The Saturday following our foray into the martial arts world (July 30th, for those of you trying to piece together a timeline here), we were invited again to a deeply rooted Brazilian tradition; Forro dancing (pronounced, “Foh-ho”) To paraphrase a short history of Forro, when foreign (read: white. Very white) colonizers hit the North Eastern coast of Brazil and proceeded to stick around for awhile, they decided it was time to start constructing railroads and other large infrastructure. When the railroad officers started having parties on the weekends, they wanted to ensure that they could include influential locals at times but also maintain a spirit of discrimination when they wanted do (because come on, what’s better than overstaying your welcome and telling your hosts that you’re better than them?) They would designate parties as solely for railroad employees or “for all”. As our cadete friends tell us, the lack of hard “r” sounds in the Brazilian Portuguese led to word of these swinging parties spreading like wildfire by mouth through the Brazilian population as, “Foh All”. The colonizers eventually reduced their presence in Brazil but the phrase stayed and the style of Forro dancing lived on until this day.
There was a group that met weekly at the GFN (I specifically remember asking what these letters stood for and then immediately forgetting. Solid) It’s the bastard child of a Rec Center and an Officers Club but is available for all to use. There’s a skate park, playground, courts for volleyball (voleibol), basketball (basquete), and a pool (piscina). There’s also a bar (bar, pronounced, “bah”) and a lounge with some TVs (televisaos……or TVs) Something for everyone.
On Saturday, we woke up late and grabbed quick bite for lunch to include chicken sandwich and acai ice cream (sanduiche do frango e sorvete da acai) Acai, pronounced “Ah-sigh-ee” here, is a fruit from the Amazon rainforest and is typically found in health food drinks in the U.S. Here, it’s one of the ingredients in what I can only tout was the purple drank of ice cream, for reasons more than the fact that the ice cream is dark purple. It's high caloric content make it choice for many Brazilians post work out and the fact that it's delicious enough to make me cry thinking about not having it when I leave in December makes me enjoy it all the more here. As I type this, I feel my expressed love of Acai may be familiar to some of you (read: I’m pretty sure I already told you guys about this) If this is the case, please accept my apology and prepare for it to happen again for if it happened once, it’ll never happen again but if it’s happened twice, it will absolutely happen a third time. Enjoy.
Cadete Rodrigues Lima approached Sonza and myself (Nate was out running with other cadets, having woken up at a reasonable time and eaten breakfast. Brutal) as we returned from our lunch and asked us if we were interested in learning Forro that night. My universe of formal dance education (Walter Schalk, get at me) was somewhat limited and the phrase, “When in Rio…….” popped into my head. Also, Rodrigues Lima (who everyone calls “Feijoa” (“Fey-sho-ow”) which means “Bean”, which is funny because he’s really small and very tan) used the words, “informal” (which is pronounced, “in-for-mahl” and means “informal” in English) and, “mulheres” (pronounced, “mool-yer-es”, meaning, “women”) which are two words I actually know in Portuguese. Class started at 5 pm (@Brazilians and Military type folk, 1700) so at about 5:05 we left for class. As a quick side note, there exist a few words that are entirely untranslatable between our languages. From them, we don’t have the word, “Saudade” which is a great feeling of longing or sadness, somewhat like homesickness but more often related to the deep pangs of love lost. From us, they can’t grasp the idea, “hard time.” Blows my mind.
We stepped off post, changed into civilian clothes at the larangeira, and then walked back into the residential area of post towards the GFN. There was a small building in the back with wooden floors and wall mirrors. I later learned that this was a dance studio for a children’s ballet troupe and in general a multipurpose room. There were about 10 of us total, with ages ranging from about 19 to 29 and we were relying on someone’s laptop and iTunes account for the Forro music. Avioes do Forro, a primarily Forro musical group whose name literally means, “Birds of Forro” supplied the majority of our music. 3 girls in particular, Stephanie, Rayani, and Ana Paula, all about our age were our primary dance partners. They would dance incredibly fast with the other cadets there and then say demeaning things like, “Entende? Facil.” (Understand? Easy) Just the worst.
