New Year Eve in Rio de Janeiro - Copacabana

As a Brazilian, it is always funny see this very traditional holiday in a "gringo" eyes... I extracted this text from the BrazilMax magazine, where Bill Hinchberger did a really good job sharing his experience in Brazil.



Rio de Janeiro - I don’t like crowds much. That explains why I’ve never seen the Rolling Stones. But some things everyone should experience at least once – damn the physical or emotional barriers.

One of those is Réveillon (New Year’s Eve) in Copacabana. So when a friend with a beachfront apartment in Leme invited my wife and I to a New Year’s party a few years ago, we abandoned our ritual of passage in her hometown of Paraty and opted for the fireworks and frenzy of the big city.

I was hardly the only gringo to make the pilgrimage. Untold numbers of foreigners are conspicuous among the over two million revelers who hit the beach on New Year’s Eve.

In the collective global consciousness, Copacabana’s commemoration ranks up there with California’s Tournament of Roses parade, the countdown in New York’s Times Square, Vienna’s New Year’s Concert, and dips into freezing oceans by the notorious Polar Bear Clubs. As a Brazilian party attraction, Réveillon is beginning to rival Carnaval.

Everyone shares the dream – irrespective of race, gender or political orientation. The California-based group Global Exchange organizes politically-correct “reality tours” that combine the chance to ring in the “New Year with millions of Brazilians in Rio's traditional carnaval style, on Copacabana beach!” with visits to “organizations that work with Rio's street children who often fall victim to police violence, drug trafficking and sex tourism,” as the 2005 copy put it.

Taking care not to fall victim to any such realities, my wife and I took leave of our friend’s bash and stepped forth onto the sand. The first impression was striking: a sea of white-clad humans against the murky black backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean and the midnight sky above. We ran an obstacle course to the surf, dodging people digging bunkers in the sand – some large enough for a platoon of soldiers, others small and intimate but no less well structured to protect the candles that would burn inside from the steady off-shore breeze.

All of this - the white costumes, the candles - constitutes part of the ritual homage to Iemenjá. For an outsider, this public manifestation of Afro-Brazilian religiosity presents perhaps the biggest attraction of the night. Indeed one US tour operator attracts travelers with this promise: “Have a consultation with an Umbanda priest or priestess (pai-de-santo or mãe-de-santo) who offer their services free of charge on this special occasion.”

I wasn’t offered any free (or paid) spiritual services that night, but I do understand how elusive and even mysterious Candomblé and Umbanda can seem. When I lived in Rio, I remember seeing melted candles and offerings in streetside cubbyholes and on corners, but I never managed to catch anyone in the act of laying out such a spread. I’ve accompanied a Candomblé ceremony and even once visited the late but still famous Mãe Olga in her terreiro in Salvador, but such access is by invitation only. You can’t just saunter in, as you might into a Catholic Church or even one of the Igreja Universal’s converted movie theaters. (Speaking of which, the above mentioned tour operator adds a curious warning for prospective New Year’s revelers: “Be careful of impostors who may try to rope you into an evangelical Christian sermon while purporting to offer ‘spiritual counseling.’ Their job is to lure you away from the supposedly evil African-inspired rites. “)

My vote for the most powerful deity since Yahweh goes to Iemenjá. Besides New Year’s in Rio she also stops traffic on February 2 in Salvador’s Rio Vermelho neighborhood; the numbers in Bahia perhaps can’t rival those in Copacabana, but they sure cram a lot of people into that little praça. My own true encounter Iemenjá was less public. I was on the beach in Arembepe, the spot north of Salvador that enchanted Janis Joplin and her hippie cohorts. I swam out to a reef and scampered up onto the surface above the sea-line behind my friend Washington Santana, artist and Iemenjá adept. To get his goat, I had just made a little quip about the Queen of the Sea... when a wave washed over the reef and swept me down the rocky slope. I butt-surfed it down, scraping up my backside something awful. Never again will I take Iemenjá’s name in vain.

In Copacabana, Iemenjá took much better care of me. Putting some distance between us and the multitude, my wife and I backed slowly into a pretty vacant stretch of sand – almost into a temporary barrier. Looking over the fence, I discovered why we were alone. There stood one of the rocket launchers that would shoot the celebration’s famous fireworks to kingdom come. We got out on the double. Thank Iemenjá that we were quicker than the mechanic José Maria Martins who died as 49 others were injured in a fireworks accident in 2001.

Don’t worry. The rockets are shot from offshore now.

posted by nscafuro @ 2:34 PM