It was a pale gray day, nestled into a pale gray customs line in Washington D.C. A rare combination of wan sky and fluorescent light that can blanche the most tropical of tans and leave a salty rime on any peaceful post-vacation countenance. Travel-weary people answered questions for occupationally mistrustful officials. I shambled along with the rest of the zombies. 'Welcome home,' I thought.

Au (a-Oo): Cartwheel, typically used as an escape in Capoeira. Also the movement a player uses to enter the roda (ring).

In the Afro-Brazilian martial art of Capoeira, each participant enters the ring with a cartwheel, or au. Spinning into the dance-fight, you are literally made to turn yourself upside-down. You go from clapping and singing to acrobatic spins and kicks and flips. Inverted expectations and deception rule the art of Capoeira, which was developed secretly by African slaves in Brazil. The music and dance elements served to hide the true purpose from overseers. When the musicians saw no masters, the beat was played one way, and the participants would spar. When they noticed someone coming, they would change the rhythm, and the overseers would notice only the slaves dancing to music.

I began studying Capoeira in the Twin Cities under Yoji Senna late in 1992. One year later, the class was offered the opportunity to study under Yoji's father, Carlos, in Bahia, Brazil, the birthplace of the art, and many of us scrambled to make it possible. After months of planning and meetings, the core of the group put together a two-month long trip. Erin, my former co-worker, had introduced me to the art when we worked together at the Hard Times Café. Jon and Vanessa, the most dedicated and senior students of the class, looked at Capoeira as a link to their African heritage. Robert was also searching for his African roots. He looked every bit the native Brazilian (to the extent that he routinely got hassled by the military police when we were out and about. I guess profiling is the same everywhere). The rest of the group consisted of Imani, Erika, Lisa and Nicole. I liked them all as far as it went, but we really didn't have the same interests.

As the date approached, I scraped and saved everywhere I could. Even so, I was not able to realistically afford the trip. After a long period of reflection (perhaps ten minutes) I decided to stop paying my student loans and go. I can't say that it was the responsible thing to do, but it seemed an easy decision at the time.

Still, sitting in my post-flight daze, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. It wouldn't be like going to just another, more intensive studio to study. I was in a very different land. January was June here. I entered Sao Salvador, Brazil's third-largest city, with only the most rudimentary understanding of Portuguese. Unlike comparatively lily-white Minneapolis, Sao Salvador's populace was about eighty-five percent Afro-Brazilian. I would be a mute minority. We were but a few hundred miles from where escaped slaves and indigenous tribes fleeing Portuguese persecution created Palmaires, a confederation of quilombos, or independent communities of former slaves. It became a kingdom that lasted for over one hundred years. The Portuguese gave up trying to destroy it and opened trade with Palmaires. The Dutch, however, were less forgiving toward the first African-controlled nation in the Western Hemisphere. They destroyed it in a brutal purge when they briefly controlled what is now the northeast of Brazil.

So, here I was, preparing to study a martial art of slave liberation, just another white cultural tourist seeking connection to a world so rudely sculpted for my benefit. This thought struck me as we drove past the red brick favelas, or shacks, which crusted the poor outskirts of the city like ruddy, unevenly stacked dice. Everything in Sao Salvador seemed upside down to me, or maybe I was upside down to it. I thought about this as I saw the fragrant, black streams of the open sewers running to the sea. When would the entry cartwheel turn? When would I find my feet?

On the eastern side of the Baia de Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints), the city streets wind in crazy curls up and down its hilly peninsula. The weary members of the group piled out of our cabs as we came to a stop on our home street for the next two months, Rua Tuiuti. A red metal gate opened onto a concrete ramp leading down into an avocado shaped courtyard. The only door that opened onto it was gray, with a metal gate door in front of it, painted in the same bright red as the gate at the top of the ramp. Within, the Senavox Capoeira Studio presented a rather humble and sad face for Brazil's third Capoeira academy.

