O
A cleansing
ritual in a
centuries-old
Brazilian town
scrubs up
Janine Stephen’s
appreciation
of travel
linda
ON A MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA,
the Unesco-listed town of Olinda sits
somewhere near the belly button of the
enormous Brazilian boep that faces the
Atlantic. It is a place of palm trees, peeling
historic sites and Friday-night serenatas, in
which locals follow a brass band through
the cobbled streets and drink and sing,
and it’s the site of one of the most intense
carnivals in this country of carnival lovers.
Perhaps fortuitously, we’d missed this
annual episode of debauchery, and Olinda
was back to its sleepier self: organic
scents, tapioca pancakes and warm rain.
We lived in a room in the Pousada Saúde
(saúde means good health) with wooden
shutters and no glass. Thanks to a lack
of language – for a long time Portuguese
was, to us, a soft string of inconclusive
meanings – our best friends for the first
few months were seven-year-old Junior
and nine-year-old Diana, who lived in
the pousada with the rest of their family
and Bambi, the dog. Away from Cape
Town nightlife and stress, we adapted to
a regime of languid swims and twilight
strolls. We watched maracatu drums
beaten to crescendos on the Alto da Sé
and searched out strange fruit to sample;
we boiled yams for dinner and shared the
odd Antarctica beer. The sauna-like climate
and relaxed vibe beat any five-star spa.
It was around the two-month mark
that the picture postcard veneer of the
place began to peel away like paint on
the ancient churches. People came into
focus and started to greet us. We met
the old woman who cuddled rabbits as
she sunned herself in the morning; we
were invited to lunch (and asked to help
kill the river crabs that were served up as
the main course); and invited to dinner
(by a man with an alarming collection of
porcelain-faced clowns). Someone sidled
up to us at the Praça Sao Pedro and asked,
we think, if we’d like to buy a kilogram of
cocaine to take back home. And we met
Edson, a convivial man who seemed to
know everything about everyone in town
and was happy to share their secrets.
It also became apparent that spiritual
health in Olinda was not a simple
affair relegated only to orderly Sunday
ceremonies in the 20-odd baroque
churches scattered about the historic
centre. Traces of ceremony and ritual
were everywhere: small offerings of
popcorn and cachaça (a local spirit) left
in quiet nooks, powders and candles in
musty market shops, strings of beads
on wrists. We’d heard of candomblé,
the belief system with Yoruban origins
and multiple orishas, or gods, but it was
Edson who took us to a ceremony one
night. Grey-haired women in voluminous
petticoats danced themselves into
trance-like states as half the town stood
by, chatting and sipping drinks.
MAKE MEMORIES FOR LIFE // 43