The Spirit of Brazil: Carnaval!

In a country where beer is cheaper and more accessible than water, they've learned a thing or two about throwing parties. How to host Carnaval, the largest party on the planet, may just have been one of them.

Carnaval is a Pre-Lenten celebration, an expansion of Mardi Gras if "expansion" really encompasses the transformation from a walk in the park into a marathon.  Before I can actually get into my experiences from Carnaval, I'll touch on some terminology and context, because it really is a whole new ballgame.

 Salvador plays host to a six-day specialty with about four million party-goers in which you can celebrate in one of three ways: pipoca, bloco, or camarote.

Pipoca literally means popcorn. If you do pipoca during Carnaval, it means that you're just dancing on the street- one of the millions of little pieces that make up the batch, popping up and down with the music and the movements of those around you.

Buying a bloco is similar to pipoca in that you're on the street, but you don't just move about randomly. Carnaval in Salvador consists of many "Trio Electricos" or huge trucks converted into moving stages, on top of which famous musicians, dance, perform and blast music. The bloco consists of the people who have essentially bought a ticket to a specific musician's Trio, and they dance along with the performer, encircled by a rope. Blocos generally have a t-shirt, or abadá, with a unique pattern and design to identify the members of the bloco.

The final way to participate is through camarotes, which is essentially a bar or club looking out over the circuit. To participate you need to buy entrance in advance, and popular places sell out very quickly. Many times they will have DJs and performers of their own, and are considered the safest yet most expensive way to experience Carnaval. There are a lot of open-bar camarotes, all-inclusive camarotes with chefs... and there are even camarotes with massages, spas, salons, everything you could imagine.

The whole city shuts down for a week or more  in preparation for Carnaval, including shutting down different streets and the majority of businesses. There are three different "circuits" or routes in which the blocos go: Barra-Ondina,Campo Grande, and Pelourinho. Because there aren't many shops open, the circuits and the streets nearby play host to a whole street market of alcohol and quick food, with coolers lining the street and shot stands (Principe Maluco, cachaça with a lime, cinnamon and sugar) every 100 yards.

If you stayed with the same bloco from the beginning of the Barra circuit until it reaches the end of the stretch, you'd be dancing for six hours. To provide a better idea of how much of commitment this is, Carnaval can start as early as noon, and many people  continue on until 5 am. That's seventeen hours of Carnaval. In a row. Followed by a brief nap, refuel, and return to festivities. Lord. Have. Mercy.

A Trio Electrico going by our camarote

There was one night in particular that this hit me. After going to a bar, then pipoca for several hours, we went  to a friend's apartment building, the roof of which has a swimming pool and looks out over the ocean and the majority of Salvador. By the time I crawled into bed at home with exhaustion, the sun was rising. The Salvador sun carries with it an incredible force of brightness and heat that absolutely forbids sleep, and even my exhaustion couldn't counteract that. After twenty minutes laying down, I was up to start the next day of Carnaval.

This is the enormity of the celebration.

It's the spirit of Brazil. It's entertainment, celebration, enjoyment amid so many unsettling things.

There is an incredible amount of theft during Carnaval, so you are advised not to bring any phones, cameras, or purses, but to opt for a "Gringo-pack", which is essentially a tiny fanny-pack that goes underneath your shirt or shorts. On top of this, there are a lot of fights, which is inevitable with such large crowds and so much drinking.

The police presence is substantial, but not all that positive. They'll march through blocos and pipoca and shove people aside, and more than once we saw police beating suspects on the streets or harassing people on suspicion. There are STILL no trashcans for Carnaval, so millions of people's empty beer cans, corn husks, popcorn bags etc are discarded on the streets or into the ocean.

There are nowhere near enough restrooms, and the few that exist rarely have soap, toliet paper or sanitary conditions, which motivates men and women alike to urinate on the streets, in the alleys, and by the beach.The stench of it in certain areas is unbearable, and residents of Salvador avoid the beaches for several days post-Carnaval, waiting for it all to wash away.

On top of all these issues, Carnaval also shows a tangible separation between the rich and the poor. The rich often buy camarotes or blocos, which separates them by building or by rope from the poor, and they maintain a safer, cleaner experience.

