Oh well. Let the Feridas (Holidays) begin! Having been invited by our close compadre Carlos (Barra) for short. Actually, I should mention that it was his idea. We we first met our friend he wore his hair very long and brushed straight. Another common practice of Carlos was to complain about the "pretty boy haircuts, worn by the playboys living in Barra da Tajuca." Too our great surprise, he soon cut his hair in this same stylish 'do'. Thus they name Barra was born and to my knowledge he still wears his hair in this same fashion. With a strong sense of right and wrong, he is a close friend and constantly attended to our needs and helped translate when we had difficulty. Barra even frequented the mission when he was unemployed and spent time with the children and doing construction, and I look forward to seeing him in North Carolina very soon. So Brazilians, and friends in th states, if you meet Carlos Eduardo please refer to him by his prefered name, Barra.
Here is a picture of me and Barra having dinner before he cut off his long Brasilian locks!
So to continue my story, Barra had invited us to meet some of his friends who were hosting a Brazilian BBQ. Being from NC I take great pride in my states ability to make the best barbeque world wide. This, however, was a different experience entirely. Meat is chopped very finely and a tiny grill is used. Thus every 10-20 minutes small portions are finished cooking and are enjoyed while more meat/food is placed on a grill which is only a foot or two in perimeter.
Let me explain the process. You sit, eat, drink, talk, cook, eat, talk, drink, cook some more, eat more, cook something different, talk more, eat more, more drinking, followed by more cooking, talking, drinking, eating, ect. You continue this proceedure until lunch, snack, and dinner are long past and it is say 8 or 9 p.m. and that is when you realize that there is no way can eat even one more tiny cut of steak, the very last bite of chicken, or jiblet of sausage as it comes off the grill. Yes, I think I have thoroughly explained and everyone can appreciate just how wonderful everything about the experience truely is.
After eating for a solid eight hours we were taken to a back street ally which soon filled with Brazilians, Europeans, and Americans. A band began playing and soon I was informed that this was in fact the very birthplace of Brazil's infamous Samba! Although I quickly became aware of the fact that the Samba is one of the most difficult dances to learn and even the most basic steps cannot be learned without much practice, I did practice hard an made a full effort to learn. Late in the evening as the band became silent, we drifted home. Knowing the proximity of such an interesting location was incentive enough to practice the samba and return to show off our 'skills'. Ok so to be honest we never showed off any skills, but we did practice and returned to our new found local secret on several occasions.
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