Held in Bahia — But Not How You Might Think!

(This post was migrated from Substack)

Friday September 29th, 2023— This morning I woke up in Brazil on a thin but supportive mattress, under a mosquito net. I’m in Bahia, on the island of Itaparica, at Mestre Roxinho’s Instituto Cultural Bantu, where I will be staying for the next while, in a little studio (with air conditioning!).

At some point in the past 24+ hours I was documenting some of the stages of my journey on Instagram, and as I flew over the Amazon—I don’t know about you, but for me that held such deep significance that I had to take a pic of the map—it came to me that I can not remember the last time I ventured willingly into the unknown (literally and symbolically), while feeling so held.

What came to me was this: “What a feeling to stretch so far beyond the confines of these many cancerous years… or shall I say decades…” Because, for the past 29 years I have been in a cancer prison—one with invisible walls—beginning with my first diagnosis at age 29, followed by the subsequent years of being “watched like a hawk,” which led to my luck, relatively speaking, of the second and third ones being discovered at an early stage, and which then led to additional years of my sentence.

I will never be free of the possibility of one of these early stage cancers deciding to wake up and metastasize. That is just a simple fact of Breast Cancer biology.

But, I have been released on a kind of parole, as I am no longer required to see my oncologist twice a year.

And so, here I am in Brazil, in Bahia specifically, which I’ve dreamed of visiting since I was in my late teens studying Afro Brazilian Dance with Eneïda Castro at Paris’s Centre de Danse du Marais, reading Jorge Amado, and saving up to eat Moqueca de Peixe at the now sadly defunct Bahian restaurant not too far from Les Halles named after one of his famous novels, the Dona Flor.

How and why I got here is a long and extremely powerful and rather convoluted story I might write about when my brain descrambles. Feeling and, beyond feeling, actually being held is a component of it. Here are some pics from my first day with descriptions below.

1. Josimar Miranda, brother of Mestre Roxinho, had texted me a selfie so I would recognize him when he picked me up at Salvador airport. I was expecting to do this Los Angeles-style: rushing outside and stressing to meet someone while trying to pick out their unfamiliar car from the chaos of all the other unfamiliar cars. However, when I exited baggage claim and entered the arrivals hall, there he was holding this huge sign! As soon as I saw him I erupted in gales of laughter… relief and gratitude and joy at being met and welcomed so sweetly — held — and he responded in kind. I had to make sure to capture this experience in this selfie of the two of us smiling with his sign.

2. Josimar drove me to the ferry and gave me the most detailed explanation of where and how to buy my ticket, the exact amount to pay, where on the turnstile to tap my ticket, etc. Once through the mini-gauntlet, I turned on Instagram Live to memorialize the moment and am sharing this screenshot here which shows the Vera Cruz boat at the dock in Salvador. I walked confidently down to it and boarded easily thanks to the care and specificity of Josimar’s instructions—which I managed to understand because I had practiced like a mantra, the phrase “please don’t talk so fast” in Portuguese… my brain was so taxed from the buildup to the trip and the trip itself that it didn’t occur to me to figure out how to simply say “please say that again!”

3. True to his word, Mestre Roxinho was waiting for me right where the boat docked in Vera Cruz on the island. Here too I had to take a selfie of our grinning faces to set in digital stone the warmth, affection, friendship, and joy of this beautiful welcome after all that had preceded it. “Just come here,” he’d said to me that day this past July when I was deep in a panic attack on one of our zoom classes. “Just let me know your flight details and I or one of us here will come and pick you up at the airport.” Held.

4. A partial view of the colorful main hall at Instituto Cultural Bantu which is open to the elements on all sides. It’s so lovely in here when the breeze rustles the leaves of…

5. … this palm tree just outside one of the open windows (not pictured in the previous photo).

6. My first dinner, acarajé, the Bahian classic, here made by Mestre’s sister.
   

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Friday, October 6th, 2023— It has been a week of intensity on all fronts with much to adapt to, starting with the climate. Often I just sit here doing nothing and break out in sweat, my skin aglisten with moisture. Today I fought back with a bandana.

Then the breeze rustles those palm leaves, cooling me off, and some order in my body is restored.

There is so much more for me to learn, including my Portuguese which is already progressing from moment to moment. Good thing I revel in silliness and love improv, otherwise I’d never be able to communicate in this language I never formally studied but have always wanted to speak starting in childhood when I’d hear Mozambican Portuguese spoken in South Africa.

I’ll leave you all here as it has taken me a full week to be able to put these thoughts together with some measure of coherence. If you’ve read thus far, thank you! I’ve also been documenting more regularly on Instagram if you’d like to take a look over there.

One thing that’s so important to me about this trip to this Mother Land of all things Capoeira Angola is that it is enabling me to reciprocate and contribute materially and in other important ways in gratitude for all that this art has given and taught me. I am conceiving of my stay here as a self-directed Art Residency at Bantu Cultural Institute, where I am both paying rent and providing pro bono services to assist them in the furtherance of their important mission.

And I’m inviting you to please join me and check out Mestre Roxinho’s emergency fundraiser for the institute. If you’re able, please make a donation (even a small amount!) and help spread the word. It has less than 50% to go and only needs another $1160 to reach the goal. This funding allows the institute to provide essential services to the local impoverished community here on Itaparica, from capoeira and percussion classes to literacy, computer literacy, women's groups and food distribution and more. Amounts in US dollars go much, much further here in Brazil!