Eventually, Orlando and I were able to nail down the basic concept of Forro (I was told that in addition to having two left feet, I have locked knees, old man hips, and no ankle joints. Sweet. I guess I’ll just retire with my 80% disability and start collecting VA checks) and spent the next few hours jumping between practicing Forro (Feedback from my partners ranged from, “Relxada, calma,” (Relax, calm) to, “Bom,” (Good) to eventually, “Ahh, muito bom, voce entende!” (Ahh, very good, you get it!)) and trying to explain the deep intricacies of Cotton Eye Joe, the Electric Slide, and even a little Jersey Shore style fist pumping (One of us is Italian, the other two are New Jersey natives. It was bound to happen) Nothing doing. Before we departed, we were made to promise to return the next weekend in order to teach them more, “American dancing” We promised we would.
Next up was the opportunity for some well earned food. We bid farewell to our new friends who, if I’m not too bold in saying, seemed particularly taken with Orlando who looks the most Brazilian out of the 3 of us, and headed to Dom Pizza, a local pizza parlor. Upon arriving, we grabbed one of the huge menus and spent almost 20 minutes leafing through what could have been a world atlas for the number of pages it had. It had everything ranging from Calabrese to Portuguese to Carne Carne to Big Chicken (Not sure why the one spot of English on an otherwise entirely Portuguese menu). We ended up getting one “Gigante” (Extra Large) with half Calabrese and half Queijo (Cheese) and one Grande (Large) with half Portuguese and half Atum (Tuna) Plates, forks and knives were brought to the table along with two liters of Guarana soda (Guarana is a fruit native to Brazil and one of the main ingredients in Red Bull and other energy drinks) and I knew this was going to be an interesting ride.
I will say this for the Brazilians; they don’t shirk from a challenge. The pizza I had that night was extremely different from anything I’ve ever had before but I have to say, not bad. Quite possibly the biggest difference I noticed in between American pizza and Brazilian pizza was the lack of gravy (Tomato sauce for all you non-Italians out there, red stuff for anyone who was still confused) They had dough and they had toppings but the subtlety of a base layer between topping and crust was lost on these wonderful people. My heart goes out to them.
All told, every slice I had (*cough* one of each, I have no discipline *cough*) was pretty delicious. The cheese pie (I was expecting just mozzarella……..I'm just going to stop having expectations here) had mozzarella, some type of Brazilian cheese I’ve noticed making an appearance at breakfast every once in a while and one other type that legitimately looked like a lighter version of Easy Cheez squirted in semi random patterns all over the pie. Good though. The Calabrese was large covered with meat (ham and honestly, not quite sure what else. Either some type of salami or sausage but the jury’s out) and had a little mozzarella as well. The Portuguese was covered with hard boiled eggs, green olives, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Interesting, but not terrible. And finally, the tuna was mostly just tuna but also had some onions on there as well and contrasted well with the cheese. When in Rio, I suppose….
One of the other big differences I noticed (which I was warned about by DFL but largely ignored until I saw it with my own eyes) was that people in Brazil eat pizza with a fork and knife. I glanced up before I started eating and noticed that despite my host cadete friend telling me that people do both, not a single person in the entire restaurant (which included a couple very, very interested in each other, 3 older gentlemen with stained jeans and cigarettes, puffing about below a, “Nao Fumar” sign (Don’t Smoke), what seemed to be a birthday party of six 8 year olds with a few parents, and a few teenagers in the back near the soda machine) was eating pizza with their hands. I was blown away. I started using my knife and fork and to my surprise, the crust cut quite easily, as if this pizza was meant to be consumed by utensil. Interesting.
We finished both pies and, stomachs full, meandered back to the larangeira to change back into our uniforms. After a long night of dancing and pizza, it was time to call it a night. Not our last session of forro, nor our final Brazilian pizza for sure. Next time, my adventures at Airborne School and Rio de Janeiro!
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