A copa é nosssssaaaaaa

I went up to the Pelo today for the first time, having spotted on Olodum's website that they were supposedly playing at 1pm. I wasn't too worried about getting there on time, and sure enough when I drifted up at 1:30pm, the sound system was still being assembled. A huge stage had been put up, and there were colored streamers all over the square, and an enormous TV that was almost the size of the entire stage - all of which seemed a bit excessive for what I'd assumed was an ordinary street parade. Two different groups of surdos were stacked in the corners - one with Olodum's colors (green,yellow, red), and another stack with a blocky design in red, yellow and white that I was pretty sure was Ile Aiye! Ile Aiye too? Had I stumbled across them both? Ile Aiye would be an exceptionally lucky strike since they rarely play in the off-season and I'd missed their main party last night.

It turned out, YES, I'd made an incredibly lucky double strike - the full Ile Aiye bloco (complete with dancers) and then the full Olodum bloco as well. It was some sort of World Cup-related party, I gathered, though the World Cup wouldn't actually be here till 2014. (It's going to be in Brazil!) There were banners all over reading "A copa é nosssaaaa!!!!" - The Cup is ours!

Ile Aiye played first - oh, so beautiful! A woman beside me was nearly in ecstasy, waving her arms around and singing along to all those Ile Aiye songs: "ILEE AIYYYYEEEEE..... PASSA POR AQUIIIIIIII!!!" I was so thrilled to be able to see them since they're sometimes a hard bloco to find. They are the oldest afro-bloco, the one that really started samba-reggae, and they still have a unique sort of groove - and their dancers have an exceptionally beautiful, swaying kind of dance, completely different from the punchy Olodum-style samba-reggae dances.

After a long, wonderful spell of Ile Aiye magnificence, Olodum played second. Olodum's bigger, and flashier, and OH boy, Olodum has those ever-so-cool drummer choreographies. They are hot shots and they know it! I was, as ever, fascinated and amused by the two different drummer worlds going on in the Olodum bloco - the fundos in the back (the first and second surdos) who were playing completely their own game of mallet-tossing and drum-throwing, more or less oblivious to what was going on in the rest of the band. In front of them, a buffer line of 3rd surdos and caixas, and then, in front of them, the showmen in the front, the killer line of fourth surdos, doing a completely different set of choreographies. (And in the very front, the repiniques, but it's really the fourth surdos who are the show. Musical notes to follow later - and if you're wondering "Fourth surdo? I thought there were three?" no, there are four, the one you think is the 3rd is the 4th. I'll explain later.)

Then to my huge surprise both blocos merged together and the Ile Aiye and Olodum mestres conferred together up front. What on earth would ever cause Ile Aiye and Olodum to merge into a single bloco?

By this point the crowd had swelled and I'd finally realized that the TV vans I'd passed on the way down were carrying live feeds from fleets of reporters who were scurrying around through the blocos. The crowd was ENORMOUS. I looked behind me and realized that right behind me were about 15 huge puppets dancing around - Carnaval puppets. What could cause the Carnaval puppets to come out, outside of Carnaval? What could make Ile Aiye and Olodum join forces? Bringing the World Cup to SALVADOR, not just to Brazil but to SALVADOR, that's what. I finally clued in: Today was the day that FIFA, the international football (soccer, you clueless americans!) was announcing the host cities for the 2014 World Cup.

The giant TV screen came alive, and it was, sure enough, a live broadcast from FIFA.

So, a little background here. The 2014 World Cup will be in Brazil. (For the soccer clueless among you, of whom I was recently one, the World Cup is only every four years - like the Olympics.) This will be the first World Cup to be held in South America since 1978, and the first in Brazil since 1950. There has been such anticipation about when the World Cup would return to Brazil that once FIFA announced that the 2014 Cup would be in South America, Brazil was such an overwhelming favorite that other South American nations actually withdrew their bids.

In 2007 Brazil was formally selected. Late in 2008, FIFA announced that 12 Brazilian cities, as yet unnamed, would be selected to host the World Cup finals. Today they announced the lucky 12 cities.

So the TV screen was showing the live feed from FIFA in Europe. This was a baffling linguistic experience for me, because the FIFA guy was talking in English but it was overlaid by a translation in Portuguese, and my brain kept flipping confusedly between the two languages. But I did hear enough to catch his opening remarks (paraphrased from memory here):

"It is only right that the World Cup return to the Continent of Football! And when I saw Continent of Football, I refer not just the continent of South America, but to the CONTINENT OF BRAZIL!"

(Huge cheers to this. His geography might be a bit fuzzy but the sentiment was much appreciated.)

Then a long, tedious speech about exactly what criteria were used to select cities: feasibility of plans for building stadiums. Airport quality. Quality of roads and transportation. Quality of telephone coverage. The list of criteria went on and on, and I could hear people around me starting to worry a bit about Salvador's chances: We have good buses, don't we? Our buses are great! The phone coverage is great here, isn't it? But isn't the airport a little small? But we host Carnaval, we've shown we can handle giant crowds! But our biggest stadium is out of commission since that terrible collapse in 2007. True, true, but it's going to be refurbished and strengthened and completely renovated, haven't you seen the plans?

Everybody started to get nervous. What if the copa is not nossa after all?? It would be heartbreaking!

Finally he said he would announce the names of the 12 cities, in alphabetical order. And he started listing Brazilian cities. The closer he got to S, the more everybody held their breath. I saw the Olodum mestre summon all his drummers, Olodum and Ile Aiye both, to get their drums on, to get their sticks ready, to be ready to play. With each city named, there was a little cheer from scattered people in the crowd who were from that city:

"Porto Alegre" - "yayyy!" and a few claps.
"Recife" - "uiuiui!" and a few claps.
"Rio de Janeiro" - no surprise there.
Silence from the crowd, though, because everybody was now very tense, because we were very close to S.
"Salvador"

Nobody heard anything else he said after that. Olodum and Ile Aiye erupted in the loudest, longest drumroll I've ever heard, and the crowd was screaming its collective head off.

Then the joint bloco played and played and played, and it was party time in Pelourinho, as over the top as if it had been Carnaval.

(Funniest part of this: Watching the Ile Aiye drummers trying to follow along with Olodum's choreographies. I especially felt for the tall, very black, formidable fourth-surdo Ile Aiye drummer who was nearly mowed over by a line of laughing, hopping Olodum fourth-surdos that came crashing into him from the right side. But in a minute or two he'd picked up most of their dances.)

June and July, 2014. BE HERE. (Bloco X, are you listening???)