Street vendors often camp in alleys near to the circuits, with different family members sleeping different shifts so that they can always have someone working. It's one of their primary sources of income for the year, and they are more than willing to spend a week living on a tarp to access that opportunity. Even when that tarp is generally in one of the citizen-designated urinals.

With all of these problems, with all of the different aspects of Carnaval, there are clearly polarized opinions. Some people hate it, and you can see why. But some people love it, and think that the culture and excitement, the Brazilian pride and identity are worth all the issues, or at least outweigh them.

To me, it seems like the people of Salvador have accepted Carnaval in a way that they have many other things. They notice the bad, the destructive, the depressing, but they accept it and focus on better things. They don't really dwell on it, and they don't really let it diminish their experiences and enjoyment. They accept it as a part of their lives, a part of their country, and move on.

There clearly are a variety of opinions- not all Brazilians, not all Bahians are of the same mind. But overall, people didn't seem that affected by the issues we considered glaring, and I began to wonder why. They've grown up with these issues, confronted them or acknowledged them in years past, and have just accepted them. Despite it all, Carnaval was still amazing. I would leap at the opportunity to celebrate it again- so I can sympathize with that mindset, the selective perception of the good. It just isn't sitting well with me now.

I think that you can really consider Carnaval to be the Spirit of Brazil, or at least Salvador's flavor of it. There are so many facets to it, so many issues, concerns, debates, and yet the one that the world knows, and the one that the people of Brazil embrace, is that of celebration. That of Joy.

It's interesting to think about, how much these costs are worth. At what point would the faults of your country, or the faults of the celebration itself, keep you from celebrating your national identity?

4 million people seem to think there's still something worth celebrating. Seem to think that the faults, while certainly not negligible, do not overshadow Brazilian culture as a whole.

Seem to think that these ugly realities are still just an aspect to their country rather than a definition. Seem to think that the music, the dancing, the life and happiness of Brazil still reign supreme.

Seem to think that Brazil is still worth celebrating.

Seems convincing to me.












Other random aspects/traditions of Carnaval:

Filhos de Gandhy: Sons of Gandhi. Originally was a peaceful bloco, encouraging people during Carnaval to be less violent, more mindful of others. Now, anyone can buy the costume, and you will see lots of random groups of guy friends going around. If you kiss a filho de Gandhy, he will give you some beads, which leads to competitions between friends: who can get the most beads, and who can give the most. Needless to say, it has broken from its original intentions.

Music rules: In order to promote a more positive environment at Carnaval, Salvador does not allow musicians to play any songs that are derogatory towards women. This type of music is called baixaria, and any performer playing it will not be payed for their performance.

The typical music for carnaval depends on the circuit and the bloco, but some of the most common for Salvador are pagode, axé, e sertanejo, while Rio's Carnaval focuses on Samba.

Most international imagery of Carnaval is based on costumes and samba, based out of Rio. Salvador also has some mascarados, or blocos with costumes, but overall people aren't that interested in that. Our first night out, we went to a free bloco of mascarados. It is notoriously known for having more gay participants than anything, and it was very overwhelming.

Overall, there is a huge "kissing culture" during Carnaval, which some of us Americans were a little too stiff for. Brazilian men are always very forward about catcalling, saying how pretty girls are, or that they love you, or really anything they think could be considered flattery or endearment. During Carnaval, that goes up about ten decibels and men will grab your hair to smell it, jump out of their bloco to chat with you, grab you in the street to start dancing, or even just try to kiss you when you're walking by. Many people walk up to someone, kiss them, and dance away. It's just insanity. Instead of asking us if we kissed anyone during one day of Carnaval, our host families asked us how many. 10? 20? 30? More?  This is their reality. IT'S HORRIFYING. Maybe a little bit more so for some... Neil was flattered by the arduous attentions of this elderly Brazilian, who really wanted him to kiss her, and kept saying she was in love with him.

Overall, Carnaval has been improving since years past. In Salvador there were apparently about 20% less deaths this year, and it has increasingly gotten safer as the military police force has grown in size and reputation. There were still some crazy news stories about Carnaval happenings, but in general it seems like the country has acknowledged some problems and has been working to improve them. Immediately after Carnaval we saw construction crews and sanitation workers cleaning the streets- they're almost better now than Pre-Carnaval!