Run down after years of having no students, the school languished, spare and dusty but otherwise still clean. The floor, all smooth concrete, was painted dark green, while the walls were rough white stucco. The cantina, all three by seven feet of it, sat immediately inside the door. It had obviously not been used in some time. Salvador's tap water, often called liquid cholera, flowed from the taps in a small steel sink. A Formica counter warped and crumbled in an uneven ring around the sink, the empty (though functional) refrigerator and the odd little propane stove. The stove was not working, and we ended up having to buy another one as a group, as eating out for every meal was not an option for some of our budgets. From the door, looking to the left of the cantina, the large open studio space sat, ringed with a familiarly bright red metal railing along the walls, like in a dance studio. Of course, this dance studio had a punching bag hanging from one corner.

Our first day in country whirred by in a confusion of meandering around with Brazilians arguing about where we should buy all the things that we still needed. We needed to get pads to roll out on the concrete and sleep on, since no beds were available. We needed to get forty liters of water for drinking, at the beverage wholesaler just up the hill on Rua Carlos Gomes. We would visit Depositas Silvao, a maze of soda, beer and water crates, six times a week (they were never open on Sundays, in a parallel that felt irritatingly familiar to we Minnesotans). There, the owner with the perpetually-swimming red eyes and the .45 tucked into the back waistband of his pants sold us the first of what would be nearly three-thousand liters of water by the time we left.

A parade of what would become important places whipped by us for the rest of the day: Mestre (master) Senna's apartment on the Avenida Princessa Isabel, the nearest supermarket, nearest bank with decent exchange rates, the nearest bus stop, the nearest Baiana with good acaraje. Acaraje is a wonderful African bean dumpling fried in palm oil and served with peppers, shrimp or whatever else might be handy. This is Bahian fast food. The Baianas (literally, woman from Bahia) were street vendors dressed in flowing white gowns and white headscarves. Many of them looked to have grown in place; their deeply lined faces and weathered, warm smiles greeted customers seemingly any time of day. We never needed to worry about finding the nearest bar. One would be hard pressed to go two hundred feet in any direction from our door and not pass a bar.
As we spent the first few days settling in, our little group of nine Minnesotan students explored the beers, beaches and parties of Sao Salvador. I predictably burned to a crisp. We found our feet in the world of sun, surf and cerveza. We even came to peace with the fact that, every time the lights went out (and often before) waves of huge cockroaches would skitter over every surface in the room, slumbering students included. After the initial horrid few days, I trained myself to think of them as really big ants that could fly. Somehow that helped.

Meia Lua (may-a Loo-a): Literally, half-moon. A frontal high crescent kick that is one of the most basic attacks in Capoeira. Often used to develop momentum for beginning a spin kick.

When classes began, our days took on an entirely different structure. Capoeira classes at home had been more about form, athletics and music. Here in the birthplace of the art, we were worked hard. Only Yoji and his younger sister Deca could translate for us as our instructors barked out their orders in Portuguese. Contact, always avoided at home, became the order of the day in drills and sparring. I remember the first time I got kicked in the face during drills. Back home, we would have stopped class. Ice would have been forthcoming, followed by profuse apologies. In Brazil, Jon was scolded for saying he was sorry, and complemented on his form. The contrast sank in as the rest of the class was ordered to stop gawking and continue. Here, we would be tested. Here, we would have only the sympathy of the concrete floor when a foot sweep brought us low.

The patterns of class were hard to grasp as we parsed out what we were being asked to do. Yoji's father would sit impassively behind his former students as they ran us through drills and movements. Only once in a while would he halt class with a gruff "ie!" At that sound, everyone would stop, either to listen to what the Mestre said, or to wait for an interpretation. The need for interpretation faded over time, of course; there is something about the possibility of physical harm that sharpens the mind. At least in the context of Capoeira, I began to comprehend what was said around me. The nuances and context might be grasped even as the words themselves remained unknown.

