Monday, April 11th, 2005- Salvador, Brazil

In the morning Steve and this girl Jen that we met headed up to Pelourinho to go to a music shop so I could buy a guitar. This being my new endeavor to try and do, I bought an acoustic guitar. We then headed back down to the Mercado Modelo; where I we tried to get down to see the basement. After finding it closed off we eventually, after a struggle due to the language barrier, found out that there was a movie being filmed down there and we needed to come back later. At the market I was able to also pick up some instruments. One was like a whistle, called an Apito (pron. Ap ee to), and the other being a wood tube with the metal pieces inside that sound like the rain, called a Ganza.

In the afternoon we headed on the SAS trip to the Calabar Favela. The favela is the Brazilian version of the “ghetto”. It is made up of many close brick buildings with only a walkway in between. In the Calabar Favela there are 17,000 families with houses built of brick. Most of them are not finished on the outside because it costs very little for the basic supplies like bricks, but costs a lot for finishing materials such as paint. Our first stop was an elementary school. We interacted and played with the little kids and then watched a show put on by a theatre group made up of mostly teenage girls and one teenage boy. It is an after school program led with an 18 year old male as the professor. They all came up with a script that relates with issues that they deal with. Since they only spoke Portuguese and we only spoke English they performed a small portion of it for us. At the end our guide translated it for us. The scenes dealt with safe sex, police corruption (how blacks are discriminated against), and more sex. It was interesting to see how such adult topics were being performed in a school atmosphere by a younger group of teenagers, who will then perform it for area elementary schools.

After playing with the kids for a little longer (and trying to teach them that Play- Doh is not food), we then headed on a walking tour of the favela. It was just building after building. The insides of many of them did not look all that bad, with many having stereos and televisions (most of the people had the TVs on and were watching Jim Carey’s Ace Ventura: Pet Detective).

In the evening I headed back to the Pelourinho with Jen to go use the phone and then went to a Pizzeria/ Internet place. They were out of pizza so we went searching for another pizza restaurant (in order to continue my tradition of having pizza in every port). Some beggar came up to us and offered to show us where one was. He said we didn’t have to pay him, but I knew better. As he led us down an alley we were very hesitant, but followed because there were other tourists around. As he realized this he pointed to his head and said, “I’m not paranoid”. Let me just say that this was very reassuring for me (sarcasm). When we got to the restaurant he wanted us to pay him by buying him food at a place down the street. I told him that I’d give him money and he can just get it himself. I gave him 2 reals (equivalent of a little less than a dollar) and he was like “Give me 6 reals”. Of course I didn’t give it to him (it really pisses me off when beggars do that). We got some really good pizza and then ended the night by hitting up the internet café.