I think the reporter meant to say “This is the colonial city of Salvador.” In any event, here’s a longer piece on the subject.
Race in Bahia…in under 3 minutes?
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Category Archives: Salvador da Bahia
Scenes – A Baiana
[Photo: Karina Aguiar - Flickr]
The two sides of the city
Over at The Lion’s Den, which I link to on my (in-progress) Links page, Leo wrote a great post showcasing the two sides of Salvador. I’ll borrow the first two sentences from each perspective…
Side 1
“Look. Salvador, it’s a beautiful place. From the emerald sway of the palm trees that line the All Saints Bay, to the soft pastel colored churches that fill the Pelourinho—Salvador is a city of light, a place infused with the energy of a Northeastern sun.”
Side 2
“Look. Salvador, it’s an ugly place. From the dark stains of sewage that line the All Saint’s Bay, to the prostitutes, thieves, and wicked intentions that fill the Pelourinho—Salvador is a city of darkness, a place dried and cracked by a Northeastern sun.”
One of the people commenting on the original post, made a great observation on being a foreigner in Brazil. She said that it’s nescesary to be able to come back to Side 1 after seeing/living in Side 2. I think that’s very true as it’s easy to just stay with your illusions of what Brazil is depending on your social circles and stomping grounds. What is also interesting is that one can’t say Side 2 is the real Brazil, while Side 1 isn’t. They are both the real Brazil, you just have to make the choice as to which Side sits well with you.
Histórias do Pelô – Cine Pelô
I came across a grouping of videos (in PT) on Pelourinho (or Pelô as it is affectionately called) and those who make it their home. Here’s the first offering…
Amado’s Beloved Salvador
“In Portuguese, “amado” means “beloved,” and in more than a score of novels, the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado made clear his eternal passion for Salvador da Bahia, the city that took him in as a teenage boarding student and became his home. Salvador, in turn, loved him back, and even now, more than six years after his death, Amado’s exuberant spirit, aesthetic and characters seem to permeate the streets of the place he described both as “the most mysterious and beautiful of the world’s cities” and “the most languid of women.
For visitors keen to experience those tropical mysteries, Amado went so far as to suggest an itinerary in his novel, “Tereza Batista: Home From the Wars.” He wanted tourists to see not just “our beaches, our churches embroidered with gold, the blue Portuguese ceramic tiles, the Baroque, the picturesque popular festivals and the fetishist ceremonies,” but also “the putridity of the slum houses on stilts and the whorehouses.”
That kind of dichotomy was typical of Amado, who, especially in his early years, tended to see everything as pairs of opposites: good and evil, black and white, sacred and profane, rich and poor. He even managed to impose that Manichean vision on the geography of Salvador, scorning Rua Chile, then the main commercial street of the upper city, and its well-to-do clientele in favor of the lower city and the port, where sailors, longshoremen, beggars, prostitutes and grifters saturated him in “the greasy black mystery of the city of Salvador da Bahia.”
- Source (more here)
Seeing in Black and White
“Often called “the capital of black Brazil,” this tropical city swelled with civic pride last month when the local Olodum Afro drum corps played with Paul Simon before a huge crowd in Central Park in New York.
But back home, recognition is not always so easy.
This time last year, Olodum’s cultural director, Eusebio Cardoso Ferreira, was recovering from multiple shotgun wounds inflicted by a military policeman.
“Eusebio had packed a suitcase and was on his way to London,” said Alan Trajano, a church human rights lawyer familiar with the case. “But the policeman saw a black man with a bag and assumed he had stolen it from a tourist.”
On one hand, Salvador has recently seen a renaissance in Afro-Brazilian culture. Under coconut palms on the beaches, women in turbans sell snacks whose recipes of palm oil, okra and shrimp trace back to West Africa. The city’s most widely followed religion is candomble, whose gods and Yoruba chants first came from 17th-century Dahomey. At carnival time, Salvador’s cobblestone streets reverberate with African drums and samba lyrics composed in homage to ancient empires in Mali, Angola and the Congo. Council Overwhelmingly White
But in the spheres of civil rights and political power, the lot of Salvador’s blacks seems frozen in amber.
Although 80 percent of Salvador’s population is black or of mixed race, the city’s Mayor and all but three members of the 35-member city council are white. On the state level, the racial equation is the same. The Governor of Bahia State is white and the congressional delegation looks as though it just stepped off a plane from Portugal, Brazil’s former colonial power.”
- Source (more here. Article from the year 1991)
Vatapá & Acarajé – Bahian food
Vatapá
Vatapá (vat-a-pah) is a Brazilian dish made from bread, shrimp, coconut milk and palm oil mashed into a creamy paste. This food is very popular in the North and Northeast, but it is more typical in the northeastern state of Bahia where it is commonly eaten with acarajé, although vatapá is often eaten with white rice in other regions of Brazil.
Alternatively, the shrimp can be replaced with ground tuna, chicken, or turkey, among other options.
Acarajé
Acarajé is a dish found in Nigerian and Brazilian cuisine. It is traditionally encountered in Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia, especially in the city of Salvador, often as street food, and is also found in most parts of Nigeria and Ghana.