With his imposing belly and inscrutable face, we often called Mestre Senna the Buddha Man, though never in his presence. His Capoeira name (practitioners often earn nicknames over the course of their careers, though I never earned one myself), however, had been Onça Negra, the Black Panther. He had been a student of Manoel dos Reis Machado, Mestre Bimba, the man who worked to get Capoeira legalized in the '30s. Prior to that, it had been outlawed, and practitioners often fought with constables in the streets at night. It was said that the best fighters kept collections of nightsticks as trophies. Though I asked Mestre Senna about this, he was vague, saying through Deca, "those were different times." He pointed to the plaque commending his work in teaching Capoeira concepts at the military police academy. Even when I was there, years after he had stopped training at the police academy, whenever he passed military police officers in the street, they would salute him. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but the former street tough always seemed uncomfortable in returning their salutes.

Mestre Senna's path had certainly been toward respectability, whatever the truth about his youthful activities. He had been the first of Mestre Bimba's students to establish an academy. He had trained two national Capoeira champions. Even in his seventies, the man swam five miles a day, and when he walked, the muscles of his calves rippled like a bag of snakes. The other instructors were frighteningly facile in the art, yet even they looked nervous sparring with the Buddha Man.

Every day, after a respectful salve (salutation) to the stern portrait of Mestre Bimba, we anointed the green floors with gallons of our sweat. We rose, ate, and then worked out from nine until noon. After six hours to ourselves (usually to eat, shop, wander and maybe go to the beach), we returned and did it all over again from six until nine at night. Day and night, we practiced our movements, shadow-fought and then worked with partners. On special days, usually once or twice a week, we would have a roda and apply what we had learned in (usually) low-key sparring. Finally, each session ended with two hundred pushups and two hundred sit-ups. Twice a day for five days a week, I left human-shaped sweat prints on the floor as I stumbled to the cold showers.

The group would generally eat together before the morning class and after the night class, but the middle of the day, we would do our own thing. I couldn't even say what most of the class did for lunch. Jon, Vanessa, Robert and I would usually stick close to the studio and look for good neighborhood spots. We didn't have to go far, as the best local place sat just across the Rua Carlos Gomes from Depositas Silvao.

The irony of traveling several thousand miles to eat at a local lunch counter nearly every day was not lost on me. Still, after a cautious scan of the street, we would cross into the tiny alley and scan the day's menu. The Frango Café consisted of a tiny storefront in an alley, with perhaps three tables and a counter wide enough for four people to stand and order or drink. They served excellent lunches, usually either chicken or beef, served with rice and beans. On Fridays, their fish stew was amazing. Washed down with a guarana soda, this humble but delicious repast kept me connected to the neighborhood.

Silvao, the beverage seller from Depositas Silvao, revealed the secret of his swimming red eyes, as he would order two shots of whisky for lunch every day. He would sling them down, growl out his greetings to whomever was about, adjust his gun off-handedly and nod to the proprietors on his way out. The tired-looking man who patiently answered questions about what the words for various foods were would eat his food and read the paper, before leaving to prepare for his night job as transvestite emcee of the local karaoke bar. The place became a mainstay, and most morning classes would end in Jon or I wheezing out "Frango?"

I was not out and about as much as a lot of the class at night, and, as a result, I would often volunteer to do the breakfast shopping. I also wanted to get away from the roomful of grumpy, hung-over people just stirring from a fitful sleep. The group became an ever-more difficult thing to be around, living in close quarters as we were. Little irritations became magnified in the studio, and I found it increasingly easier to wander around on errands surrounded by people I couldn't talk to than to spend time with my fellow students.

At six or seven in the morning, the streets were relatively quiet, the white and black mosaic sidewalks still moist from the night time showers that heralded nearly every dawn. Up Rua Faisca, merely five blocks or so from the studio, the morning vegetable and fruit market burbled like a coffee maker with the languid, sleepy commerce of mangos, bananas, warm bread rolls and avocados the size of softballs. No one ever hurried in Sao Salvador. Brazil has a formidable reputation for relaxed pace, and other Brazilians consider Bahians lazy. The morning market, however, was cartoonishly laid-back. It remains perhaps the only place I have ever felt utter serenity while shopping.

