View
Larger Map
The
rain began to pour down but the band played on.
Reaching up into the sky with palms skyward, we embraced
the cold drops thundering down, streams running through
our hair, dripping down our noses, around the curves of
our grinning mouths, and soaking what - if anything - remained
of our costumes. Our feet stomped wildly in ankle-deep puddles
in the cobblestone streets, and all around us, people shouted
at the top of their lungs "Eu quero Frevo!" (I
want Frevo music!).
A few kilometres away on a sailboat, hastily
left with a hatch wide open, a cabin began
to fill up with rainwater, soaking its interior, saturating
the bedding and destroying a book lying beside the pillow.
Trapped
- albeit voluntarily - by thousands of wet bodies in all
directions, embracing, dancing, kissing and singing, I smiled
at the futility of worrying about it. One can only stomp
their feet, raise their arms and celebrate life with strangers
and friends alike and listen.. as the band played on.
We have come north to the eastern tip of Brazil for one
of the largest street parties in the world to dance to the
Frevo.
This is Carnaval in Recife, Brazil.
To explain about Recife's Carnaval, I'll just cut and paste
from the Associated Press:
Jelly-limbed
dancers with tiny multicolored umbrellas, frolicking to
frenetic frevo rhythms, make carnival in Recife unique and
for residents second to none. Recife's frevo music, which
is accompanied by a frantic tip-toe dance in which participants
leap into midair splits and fold themselves like contortionists
as they land, forms a carnival tradition distinct from the
better-known samba. 
more
intimate carnival have been heading to Recife and the neighboring
colonial hilltop town of Olinda. 
On Saturday, an estimated 1.5 million revelers turned out
for the "Galo de Madrugada," or Midnight Rooster,
in Recife's city center where a procession of frevo bands
wow the crowds with the fast-paced marching band music that
recalls Dixieland jazz. 
