Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [89]
Peace.
To a Mailing List of 95: April 3, 2000
Dear Donors, Friends, and Volunteers,
I am at the office writing this and a man outside is repairing a boat. His noise sounds exactly like a dentist’s drill, so my concentration is a bit diffused.
First of all, Brazil, of course. At the end of this month, I shall be going to Brazil for two weeks—I have been invited to give a paper at an academic conference on race and gender in Brazil, so my fare will be paid. My next letter will be full of news about the girls and the new school year. But for now, I’d like to share (with her permission) part of an email our intern Karey just sent:
“Teaching is going very well. I’ve gotten into a rhythm with the Bahia Street girls, and we’re working a lot on speaking. They’re always concerned with filling in the blanks in their workbooks, but sometimes I don’t even make them write anything, just talk. But I’m working toward their being able to express themselves both in writing and in speech. I have these grandiose goals and the actual learning process is very slow, but I know we’re all making progress. I started working with the younger girls, too. They were learning the names of animals, so we got down on the floor to imitate dogs, cats, ants, lions, etc.
This past weekend our capoeira group hosted the third annual event in honor of International Women’s Day. There was a lecture given by two prominent local women in capoeira angola, and a discussion about women’s roles in capoeira, and a reception afterward. The next morning women from two groups taught classes, and then we had a big roda directed by women. One of the women who taught was Paula, the oldest Bahia Street girl. I was so proud, and simultaneously so sore! She can teach, that one, and was quite demanding. She wanted us to go from a squat into a handstand (try it right now—it’s so hard!). She could do it, of course, but I had to just laugh at myself. She showed me no mercy, even though I’m her esteemed English teacher. (Or because I’m her teacher...)”
We are moving the tutoring space in Salvador. For over two years, the Teacher’s Association has most generously allowed us to use a space for the tutoring. In particular, Bahia Street thanks its president. Now, unfortunately, they require the space, so we are moving. Rita has found a temporary space at the Church of the Blacks, a Catholic church located near the girls’ school.
Take care, and when I next write to you I will be full of Brazilian news.
um abraço
Margaret
twenty
trust
“Rumor has it that you’ve bought a house in the Central District.”
“Yeah.”
“And that you haven’t got much in the way of furniture.”
“I’ve got a sofa and a table.”
“Chairs?”
“No.”
The interrogator was Phyllis, an African-American friend who was doing her master’s degree at the University of Washington in ethnomusicology. Her thesis was on Brazilian popular music, and she had spent three months in Salvador while I had lived there. I had helped her find an apartment. She had often invited me over for delectable cakes and other specialty food she foraged from upscale shops that I had never discovered in all the years I had lived there. Phyllis had coped with the culture shock of Bahia by reading copious numbers of English novels that she found in a few select secondhand bookstores. Her mother was a librarian, and Phyllis had inherited a talent for reading novels faster than most people read the morning paper. Her African ancestry was mixed with European and American Native, giving her a compellingly exotic look. She was also endowed with the perfect Bahia body type. When she had visited me one day at capoeira practice in Salvador, my usually fleet-footed compadres had stumbled all over themselves trying to impress her.
“I’ve got lots of furniture,” Phyllis said. “And I’ve always wanted to