Cabeçada (ka-bay-Sa-da): Head-strike or head-butt. The only acceptable method for attacking someone who is in the midst of an au. Usually delivered to the torso to knock the opponent over, rather than as an impact strike.

Of course, we did more than practice our spin kicks and buy food. Evenings out on the town were an expected part of Bahian life. The Pelourinho, Salvador's historical district, had drum bands playing every night and a lively combination of scenesters, tourists and locals who preyed on tourists. The buildings had been restored, all painted in the rainbow colors of Portuguese port towns, with a cobblestone plaza that was covered in revelers every night. Paul Simon's video for the song Rhythm of the Saints was filmed here, with the help of Banda Olodum, the Afro-Brazilian drum band that appears in the video and throughout the album. The bits in the video where two guys are spinning and kicking and flipping? That's Capoeira. We were also lucky enough to be in Bahia for Carnival.

Despite comparisons, perhaps inevitable, to the plumed parades of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival, or the grinding, darkly sexual surge of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Carnival in Bahia is an entirely singular event. The city of three million doubles in size as (primarily Brazilian) people pour in for the six-day festival. When I was there, Bahian Carnival music was banned in neighboring states to stem the flow of people to the city. Judging from the surging crowds that joined me in the streets on my twenty-fourth birthday, this ban was laughably ineffective.

There is something to be said for having six million people celebrate your birthday with you. Every stop we would make amidst the throngs and blocos (parade groups), my Brazilian guides would mention that it was my birthday. "Feliz anniversario!" the cry would go up, followed by a beer or caipirinha (think non-blended daiquiri made with cachaça instead of rum). Around us, the milling millions danced, drank, ate and did literally everything else people do out in the streets.

Four in the morning found us playing soccer in the streets with a group of kids and a well-worn ball. In all honesty, we were more pylons and obstacles for the kids to dribble around than actual opponents, and any successful kick was cause for a drunken cheer. As we wound through the streets back to the neighborhood we lived in, I realized that I was the soberest of the crew. When we arrived back at the studio just after dawn, the street crews were hosing down the sidewalks, pushing the pervasive smell of piss into the background for a couple hours, until the parades began again at 10 am.

Each day at that time, the huge trio electricals (semi trucks where the trailer is one huge sound system with a stage for a band on top) paraded the music around us. We, and everyone else, would wander the streets, getting progressively drunker and dodging the police columns as they threaded through the crowds with their cattle prods. Each bloco would pass with their trio electrical and trailing bar truck engulfed in like-attired revelers surrounded by a massive rope-and-human wall. Theoretically, only members of each bloco would be allowed within, but I noticed that the blonde girls of our group had little trouble passing into any bloco of their choice. I think I got inside of one once, but that possibility remains a hazy uncertainty to me, like so much of Carnival.

And really, that was why only the first three days of Carnival were fun. Beyond that point, the continual noise and inescapable odor of urine became too much to ignore. I remember waking to the first bass thump in the ground as the fifth morning's parades began and looking over to Jon, whose eyes had snapped open at exactly the same time.

"Here we go again, Matt. Ready for it?"

Through the cachaça vapors and attendant headache, I replied, "Now I know why Deca and all them asked if we wanted to go to the island for Carnival."

"Had to see what it was like."

"Yep. And now we never have to do it again.

Cocorinha (ko-ko-Reen-ya): Literally, to defecate. Named for what it looks like when the practitioner squats low to the ground. One of the basic defensive movements of the art.

We got back to our routine after Carnival was over. By that time, six weeks of close quarters living and sleeping on blue foam mats on concrete floors had worn at the patience of the group. We split into little factions, and spent nearly no time with more than one or two of our classmates, barring the occasional group excursion.

