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Batizado photos – Unidos Pela Capoeira 2015!

I’ve been avoiding writing this post because I’m overwhelmed by how amazing an experience the batizado proved to be.  Not to mention the fact that I have over a thousand photos from the week, thanks to Eric!  I’ll attempt to sum it up for you…

As I said in my last posts, it was hard.  I worked harder that week than I ever have – physically, at least.  It was hot.  The gym was stuffy and once a day someone would get the brilliant idea to turn off the fans so we could hear the mestres speak.  Personally, I’d rather not die of heatstroke and just plan on reading body language and hand signals, but no one asked me.  But gosh…it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.  Amazing people from all over, all working hard together, all encouraging, all with a sincere desire to improve…completely committed to this crazy sport and to the people who practice it.  It was inspiring.  The mestres were incredible, not only to watch play, but to play against…talk about a challenge.  Yet I always had a smile on my face in the roda because I was falling more and more in love with capoeira…with the mandinga – the malice or clever trickiness with which capoeira is played.

We’re also blessed with incredibly friendly, easy-to-talk-to mestres.  This was particularly important to me as a non-Portuguese speaker.  Everything was done in Portuguese, so I had to rely on my Spanish knowledge to interpret what I could from what they said.  It took a lot of work, and plenty of interpretation help from friends, but throughout the week I picked up a lot.  Eric, however, was less than pleased when I came home speaking a few phrases in yet ANOTHER new language.  He’s finally warming up to Spanish…I don’t think I’ll push it with Portuguese just yet.  I do, however, want to continue learning on my own, as it’s so important to capoeiristas.

Getting to the next level in capoeira is not just about the physical aspects of the sport.  You must also learn to play all the instruments, sing in Portuguese (eventually leading the songs for everyone…eek!), learn history, learn the language, and work diligently within your school.  As you move to the higher levels, you are depended upon to help teach classes, work with lower level students, work with the kids’ classes, etc.  It’s really easy to come up with capoeira-related tasks/events for every day of the week.  This isn’t a sport that you really want to pick up casually…or at least I don’t.  I’m in, and I love it.  I want to stay in, although I’m nervous about how that will look once we move back to the States after having it be my whole world here.

With that, some photos.  First, a few of our special guests and teachers, Mestre Barriga, Contra Mestre (CM) Ivan, and Contra Mestre Rodrigo.

CM Ivan in Casco Viejo.
CM Ivan in Casco Viejo. I love this shot! Not mine…
Mono y Contra Mestre (CM) Ivan
Mestre Barriga
Árabe, Paola, George y CM Rodrigo at the rooftop pool at Jessie’s apartment.
CM Rodrigo in his signature pose. I don’t know where it originated, but most photos throughout the week featured someone in this pose. Oh, and that’s Jhonnatan with him. Nickname: Por que…b/c he asks a lot of questions.
CM Ivan, Mestre Barriga, CM Rodrigo llegando a Panamá
Jessie and the mestres – serious as always!
CM Ivan
CM Ivan and CM Rodrigo
CM Rodrigo

Hanging out throughout the week before and the week of the event:

Mono has gotten to be a really good buddy to me. A great coach, an encourager, and a dear friend.
Jessie! My sweet gringa friend.
Our gorgeous view!
The guys watching the girls do a little samba on Árabes birthday. Not obvious at all there, boys.
When you put a capoeirista in a pretty setting, you can guarantee that theyll end up upside-down and asking you to take a picture of them
Hanging out with Árabe in our cool shades.
Profesor Apaxe from Colombia. He’s the one who I played against on stage on the last day in order to get my green cord. He also awarded me my cord. Great salsa dancer too!

Kids’ class, random practice photos:

Red light, green light, but with a mestre. Fun!
The guys practicing the Puxada de Rede (roughly, the pulling of the net…a classic Brazilian dance).
CM Rodrigo leading the kids’ class on the final day of the batizado. They had a blast with him!
Daughters of two friends (Auri’s daughter Vicky and Lourdes’s daughter Sara)
CM Rodrigo helping a little girl to do a cartwheel or au.
The roda is a little different when you have a giant man playing against a tiny little girl. Hilarious. So sweet.
Some of the kids have some serious talent!
Auri’s daughter Vicky trying to push CM Ivan down. Not technically a thing in capoeira, but gosh it was amazing to see how he could stay in his handstand while she shoved him! Hilarious too.
Prof. Apaxe spinning on his head because, well, he can.
Flying!
After the kids’ class.
All the kids under CM Rodrigo’s influence…for better or worse!

