The red eagle has landed
So I is baizack from Brazilil baby. Although nothing will ever top my three month stay from 2003, this trip may have been the best concentrated two weeks Ih ave spent in Brazil. The first half of thr trip, spent in a nice hotel in Rio was a bit stressful- for the majority of that time I was in charge of about 15 kids 14-19 who spoke virtually no Portuguese and were clueless as to how to get around Brazil. When you are dealing with this large of a group, in a foreign country, a simple decision like which beach or which mall we are going to go to takes more than an hour- we must get eeryone's input, then get everyone ready and together in one space, then figure out how we can safely get there in seperate cabs or on the bus- 4 cabs is begging for osmeone to get lost or ripped off, a group of 20 or so gringos on an already crowded bus begs for someone to get mugged. As such, the first week kept me mostly tied up playing babysitter in a hotel, on a cab or bus, and always being watchful at the World Congress. YEs the ABADA Capoeira World Congress was the reason for this trip- ABADA capoeira is in about 30 countries and representatives from eac of those countries were in Rio for this congress all leading up to the World Games in which 4 of the most important and closest people to me competed!!!- John/Milho, Ryan/Pastor, Freddy/Furacao, and Tony/Pirata. FUracao represented the US, Milho represented Dominican Republic, Pastir represented Guiena, and PIrata represented Jamaica. It was Psator and PIratas first time competing on such a grand scale, the second time for Milho and I believe the 4th time for Furacao. Very exciting business. Milho lasted through the second key while the others got cut in the first but all did me proud. FUracao also changed rank, he is now purple brown and remains the highest ranked foreignor in teh gorup and he is on track to be the first foreign Mestrando. After the games and the congress we went to CEMB, the farm of our Master Mestre Camisa. I was not anticipating much fun on the farm but to my surprise it was amazing. I had been there before but this time was the best for several reasons. The trainings were excellent as usual, usually 4 times a day, with little exception the weather was great, and the addition of the bootcamp / ewok style obstacle course in the trees was fucking awesome. BUt the most significant factor in making this trip so much fun was the company in addition to our group from NY there were about ten people there from Israel and another ten from Russian, and 5 from Belgium, and one from France. We all got along great, there were many late nights of "this is a what...a what..ah yeah..." and of course marathon UNO games. I also got very friendly with a very attractive Russian girl who for all purposes was "my girl" for four days. There is so much mroe to tell but my desire to type is so little- for exmaple I coudl go on about how much I missed and how great reuniting with the Goiania crew was, how cool it was to get around the streets on my own a bit with my POrtuguese, how surprised I was at how many people remembered me, how Mestre Camisa called me by name on 4 seperate insances but i will get into all that in person, I mean I don't even want to type about my time in the Brazilian strip club but I will say this next time I leave the state for an extended period I will be using myspace in advance to line up from foreign female fun ASAP...Great new friends were made, old friends were seen again, and tighter bonds were formed between myself and other NY'ers. Brazil 2005 was great.