Evenings would find Erika, Erin, Lisa and Nicole off for the Pelourinho, or the stretch of bars and beaches near the upscale part of town. Imani would sometimes join them, or go and do whatever it was she did. I would be the last to go out, and usually tried to stay in the area. When I did go out, unless it was some large group excursion, it was with Jon, Vanessa and sometimes Robert. When even they got bored of hanging out with me, I would read or write in the peace of the studio, or wander up to the karaoke bar and listen to the drag queens sing show tunes in Portuguese, or just lose myself in the chatter of the local bars. My only link to the people around me would be a nod and a "meis uma cerveza, por favor." Asking for more beer seemed, at those times, like all the conversation I would ever need.

When the homebodies did go out, we would wander around the local bars, playing 'guy or girl' as we tried to determine the gender of the local streetwalkers. Apparently, for a six or so block stretch of Rua Carlos Gomes centered on the karaoke bar (perhaps unsurprisingly), we lived in the drag queen capitol of Sao Salvador. Often, the game was quite difficult, other times it was laughably easy (usually when there were mustaches involved). Regardless of relative ease, we never noticed a difference in the frequency a particular individual would be propositioned.

On lower energy nights, we would make the walk up to the Sorvete Campo Grande for ice cream. The flavors here have never been matched anywhere else I have gone. Twenty or more tropical fruits took their place alongside more familiar flavors. It was there that Roque, one of our instructors, gave Jon some crucial wisdom on what fruits to avoid.

Jon had just ordered maracuja, or passion fruit. Roque came from two places back in the line to wave off the order.

"Nao, nao maracuja!" He waived his hands and shook his head emphatically. "Maracuja, para mujer," he said, pointing to Vanessa, "sim!" He smiled broadly, giving a big thumbs-up. "Maracuja, para homem," he pointed to Jon, and then held his index finger straight up, "eeeooouw." With the little noise, his finger slowly curled down to point limp at the floor. There could be no mistaking his meaning. I have never knowingly eaten anything with passion fruit in it since.

Another night, Gilson, one of our other instructors, took the four of us to a samba club in Liberdade. Liberdade is not what one would consider a safe neighborhood, and an unsafe neighborhood in Salvador is a far more daunting prospect than one here. I remember reading some of the literature on tourist safety in Brazil before we left. One of the main points that came up repeatedly was that Brazilian street criminals often have nothing to lose. They have no problem killing people who offer even the least amount of resistance. This fact was heartily seconded by our Brazilian hosts.

Still, we were eager to see the place, and, with Gilson along, we felt perfectly safe. A long, white-knuckle cab ride later (I also remember reading somewhere that the three nations with the highest number of per capita traffic deaths were Brazil, Portugal and Angola, the three largest Portuguese speaking countries in the world…this was after a few days in Salvador, and I was in no way surprised), we arrived at a side street. The music pulsed from the next street over, and we turned a corner and looked down into a vast open cul-de-sac with people filling it from side to side. More people danced on the roofs of nearby buildings. A series of corrugated metal sheets hung over the plywood-sheets-on-sawhorses that served as bars to one side. So this was the club?

Everywhere, the people drank and danced. Good sambistas are amazing to watch. They seem to have no bones in their legs as they dance. Our initial forays were nothing but pathetic imitations. It took several beers and a bottle of gingibe (a ginger-cachaça mixture which kicks twice) to get fluid enough not to be embarrassed, or at least not to care anymore. Jon, Robert, Vanessa and I all danced in our tight group, having a ball. At one point, coming back from the bar, I saw a really large man coming my way. Admittedly, as one of maybe three white people in the entire crowd, I would have been easy to spot. I was too tipsy to feel at all threatened, though, and kept going to deliver my friends' precious beers. The man followed, tapped me on the shoulder and I noticed he had a revolver in his hand, pointed at me. He started speaking really fast in Portuguese. I had no idea what he was saying.

