know that if I stay there will be friends in the bateria, though I don´t know which ones. Buy I have to get to Salgueiro.

Will try to make it to the beach again today, but as you can see it takes a lot of willpower to stick to any plan in Rio this near to carnaval.

Parading in Salgueiro

For complicated reasons I am supposed to be parading in the samba school Salgueiro at about 3.30am Monday morning, in a sweltering hot padded costume several sizes too big for me. Currently its averaging 45 degrees in Rio during the day, near the sambodromo.

The two big problems this presents are the strong possibility of dehydration and the long hard slog I´ve had to put in to learning the samba. I didnt even like the samba when I started but fortunately it has grown on me.

Last time I collapsed in a Grupo Especial parade in the avenida from a hot costume I ended up on a drip in the Sambodromo clinic (under sector 11) but was up and running again in time to watch the end of Mangueira´s parade, 2 hours later. Nevertheless, its not recommended, and terrifies ones friends.  But that was in a bateria, where you are playing at top energy with no water for 80 - 90 minutes. This time I´m in an ala so i´ll only be parading for 30 mins or so. And I´m going to hide a bottle of water in the costume, which is likely to be big enough to hide a second person. And the parade is in the wee small hours of the morning, when its a bit cooler.

This evening I will be joining my ala for the final tecnical rehearsal in the avenida, where last year´s winning school parades for the big light and sound test in the avenida. So I must stop writing this and get back to learning the last 3 lines of the samba.

If you are going to the sambodromo to watch the rehearsal, look out for me - i think my ala is 5th. If you get a chance to watch carnaval on TV, I´ll be in the Salgueiro ala that is carrying telescopes, probably tucked away in the middle at the back where I cant mess up the visual too badly. But if the costume is impossibly hot and I think theres a serious risk of collapsing in it, I´ll have to think twice about this.

Yes, the Rio carnival samba school Mocidade will be laundering money this year. But not in the way you think.

The carnavaleso of Mocidade, Cid Carvalho, has designed a float on  which there will be washing machines, laundering paper money mixed up with normal laundry. It´s a visual joke, referring to the recent scandal in Brazilia where senior state government officials were caught in a government sting.

The float itself represents an economic paradise.

Just one week before Rio Carnival, and the samba schools of Grupo Especial are well ahead in their preparations. Last year at this time some schools were in a state of panic, with no money left and many floats and costumes still to prepare.

This year there has been an extra injection of money which has smoothed things along. Petrobas, the Brazilian multinational, has donated 12 million reals - thats one million for each samba school - in their project `Samba Carioca is a cultural inheritance of Brazil´

The money is partially for the samba school parades, but part of it is marked for use in the cultural and educational activities that every samba school carries out in its home district.

Each samba school is also receiving R$750,000 from Rio´s City Hall, and one million from the federal  government. As well as this the schools receive some money from the sales of the Grupo Especial CD (much reduced this year because of rabid internet piracy), and money from the sale of tickets in the sambadromo, money from the open rehearsals that the schools run on Friday and saturday nights. And there´s also private sponsorship, both officially from companies, and unnoficially from local gangsters and bicheiros (illegal lottery organisers).