Okay, I still haven’t gotten to the final show, but I think I’ll leave that for another day.  Thanks to everyone who’s asked about the event!

We’re flying to Madrid tomorrow night.  We’ll go through Tangier (Morocco), spend Christmas in Salamanca, visit a friend in Barcelona for a few days, then head back to Madrid to fly back to Panamá.  We get back here on Dec. 30…then Eric heads to Raleigh from Dec. 31 – Jan. 9th!  Whew!  Busy!

 

I Ain’t Fancy and A Hurt Monkey

Last Friday night I was invited to…well, I wasn’t quite sure, actually.  Sometimes between certain friends’ accents, slang, ambient noise, just plain being distracted, or not focusing all of my energy on understanding folks, I don’t get the whole story.  Ask Eric about that.  He can give you an example or ten.  It’s hard to be on all the time.

Anyway, I knew that my friend Auri had invited me to some event having to do with her daughter’s friend’s parents store and that it must be something fashion-related because she said she knew I was into stuff like that and we had recently been talking about Fashion Week.  My brilliant deductive reasoning skills told me that Eric would not be interested in going, and he happily stayed behind.

When I finally found the place, I realized it was the grand opening party for a formalwear store, and it was – in true Panamá fashion – rather over the top.  Everyone was dressed up.  There was a red carpet, complete with the backdrop thing that said the name of the store where everyone could take pictures.  Know what I mean? There was a reporter and camera from a fashion tv channel.  A photo booth and an open bar!  And I was…in a casual skirt, an untucked shirt, flats, and no makeup.  Awesome.  Oh, and Sonal…I didn’t have a clutch.  It was a normal sized bag with a strap.  You would’ve died.  You have no idea how many times I’ve said that since I’ve been here…”Sonal would kill me if she saw me here, wearing this, without a clutch!”

Anyway, once I ran into Auri’s daughter and she lead me to Auri, I found out that Auri was somehow involved with the runway show and would not be hanging out with me.  Still didn’t have all the details, but at least I understood that part.  Boo.  And ps, it was only 6:15.  Ugh.  I put on my best “I’m totally okay with being underdressed and alone” face, grabbed one of those uncomfortable stools at a hightop table that we all pretend we’re okay sitting at in a skirt and (at least for the rest of them) heels, and started my people-watching.

PS, for anyone planning a party, those stools suck.  If you want to move the stool, you have to get down off of it and move it, then climb back up.  It is neither easy to climb up or down in a skirt and/or heels.  Not cute, not ladylike, nothing.  Just not a good situation in general.  And as an added bonus, this one spun.  Oh, and just for fun-sies, the table spun too.  Thanks.

I eventually made a Venezuelan friend who turned out to also be a lawyer.  Very nice woman.  The runway show began just as I was about to give up and head home.  This new friend, Marling, and I watched it together and took turns commenting on the suits and the three well-chosen models.  Auri ended up being the mistress of ceremonies…although I don’t love that term…sounds impure.  She was all dressed up in a crazy J-Lo looking dress and an enormous amount of make-up, but she looked beautiful and did a great job.  She really appreciated me being there to support her, and when she told me that, it was all worth it.

The whole group, models, owners, hosts for the evening.
with Auri, our mistress of ceremonies for the evening and my capoeira buddy.
Auri and one of the models
Carlos, one of the models.
Owner of the store being interviewed for Social TV or something like that.

I know y’all are getting sick of hearing about capoeira and seeing photos from rodas, so I’ll keep this one quick and only share a few pics.  This one was cool because it was at the Canal Administration building which looks like this:

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It was supposed to be a big one, with all the capoeiristas in the city invited.  Everyone seemed really excited about it on Facebook…but then only about 5 or 6 guys showed up outside of our group.  And they came 30-45 min late, when we were starting to get tired.  The problem with not having enough people in a roda is that you have to have some people playing instruments.  The people left over are the ones who play against each other.  You get pretty exhausted after only a minute or so because you’re going so hard, so – with any luck – someone cuts in for you after about that long to play with the person you’re playing with.  So that way, everyone usually plays against two different people, then goes back to the outside circle until they cut in again.  If there aren’t a lot of people, you have to cut in again pretty quickly…and don’t really get to catch your breath.  And meanwhile, you have to have 2-4 people playing berimbau, one playing a big drum, a few playing tambourine, and one playing this thing that looks like a double cowbell.

