Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [6]
The longer we wandered the mall, the more my confusion and discomfort grew. I was no stranger to inequality and racism—I was, after all, from the United States. What I couldn’t understand, though, was the girls’ reaction to the mall. Why were they so eager to show me this hub of materialism that seemed to me a blatant symbol of their oppression? Why was their inclination not one of anger, to smash the colorful displays? And where was their anger at these light-skinned, well-dressed people who clearly had advantages so explicitly denied them?
Where was their anger at me?
A few days before I was supposed to leave Bahia, Ana and Andrea told me about a festival that coming weekend in Arembepe, a small fishing village about an hour north of Salvador.
“Is it beautiful?” I asked.
Andrea looked at the dust between her feet. “We’ve never been there,” she mumbled.
“Really?”
“It costs extra on the bus,” Ana explained, her eyes proud and defiant to belie the shame of this admission.
When I asked the price of the trip, she told me about 30 U.S. cents. I decided I wanted to visit the village as a goodbye to my time with them.
“How about you be my guides,” I asked. “I’ll pay our expenses. That’d be fair. I certainly wouldn’t be able to go there alone.”
Andrea and Ana looked at each other, then at me. “Really?” Andrea asked. “We can go?” She pranced in a circle around me, telling me everything she had heard about this town. She ran inside to ask Tatiana’s permission. We left that evening.
Arembepe, Ana told me, had been made famous in the 1960s when it became a hippie haven for the likes of Mick Jagger and Janis Joplin. Some “hippies” still remained in a small community on the northern edge of the town. They lived in grass shacks and made a living selling jewelry and marijuana. A factory had also been built somewhere nearby. Because of the factory and the hippie influence, middle-class Brazilians avoided the place, going instead to Praia de Forte and other communities further north.
“So, that’s why there’re no big hotels there?” I asked.
“Yeah, there are some small pousadas where you can stay,” Ana smiled, “but we can sleep on the beach or somewhere. The pousadas are too expensive.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure of the best thing to do: offer to pay for a stay in a hotel or let them tell me how they would spend the weekend if I hadn’t been there. I finally chose the latter because that seemed to sit the best with them. Although I was the foreigner, I was also just a part of their big adventure. I gave my money to Ana for safekeeping and asked her to spend it as she thought best. She nodded. “Good idea. A pickpocket is more likely to target you than me.”
When we arrived, the streets were alive with music and people. Ana and Andrea stuck close beside me, both protective and watching for themselves. I was immediately struck by the beauty of the people. Alexandra had explained that people who lived near Salvador were mostly of African descent, mixed with Portuguese, Italian, Lebanese, German, Dutch, and the indigenous peoples. Each person embodied a colonial past transmogrified into this mixed and turbulent present. I kept smiling at people. Some smiled back and some did not.
Sometime during the evening, I smiled at a man dancing nearby. He smiled back and continued to dance near us. The loose curls of his black hair fell to his shoulders, his eyes cobalt, his skin dark, high cheekbones, full lips and a narrow, proud nose. His smile seemed to light up the sky. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen anyone so beautiful. By then, my skin was dripping sweat, my body spinning Carnival and heat. Ana and Andrea moved us away.
“We are poor and dark,” Ana said, adjusting her shorts and middi top. “We dance only with people