Leãozinho

My cold persists but I have been going out anyway. Two days in bed was all I could sit still for. Being sick has slowed down my studying though. I am doing three sessions a week with Fernanda, but we chatter so much in English that I am not practicing as often as I should. I have been listening to a podcast called Tá Falado, which teaches Portuguese pronunciation to people who already know Spanish. It has been infinitely helpful, and a few people have even flattered me on my accent. The hardest thing to remember for me is to pronounce the ti like chi, the de like jee, and when r is like the English r and when it is more like an h. The carioca accent is especially funny to wrap my tongue around with extra ‘sh’ sounds in place of s. Words like casas, house, has a very straight forward pronunciation in Spanish, but the Portuguese has it more like cazash. I got laughed at the other day for pronouncing the name of a night club as Democraticus, without the chi sounds in place of the ti. When I don’t know what to say, I try pronouncing my Spanish like Portuguese and people usually get what I am saying, or are occasionally shocked to hear me say something with perfect grammar(totally coincidence in these cases). I still falter as I think in Spanish and get worried about what translates into Portuguese and what doesn’t.

On Tuesday, Fernanda and I went onto the balcony of her office so I could get some shots of her and the view. The light faded fast though, so I will give it another try tomorrow.

Her therapy office, where we occasionally have our Portuguese sessions, is on the 13th floor of a building on Ave N.S. de Copacabana, one of the three avenues that run the full length of the neighborhood. This view is looking into the hills, away from the beach. I still haven’t made it up to the big Christ statue you can see off in the distance. The views from there are supposed to be spectacular.

I went to the Caetano Veloso concert with a different group than I planned. Livia was tired and I quickly called Wayne to see if he was interested in going. He, his friend Camila, and I went.

getting tickets

Went we were in line outside to get into the show, there was an arrest. A police car drove up and they grabbed a man, maybe 35 years old, dark skinned. I don’t know what he did, but the police went right for him and roughed him up a little. It was shocking to watch. The man didn’t seem violent. The cops pinned him against the back of the police car, then struck the handcuffs against his wrists a few times before cuffing him. The man started shouting into the crowd. Camila got the impression that he was ‘a crazy.’ The police threw him into the back of the car and drove off. I kept thinking about the scene at the end of the documentary Bus 174, where the hijacker was bundled into the back of the police car and killed on the way to the station. I feel like when police are brutal in the US, they at least make an effort to do it behind closed doors, in poor neighborhoods of color, or in tense situations like protests. The aggression was gratuitous and shocking to see in front of the crowd.

The concert was at Fundição Progresso, a big concert hall and cultural center in Lapa. I had a hard time getting into the show because there were so many people and I know so few of his songs. It is impressive what a variety of styles he plays and how energetic he is on stage after so many years. He did a good job working the crowd. The crowd was mostly young, 18 to 30. So many people were smoking inside, both cigarettes and marijuana. It’s always a shock for me as a New Yorker to see smoking inside. It got so smoky inside that it messed with the lighting design.

Fernanda and I practiced some of his songs as part of our session yesterday. She was particularly sentimental about the song O Leãozinho. Her mom used to sing it to her.

…Gosto de ti ver ao sol, leãzinho,
de te ver entrar no mar.
Tua pele, tua luz, tua juba.
Gosto de ficar no sol, leãozinho,
de molhar minha juba
de estar perto de você e entrar numa.

I just have a few days until the rest of the class arrives. Peter, the professor, is here. I saw him briefly yesterday. I wonder where these weeks went, so fast. This always happens, I kick back thinking I’ve got tons of time, and then it is gone. So it goes. I feel settled and oriented. That takes a little time. I was hoping to read Drugs & Democrasy in Rio de Janeiro: Trafficking, Social Networking, & Public Security by Enrique Desmond Arias before the class got started, but that’s seeming awfully ambitious now. Today I’ll have lunch with Livia and then run around with Peter to some galleries. Then in the evening I’ll do some Portuguese.