10 January, 2009

Salgueiro Samba School is a mass of concrete, rising up from the street neighborhood, constructed to be useful with the purposeful pride of Socialism.  Tonight’s Carnaval rehearsal is a party, the massive hall full, a claustrophobic’s nightmare with a thousand intimate sweaty bodies.   The hall was painted with Salgueiro’s colors red and white, checkered in mesmerizing fashion.  The band’s balcony hung precipitously on one side of the hall and we stood for four hours, listening. 

 

A white belt’s rise is scarred with painful mistakes. My last training session I found myself in a series of four crushing arm-bars by superior fighters.  I am constantly impressed with new ways the body experiences pain.  My technique is improving, and this past week I have made it more difficult for my opposition.  I have yet to accept rest over the chance to fight again, forcing me to improve technique. 

 

I walked out of my apartment building on New Year’s Eve and was struck by the flood of a thousand people walking in the same direction.  It was one hour until midnight and the streets were flooded with people wearing white.  I joined them in parade and met Luciano and the others at the Copacabana beach.  The fireworks started exactly at midnight, and two million people cheered, cried, and hoped for the future. 

 

 

An odyssey of physical and mental anguish broken by moments of clarity of purpose and blissful understanding

(my description of Boulder Outdoor Survival School)

 

We gathered in a circle in Utah’s high mountain desert.  Across the grassy valley stood a black sheep, looking at us, seemingly knowing what was to come.  The lead instructor had us draw straws to determine who would kill the animal.  My straw was the shortest.  Laurel, our lead instructor, asked if my knife was sharp.  I said yes.  We walked across the valley and gathered around the sheep.  Next to the sheep a hole was dug and a coffee can was placed inside.  We laid the sheep down so its neck was above the can.  With my left hand I found the carotid artery.  I unsheathed my knife and placed the tip at the artery.  I quickly placed my left hand on the butt of the knife and forcefully plunged the knife straight down, then towards me to complete the severing of the artery.  The group held the sheep down.  I sat on my knees and watched as the blood drained into the bucket, and the sheep’s life faded.  The next two days we processed the animal in the tradition of the Native Americans.  The act of killing the sheep was shockingly emotional for me, and I sought to understand why it was not during the war, with real human lives. 

 

 

Be wary of security as a goal.  It may often look like life’s best prize,  usually it is not.

William Zinnser

 

The discipline is not to jump to fast.  If you jump to a form to quickly it won’t have the understood meaning you want for it

(Maya Lin – Chinese American designer of Vietnam Veterans Memorial)

 

It has been seven weeks in Rio.  The existential anxiety I previously mentioned has calmed.  However, I do still experience the desire to be busy for busy’s sake.  I continually attempt to mentally crush the outdated yet still practiced deferred life plan.

 

Back at Salgueiro the drums and beer have my mind in a daze, and I think about Rio.  The daily flow of life is like any other city, we slowly catch our vans and buses to somewhere else, I arrive Rocinha in the morning and wonder why the streets are always wet.  We talk of places far away, war in Iraq and the Gaza Strip, we shake our heads and ask why.  Intensely complicated politics, intricate diplomacy, and long term strategy are not discussed, only the number killed, and only vague, incomplete attempts to understand are made.  But here a thin cloud of fear shrouds the dream of Rio, the stark contrast of rich and poor overlaps, socioeconomic conditions giving birth to violence, the constant reminder that we too are at war.  But we gather at street parties, beaches, and churches to celebrate life, perhaps more intensely here, the margin between life and death is thinner.