Maybe I was just too drunk to be scared, but I remember turning, confused, to Jon and saying, "hey, does this guy have a gun, or am I seeing things?"

"Oh, shit!" Jon's eyes got really big. "No, that's a gun! Where's Gilson?"

Our instructor/guide was nowhere to be seen. "Okay," I said. I turned back to the man with the gun. He wouldn't have needed a gun, in any case; he was at least six-three and built like a truck. Perhaps it was lucky that I was so out of it on the samba high and the gingibe, but I just turned to the guy and held out the bottle. "Gingibe? Agosto gingibe?"

His face broke into a broad grin, and he took the bottle and sipped. "Obrigado," the erstwhile mugger thanked me. He then proceeded to describe his gun to us, taking out the bullets and showing us that they were "hollow-pointe." He showed us his other gun; a little automatic that he kept in his sock. Robert bought him a beer. He jabbered on amiably for some time, until Gilson returned and clapped him on the back. After much drunken, muddled parsing, it turned out that they knew each other. Apparently, this had been some sort of practical joke on Gilson's part. At some point, I lost interest in all the explanations that I could barely follow and just started dancing. According to my classmates, I looked like I had been sambaing my whole life right then. It must be remembered that they were as drunk as I was.

Bençao (Bane-som): Literally, blessing. A front kick or foot-jab, meant to catch the target in the chest with the flat of the foot.

After that, we didn't go out as much. It seemed a mixed blessing to me that it was probably my tenuous grasp of Portuguese that kept me out of trouble that night. At the same time, among people that I could talk to, I limited my communication to the necessary. As the trip wore on, I needed more and more to escape the tension of my classmates. I even avoided the few Brazilians I knew who spoke English. Admittedly, in Deca's case, that was because I had been told she had a crush on me. I (foolishly, in retrospect) let my fear of her father scare me away. In my defense, Mestre Senna was truly terrifying, and I didn't like to think what might happen if he were to disapprove. Still, perhaps it was exactly my habit of quiet observation that drew Brazilians to me.

I am reminded of one particular night we spent out in the country, an hour or two out of the city. As night fell, we gathered on the wide porch in front of the house/general store we were visiting, one of Yoji's relatives on his mother's side, I believe. The area was all dirt roads and shack houses made of cinderblock and corrugate, surrounded by banana and Mango trees. We drank beer in the evening breeze. The area was markedly different than the city, and the man of the house and his friend stood towering off to one side with their machetes in their belts. I don't know what it was about really huge armed men in Brazil, but out of nowhere, Deca informed me that they wanted me to go with them.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"I don't know. They didn't say."

"Well, let's go then." I got up and looked back at everyone else. They all stayed put. The two men said something else to Deca.

"Just you, Matt."

"Just me?" I looked back at the rest of the group. They just shrugged.

Moments later, I found myself walking down winding dirt roads in the dark with two machete-carrying men I couldn't talk to. Ahead of me, they would mutter and chuckle; big, deep chuckles and rumbling mutters that took on an increasingly sinister cast as we walked. The entire walk, I occupied myself, looking into the darkness pooling around trees and the odd juxtaposition of cement shacks lit by the familiar glow of television.

Finally, we rounded a bend and came upon a set of mini-pool tables lit by fluorescent lights hanging from the ubiquitous corrugate, with what looked like a wooden tool shed off to one side. There was just one person, sitting on a stool and leaning on the shack. He looked like a human shaped piece of beef jerky. My guides waved at him. He produced three beers from a cooler in the shed. One of my guides began racking up the tiny balls on the table. We proceeded to play some variation of nine-ball on the little table, keeping score with chalk on the table itself. After a few games, our host produced a five-gallon pickle bucket and ladled a glass of its contents out for each of us. It was clear with a vaguely purplish tint to it. Tiny particles floated amidst the ice. It smelled like you could use it to peel paint.