Anyway, it turned out fine, just not as big as the last time we did something like this.

This one got posted on CDO Panama’s Instagram account with the caption “Boom!”
Jessie and Lucero
Omar
Omar, Árabe, Kike, Auri
Mahalia – Love her!

The thing that didn’t go great though is when Mono got kicked (accidentally) in the kidney/back with someone’s heel.  It seemed like he might be okay for a minute.  I was actually about to cut in and play with him.  But then he left the roda and ended up facedown in the grass for a while.  After that, some folks helped him over to lay on the monument for a while.  He eventually was mostly carried to his car because he couldn’t walk.  Very scary and sad.  Horrible timing too with the batizado coming up very soon.  He has worked so hard all year for this, so we’re hoping for a quick and full recovery.

He managed to make it to work yesterday, and he’s heading to the Panamá/Costa Rica fútbol game with us tonight, so he’s doing a lot better.  Amazing how soccer cures most ills for this man.

I’ll leave you with a few gorgeous photos from our upstairs neighbors, Stella and Elliott.

Our neighbor Stelliott’s (Stella + Elliott – their word, not mine) photo from Pedasí
Our neighbor Stella in El Valle

 

More Parises in Panamá

Eric’s parents flew in on Wednesday, November 4th, right after our Flag Day/NC BBQ party and stayed until the following Tuesday, November 10th. We started off our visit with a trip to Casco Viejo on Thursday even though it’s way too hot to do that around lunch time.  Although the purpose of the outing was to show Susan and Ed the area, point out the building that was featured in Quantum of Solace, and grab some lunch, Eric and I ended up finding a mola (traditional textile art form of the Kuna people here in Panamá made using a reverse appliqué) that we both really liked.  We decided months ago that it would be nice to find a piece of art at some point to commemorate our time here, but we just hadn’t found anything that we loved.  Susan recognized that it was a meaningful moment and she and Ed generously offered to give us the mola as a Christmas gift!

I’ll spare you the details of my feeble attempts to negotiate with this 4 foot-nothing hard-as-nails Kuna woman.  Point is, in the end, we came away with this beautiful mola.  Gorgeous work, none of the corner cutting appliqué that you often see in the touristy areas like the little market we were in, 4 or 5 layers of fabric, beautiful colors…we love it.  Thank you so much, Ed and Susan!

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The woman told us that her sister-in-law Raquel had made it and that she had worked on it for a year.  Now, who knows if that’s true, but when you look at all the tiny stitching all done by hand and see how these things are made (by starting with as many full pieces of cloth as there are colors, then cutting away the parts that you don’t want until you get down to the color layer that you want to show, if that makes sense), I believe that it’s possible for it to take someone that long.  I’m choosing to believe that there is a woman named Raquel who put a year’s worth of work into our beautiful piece.  And I’m grateful to her.

After a nice lunch of ceviche and various other seafoods and rice, Eric and his parents headed off to the Canal while I went to capoeira practice at the Canal Administration building.  But…there was actually something new at the Canal!  I missed out!  There’s a new movie there instead of the same old 3-D one that says that the new locks will be completed by 2014.  (FYI – they’re now scheduled to be open around March or April 2016).  Never fear though, my cousin Branson gets here this Friday so I’ll have another chance to go see it.

At the Canal!

At the Canal!

As an aside, Jennifer Paris, Eric’s brother’s wife, texted me on Sunday morning to let me know that she and Ray, Eric’s brother, are planning to come down for a visit in January!  They found incredible prices on plane tickets and we urged them to book them the same day.  We are so thrilled that they’ll be able to join us!!!  Jennifer and I are already planning to go out dancing…and Ray and Eric are already planning to sit on bar stools with a couple of Balboas (Panamanian beers).  Perfect.

So anyway, on Friday we got in the car for the two hour drive up to the mountain town of El Valle de Antón, which I’ve mentioned several times before.  We rented a gorgeous house there with three bedrooms, three baths (too many, but hey, we got a good deal), a pool, a sauna, an outdoor shower that was lovely even though it had no hot water, an outdoor hot tub, an extra out-building for…I dunno…probably meditating or something because the whole house had Buddhist decor and random scented oils and whatnot.  Did that sound religist?  (like racist, but with religion?)  I can’t decide.  I didn’t like the way I said that, but I’m not sure why.  I’m not saying that it was weird, just distinctive.  And there were definite Buddhist aspects, but also miscellaneous other I’m-trying-to-create-a-peaceful-atmosphere aspects.  Does that make sense?