It is made from peeled black-eyed peas formed into a ball and then deep-fried in dendê (palm oil). It is served split in half and then stuffed with vatapá and caruru – spicy pastes made from shrimp, cashews, palm oil and other ingredients. A vegetarian version is typically served with hot peppers and green tomatoes. In Nigeria, it is commonly eaten for breakfast with gruel made from millet.
For more on acarajé, see this NYT article.
Samba short – Learn from the Pros
This is really just a short clip of some real deal samba de roda in Parafuso, Camaçari just outside of Salvador.
Elevador Lacerda – Salvador da Bahia
The Lacerda Elevator is located in the city of Salvador, Bahia. One of the principal touristic points and postal cards of the city, it’s situated in the Cayru Plaza in the neighborhood of Comércio next to the Modelo Market, and connects the Cidade Baixa (Lower City) with the Cidade Alta (Upper City).
The most famous elevator of Bahia transports some 900 thousand passengers per month or around 28 thousand passengers per day at the cost of five centavos per passenger and a duration of 30 seconds.
History
(circa 1920)
The famous elevator was constructed by the engineer Agusto Frederico de Lacerda, his brother’s associate, businessman Antônio Francisco de Lacerda, creator of the Company of Urban Transport, using pieces of steel imported from England. The work was initiated in 1869 and with two working hydraulic elevators and in 1873, the inauguration occurred at which point it was named the Hydraulic Elevator of Conceição da Praia. Popularly though, it was known as the Elevador do Parafuso (or Elevator of the Screw), and later in 1896, it was renamed as the Elevator Lacerda to honor its maker.
After its inauguration, it started to become the principal means of transport between the two parts of the city. Initially operating with two cabins which nowadays function as four modern electricity-driven cabins that can transport 20 passengers each.
With the original structure, the passengers had to be weighed individually as the weight of all the combined passengers was calculated until the maximum limit was reached. The Baron of Jeremoabo (Cícero Dantas) registered the weight of himself and of other authorities:
- “On the 16th day of March of 1889, we weighed ourselves in the elevator, giving the following result: Pinho - 54 kilos, or 3 arrobas and 98 pounds; Cícero - 61 kilos, or 4 arrobas and 2 pounds; Guimarães – 65 kilos or 4 arrobas and 10 pounds; Artur Rios - 73 kilos or 4 arrobas and 26 pounds; and Vaz Ferreira – 115 kilos, or 7 arrobas and 20 pounds.”
For a mini-documentary (PT) on the Lacerda Group and how they helped transform the city of Salvador, go here.
The Ribbon of Bonfim – Souvenir of Salvador
The Fita do Bonfim (Ribbon of Bonfim) which is also known as the fitinha do Bonfim (little ribbon…) is a typical souvenir and amulet from Salvador, Bahia.
History
The original ribbon was created in 1809, having disappeared by the beginning of the 1950′s. Known as the ‘medida do Bonfom’ (measure of Bonfim), its name is owed to the fact that the exact measurements of 47 cm long, the length of the right arm of the statue of Jesus Christ, ‘Senhor do Bonfim’, situated on the high-altar of Bahia’s most famous church. The image was sculpted in Setúbal, in Portugal in the 23rd century. The ‘medida’ was made of silk, with the design and the name of the embroidered saint and complimented with golden or silver tint. It was worn around the neck like a necklace, where saints and medallions were hung, working as a type of currency: upon making good on a promise, the faithful carried a photo or a small sculpture of beeswax representing the part of the body which was cured with the help of the saint. As a souvenir, these ribbons would be acquired, symbolizing the church itself.
No one knows when the transition occurred from the old style ribbon to the new one (worn around the wrist), although the new ribbon was popularized by the street vendors of Salvador around the 1960′s, when it was also adopted by the Bahian hippies as part of their style of dressing.
Colors
Sold in diverse colors, the Fita do Senhor do Bonfim possesses a side that few actually know: each color symbolizes an Orixá (or deity of the Yoruba religion). Dark green is for the deity Oxossi, light blue for Iemanjá, yellow for Oxum…Whichever the color, the ribbon holds a symbolic, aesthetic and spiritual representation typical of the Afro-Brazilian culture. Practically speaking, the colors represent various positive words (such as blue for prosperity).
Usage
The famous fitas have been used by Brazilian designers locally and nationally in many different ways. To see an example, check out this page from Namira. Aside from their fashion statement, the user must have three knots tied and if the ribbon falls off naturally, the wishes will be granted. According to Travelvice.com…
“Multiple chances for a miracle, or chances for multiple miracles, are obtained as the wearer makes a wish each time one of three knots are tied to secure the fita around the wrist.
No wish will be granted unless the cloth is permitted to wear until it disintegrates naturally, and falls from the wrist of its accord. If you remove or cut the ribbon yourself the wishes will not—never?—come true and invites bad luck and misfortune upon you.
If you plan to stay the course and leave the ribbon on, it’s a serious commitment. The typical fita is rumored to fall off after a handful of months, but I’ve read stories of ribbons staying intact for anywhere from six months to two years after they were tied!
There was one Internet source found that said you must never purchase your own ribbons, but only accept them as gifts. Additionally, some sites mention a third party should tie the knots for you, as you make your wishes.”
My personal favorite use of these fitas is the canga (which a friend of mine is wearing)…