Apparently, it was homemade raisin rum, of indeterminate (but potent) proof. I took my proffered glass and took a sip. It tasted like nothing so much as Bacardi 151, and was doubtless of similar strength. By the time I finished the glass, the rest of the class had arrived. I don't remember the walk back to where we were staying. It was never explained to me why the two men wanted me to go with them. They had stayed to themselves when we had arrived earlier. They had only nodded and grunted when any of us had tried to talk to them during the day. Still, the most fun I had during our whole sojourn out to the country was had laughing and drinking and playing pool with two men I spoke no more than ten words to all told.

One of the last mornings that I was in Brazil, I went into the Unimar, the super market where we did the shopping we couldn't do at the street market. The checkout woman grabbed my arm as I was checking out, and began commenting on my tattoos. This happened often enough that I knew what most of the words were, though they are gone to me now. It happened enough that it was no longer disconcerting to me to have people passing me in the street grab my arm and begin excitedly discussing my tattoos. Something about that connection and openness appealed to a hungry heart hidden within Midwestern reserve.

When I placed the day's groceries on the counter, I smiled as the checkout woman gently lifted my right hand off the five-pound bag of mangos (that went for the scandalously high price of about seven dollars-I had been too late to get to the farmer's market that morning). I loved the blessing of casual communication. Bahians always seemed willing to open their circle to new people, even if only for a moment. I delighted in these moments of inclusion. By comparison, Minnesotans walked their streets surrounded by a curtain, a thin smile painted on to maintain the appearance of niceness. The woman traced the line of the vines tattooed on my forearm. She commented on how much she liked them and wanted to know what they meant. I replied, in what broken Portuguese I could muster, answering all her questions as best I was able. I remember apologizing at the end.

"Desculpe, meu Portuguese es muito, muito mal."

She responded that I spoke beautiful Portuguese, and that I shouldn't be so hard on myself. It never occurred to me that I knew those words. I wandered back, through the heat of midday, back to the studio and the group. I remember feeling, walking back with my arms full of groceries, how sad it was that I was just getting to understand the language then, only a week before we would be leaving.

I walked on, the bustle and color of Sao Salvador whirling around me. The brilliant midday sun drew sweat in well-worn patterns on my skin. Nearly every person who passed nodded and grinned. We would often exchange a quick "bon dia," or "ciao." The tatters of my Minnesotan curtain scattered with the trash on the streets as I made my way back to the Senavox studio. I gave a friendly wave to Silvao, drunk, heavily armed, yet smiling even so, and turned down the Rua Tuiuti. I was home again.

Jinga (Jin-ga): The basic dance of Capoeira, from which all moves stem. It is rhythmic and meant to disguise the art as a dance form, as well to hide the beginnings of strikes.

It seemed like hours since we deplaned. I tugged at the little yellow fita, or ribbon, that was beginning to fray on my left wrist. It had been tied there when we first got off the plane in Bahia, like the obligatory leis of Hawaii. Its soft, fraying yellow fabric felt like a talisman of sunshine in the grim line.

I thought back to my experience of lines in Brazil. The time we waited for the ferry to the island of Itaparica, we were in line for two hours. The difference was that, in that line, people brought forth drums and songs. While we sang and clapped and listened, street vendors wandered the line with coffee, beer, soda and sweets. The meaning of making virtue of necessity demonstrated in the impromptu festival of the ferry line.

No rhythm but the slow side-to-side broke the monotony as I shuffled through customs. Easy communication surrounded me, yet no one looked anyone they didn't know in the eye. People spoke only to others they knew in line, or to the stern security personnel. I couldn't keep from trying to connect with the people around me. I succeeded mostly in making people nervous, of course. So, I meandered on, a wake of sidelong glances and furtive scowls spreading behind me. I comforted myself by humming one of my favorite Capoeira canticas, or songs.

Eu venho de longe, venho da Bahia,

jogo Capoeira de noite, de dia.

I come from far away, come from Bahia,
and play Capoeira night and day.

© Matthew Spillum 2006