I took the overnight bus from Fortaleza to Joao Pessoa this week to meet with my collaborator, Dr. Rosa at the Universidade Federal Da Paraiba. It was a nice coach bus with air conditioning and seats that reclined a little. The ride by bus to Joao Pessoa was about 11 hours long. I arrived in JP, Joao Pessoa, and had three days to spare before my meetings, so I, of course, found a little tiny beachside town, Caripibus and spent three days whiling away in a hammock, sipping caiparinhas, thinking about what my upcoming meetings would bring.
The day finally comes, when I leave the sleepy bungalo life of Praia de Caripibus to venture off into the “working” world of Joao Pessoa and Ierece Rosa. Dr. Rosa is a vibrantly young woman in her late forties whose enthusiasm for seahorses and life is absolutely inspiring. She is a brazilian bundle of energy, and I’m ready to meet her enthusiasm straight on with some of my own. We go to her lab at the University where I get to meet some of her grad students, one of which, Gabi, I will be venturing off into the field with in a few days. Over the next 4 days, Ierece and Gaby show me the beauties of life in Joao Pessoa (which includes the eastern most tip of South America, the point that could literally fit back into Africa, and two very nice restaurants where red meat and mainly only red meat is served with three different types of carbs (rice, pasta AND mashed potatoes) and help me to navigate the craziness of Carnaval.
The streets for Carnaval are jam packed with people. They closed the main street, which is atleast 10 km long and there are more people than you can almost imagine living in JP, dressed in crazy costumes with music blaring from all around. People dancing, drinking, selling food and souveneirs right on the street. If you look up or down the street it looks like a never ending sea of people. The Festa da Virgins, which unfortunately I have no pictures from, is a festival honoring Virgins by having the males dress up like females.
Hilarious! I have never seen so many men making such concertedly good, and at times scaringly convincing efforts to express their feminine sides! So all throughout the crowded streets, every single male from young child to monsignor elder is dressed like a woman in everything from skirts, to dresses, to bikini tops and bright fluorescent wigs. Oh my! What a scene to behold.Caranaval is celebrated in Joao Pessoa a little differently, as I’m told, than elsewhere in Brazil. It’s actually celebrated a week earlier than everyplace else. The Carnival celebrations in JP include large street parties that go on every night for a week before Carnaval happens. Each street party has a theme; the two that I ventured to go see with Gabi where the Festa da Virgens (Virgin Festival) and the Moricocas (Large Giant Mosquito Festival).
To the side you will see the giant figurine of the Moricocas, some sort of scary caricature of a mosquito that is absurdly larger than life. The Moricocas festival started off as a group of people from a neighborhood organizing a themed party with costumes for carnaval. One year they got so many people to participate, someone erected a crazy moricocas figurine and it has been a designated street party ever since.
I only got to see two of the parties in the week’s celebration of Carnaval in JP but the crazy costumes, music and overall enthusiasm and reveling were awesome!
No comments:
Post a Comment