Roy!

Written May 4th:

Yesterday I taught a group of about 20 8-12 year olds the Roy. If you don’t know what the Roy is, it is a hip-hop song and dance that I had the privilege to learn from the 2009 SCFP Freedom Fellows when I was an intern in the Mississippi Delta.

It seems fitting that I am bringing my SCFP experience to this portion of my time in Brazil. I am in Santo Antônio de Jesus, a mid-size city in the Recôncavo region of Bahia. This is the rich agricultural area around the Bay of All Saints which is the heart of afro-Brazilian culture. It is the birthplace of the samba-de-roda, the original samba from which all forms grew.

So, if Blues is the U.S. what Samba is to Brazil (which I think it sort of is), basically, I’m in the Delta of Brazil. And it reminds me of it in many ways. It is an incredibly important region of Brazil historically, especially in terms of black culture. The small to mid-sized cities are a good distance apart, separated by kilometers of either agricultural fields of cow fields. While there is definitely more hills than the Delta (and palm, mango, cacua, goiba, caju, and tamarind trees) it still has a similar feeling. The towns are most set up around a main praça where everyone comes at night to hang out and eat acaraje (a traditional bahian street food), egg burgers from trucks, or corn on a cob from a vendor with a rolling cart.

This is my second week here. We are here for two weeks doing semi-internships at different organizations. Most people are at health clinics, but because two of us are interested in performance we are working at CRAS Quilombola, a Reference Center for Social Action, which provides social services for a poor neighborhood.

We are helping them start a dance group, which means that everyday we have a dance/performance class with whoever shows up, usually atleast 2 ro 3 kids or adolescents. Today we had over 20 kids, because they usually have a program at the center, so they all came to our class. It was quite a handful, but super exciting.