One of the non-theme conformative aspects of the decor was the GIANT EIFFEL TOWER built out of wine corks!!!  A fun surprise – perfect for a PARIS family getaway.  I know the rest of the family is used to the name, but it’s still new and fun to me.

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There were also three dogs and a cat who lived on the property.  They freely entered and left the house as we left the doors open for the mountain breeze.  Luckily, we’re all dog people.  The tiny rat looking one was Rhett, a huge pingpong ball fan.  Very smart, despite the look on his face.  Ed renamed him Fetcher.  The brown one on the couch was Gigi, but I called her Princess because of her affinity for her place on the couch under the chandelier.  The big white one was Gray…or Tripper, as she came to be called.

Gray/Tripper took to laying on the floor in the middle of the huge kitchen.  As we prepared lunch on Saturday, I tripped over her a couple of times, as she blended in with the rug on the floor and was, well, sprawled out in the middle of the floor.  Anyway, I obviously should’ve asked the silly doggie to move because Susan soon followed in my clumsy footsteps.  She, however, went down and hit her head on the refrigerator.  Ouch.  Not fun.  She’s a trooper though, so after a few minutes of sitting on the floor with frozen veggies on her knee and forehead, she recovered and we went hiking!

Eric and I decided to show Ed and Susan the short waterfall hike that we did with Angela and Ashley when they were here several months back.  It also has a zipline through the trees that would be fun to try someday.

After that, we hit up the small zoo in town.  Actually, for the size of the town, the zoo is pretty big.  We had been told that we should remember that many of these animals are rescues, so if we thought their conditions were poor, we should think that it was better that they be there than dead.  Uplifting, right?  Well, like many things Panamá, it was best to go in with low expectations.  I was prepared to be horrified by this place, but I ended up really enjoying it.  There were turtles, crocodiles, monkeys, random giant rodents whose names I can’t remember, tons of parrots and toucans, leopards, an ocelot (Archer fans?  Anyone?  It was awesome.), and a few tapirs.  If you don’t know what a tapir is, they’re worth looking up.  Think of a giant hog/hippo body with an elephant head, cute but giant pig feet, rhino ears and an anteater nose.  Super cool.

Ed made friends with a monkey who was hanging right on the edge of his cage.  He touched his hand and even was close enough for long enough to inspect his fingerprints!

Susan, Eric, Ed, and a Monkey. I’ll let you guess who is who.
Paris men and a monkey. There’s a joke here somewhere.
Involuntary piggybackery.
This thing is about the size of a beagle.

After the zoo, we grabbed much needed showers (coyotes are REALLY stinky if you leave them alone for too long) and headed to La Casa de Lourdes, our favorite restaurant in El Valle.  Y’all have seen pics of it before b/c we went there with both Angela and Ashley and with Sarah and Dan.  This was the first time we went for dinner.  Eric was excited to introduce his dad to the “Christmas ham” (a giant piece of pork), and I got my regular corvina.

Susan and I took a walk up through the hydrangea bushes to see the view of the building from above while the boys finished their hams.  On our way, we saw a couple of frogs perched on the side of the pool.  With my encouragement, Susan scared one of them (nothing evil, plus she felt guilty afterwards.  Blame me.) and he jumped into the pool!  This is probably one of those really boring stories in writing so I’ll cut it short, but we ended up getting both frogs in the pool and watching them swim the length of it.  Very fun for some reason.  I enjoyed it.

We ended both evenings in El Valle with the same board game…Terra Mystica.  Yep, just as cool as it sounds.  🙂  Just kidding, Eric.  I love you!

Monday was dedicated to a trip from the Pacific to the Atlantic then back again.  We drove from Panamá City to Colón, checking out the locks on the Atlantic side of the Canal on our way.  It was actually pretty cool because they had made a lot of progress on the new bigger locks since the last time we had been there.  We got to drive across where one set of gates will be when they open, something no one will ever get to do again once they start working.  Really cool.

I dropped Susan, Ed, and Eric off at the train station in Colón and drove home while they took the train back along the Canal, something Susan had been excited about doing.  It’s been fun to see how each set of guests have wanted to do something a little different from every other visitor we’ve had.  This place sure has a lot to offer!