What better way to discover a not-so-well-known foreign culture than to go to a wedding only with locals ?
My wonderful roommate, after knowing me only a week, gave me the immense pleasure of inviting me to her mom's wedding, a symbolic wedding to officialise sixteen years of shared life.
The ceremony is Sunday in Mendes in the State of Rio de Janeiro, in the middle of the Brazilian Serra, those very green mountains.
Saturday morning, take off. Haha, just kidding, take off would be much too easy. Knowing the Brazilian Mato (understand the interior of the country) is something that you need to deserve. From the city of Rio, we start with a first bus in Copacabana to the Central part of the city. Leaving the bus, a train awaits us to bring us all the way to Japeri after one hour twenty in the cold. It is 30°C outside, in the train the use of a sweater and a scarf are required to whom doesn't want to get a cold in this strong winter. The change is quite violent once there in Japeri, where you need to take off any extra piece of clothing while waiting for the next train: fifteen more minutes before arriving in Paracambi. And there it is that things got real. Paracambi is a city inside the country, between mountains and quite low in altitude. Understand: it is chronicly an oven there, and wait a bus for fifteen minutes under the strong midday sun is already hard for a common Brazilian, so just try to picture a French... Aaaaaaah this bus, almost the end of the trip! Forty minutes of bouncing and tiny moments of scaredness on these mountain roads with loads of turns in a relatively fast going bus. The good surprise of the end of the trip, probably due to my huge luck these days (seriously, I attract small problems and inconvenients of the day-to-day life since I arrived here), one more piece of anecdotic bad luck: discovering a cockroach on my back at the moment to leave the bus, not knowing how long it had been traveling with me. Ô happiness.
Finally (or almost) there: Mendes! Just fifteen more minutes of walking, it is one o'clock, we are hungry, it is really very warm, and once more I head to meet the family in a state of perfect freshness (souvenir of my meeting with Paula ;) )!
Yes, I definitely am in Brazil, every second that passes reminds me of it. This so warm welcome from a family that is not mine and whom I normally should never have met, except from the mysterious ways of destiny. After this astonishing welcome from an unknown family, especially for someone who is just back from one year in Sweden, the grandma' has made lunch for us. She apologizes for the simplicity and tells me that I can use of everything here "a vontade", a way to tell me to feel at home. The 'simple' lunch is entirely homemade: mashed potatoes, rice (the base of any Brazilian meal), red beans (the second base of any Brazilian meal), paned chicken breasts and salad. About this rice, my roommies, one after the other in a few days time, have both been surprised by the low quantity of rice that I eat on the day-to-day basis!
At night we go meet the woman helping in the setting up of the wedding, to make the table decorations (flower pots and candler holder). The house where we are is full of kids running about everywhere in this fresh winter night full of mosquistoes that obviously love me much more than the other Brazilians around me... Aaaaah these kids! They will have spent about three hours making me say words in French, I am a living kid toy! Although I do have one ex-professional habit of my time as an Au Pair in Sweden, it is almost impossible for me to say the words 'be careful' in Portuguese as they straight come out of my mouth in Swedish.
After a beer at the bar with friends to listen to some pretty good live music, and a short night, let's get up quite early to prepare the outside ceremony (winter in Brazil is great indeed). But before, Paula's mom and grandma take me to show me the grandma's house, built stone by stone by her husband.
The wedding installation is going on quietly until the final rush, finishing to organise the food and flowers as the first guests arrive ahead of time (yes this surprised me as well, knowing a bit about the Brazilian punctuality!).
The ceremony is supposed to start in thirty minutes, time to run home get ready. In the end we are the ones arriving at the Brazilian time with a forty-five minutes delay ;)
And now let's enjoy the beautiful party. The two couples sharing this special day are gorgeous, the outside ceremony is pretty, accompanied by some young singers and guitarists. The beer is flowing here, in this wedding a bit informal. Everybody has a glass in hand and the 'garçom' (waiters) have an eye to see a glass only a three-fourth filled to come around and refill it. If you don't say anything, you are served. The Brazilian barbecue is really good, as are all these little sweets. Night falls down at 6 p.m. here, so the party goes on until 11p.m.. Everybody is exhausted from much dancing, and feels like it is 4a.m. (we did start drinking at 4:30 p.m. ...), it is time to walk home bare foot in the fresh air of the night, for a second diner and some well deserved rest before having to set back for the long trip towards Rio the next day morning.
Dancing a Brazilian dance (which I don't remember the name) with a friend :)
Just married !
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