A Brazilian New Year’s Eve

As we walked back towards our apartment, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant that was a self serve. Many good restaurants in Maceio are self serve and this one had a very good selection of fish on their menu. We sat outside as we ate. We were eating a late lunch and were the only patrons. I had a tomato based entre made with a local mollusk called sururu. This is fish native to the lakes of the Northeast. All the fish was fresh and the local fish were the best. Many people make a living as fishermen in Maceio. The many lakes and the ocean provided them with their livelihoods. I had also been told Brazilian are into big lunches and not so much into breakfast. I am the same way.

Our first day in Maceio was deceptively quiet so far. We strolled back to the apartment leisurely. When we did get there, we discovered Eduardo had left us a phone to use. I had completely forgotten it was New Year’s Eve. I had no idea what day it was and the United States and the usually traditional parties of this day all seemed so surreal and far away. If I had been home, I would have had plans for the holiday and would have been preparing for them or thinking about them at the very least, but here, in Brasil, I was pleasantly unprepared. It felt like floating through a day. I was content to see where the day took me. When Ernani did talk to Eduardo and Flavio on the phone and mentioned how they were trying to get us tickets to a big party tonight at the Maceio Mar Hotel, I heard him and I understood him, but I did not really connect it to New Year’s Eve and the approaching New Year. And it did not really sink in until I was counting down to the fireworks that it was the last day in 2009. When everyone hugged and said Happy New Year to me in Portuguese (Feliz ano novo) and I said it back as well I could, then it sank in, but only then.

Rebecca called her friend, Pajucara, who invited us all over to her house that night. When Rebecca told her about Eduardo getting tickets to the hotel, she said those where the hottest tickets in town. Ernani and I felt we should go with Eduardo and Flavio tonight, but Rebecca had a choice. If she was home in the States, she would have been celebrating tonight at the farm with her family and her sister. She felt a strong desire to be with us that night, to be with some of her kids, if not all of them. (Yes, she loves us that much!) She decided to spend the evening with Pajucara and meet up with us later, after midnight.

Pajucara was coming to pick her up. Pajucara lived North and just 2 blocks from the beach Gauxima. She and her family planned to see the New Year come in by having supper and then taking a dip in the ocean. This night was special not only because it was the last night of 2009, but also because the moon was full and the tide would be very low from 10 P.M. to 2 A.M. Rebecca has awesome pictures of being in the calm, shallow ocean under the full moon that night. They swam in the calm and emptier ocean and then at midnight had a traditional Brazilian New Years meal: Turkey and potatoes. A word about Brazilian Mashed Potatoes. They are the best in the world. I am not a big fan of the American version, but I loved them in Brazil. It took a few taste tests to realize why: butter. They put a lot of butter in them and their butter is awesome. It is rich, creamy, fresh, goodness.

Pajucara came to pick Rebecca up at around 8 and Flavio came by with Eduardo for Ernani and I at 9. They took one look at what we were wearing and told us we had to change. It is a tradition to wear white in Brasil on New Year’s Eve. We had dressed ourselves in black. We changed. We left the apartment and drove the back streets to get as near the hotel as we could. New Year's means a big street party in Maceio. They block off the main street in front of the beach. Vendors were selling local beer for 2 reieas or about a buck and food vendors and bandstands were placed every so many feet. The street was packed with people and the beach was also packed all along the coasts.

It was amazing how many people were there. It seemed that most of Maceio (a city of 2 million, smallish for Brazil) came out to celebrate the New Year, 2010, on the streets and beaches. Some people on the beach had tents. All the groups of families had a cooler and they would gather round it, standing or sitting on plastic chairs, talking, dancing, and soaking in the atmosphere. People of all ages, infant to senior, were on that beach. Brazil seems to have a lot of young people and families and they brought their children, parents, and grandparents, out to celebrate New Year’s Eve. It was wonderful to see the variety of ages.

We walked a bit on the streets and found the friend of Eduardo who had our tickets. We even had a ticket for Rebecca when she arrived later that night. Since Ernani’s father had to pick up his sister Enoy from the airport, he left us to wander the streets with Flavio and then find our way back to the Maceio Mar Hotel (which sits right on the main beach street). From the hotel, we would watch the fireworks that lined the beach ready to be lit at midnight.

When we got tired of walking around, we went back to the hotel and sat with Flavio, Thais and their mother Maria Teresa. Paulo (Thais's boyfriend) and his family were also there. Everyone was in white and some of the women had even had their dresses made especially for this night. This was the place the people with money came to to ring in the New Year. While we were waiting for the countdown and the fireworks, we eat appetizers and goyaba shakes. (The shakes were wonderful. They were even better than chocolate. I had found a new fruit to love and I ate as much of it as could while I was there.) The fireworks started off well, but then there was a pause between them. It seemed there were some technical difficulties with the ones on the beach in front of us, but they were going off all along the beach and even Rebecca saw them from the beach she was on North of town.

A local TV/Internet guy was at our hotel asking people what they thought of the fireworks. They interviewed Ernani. The guy was bug eyed and had too much energy as for as I was concerned. When he tried to interview me, I was non-committal, spoke in English, and would not take his instruction to look at the camera. I have no desire to be on TV in Brasil; I have no desire to be on TV anywhere for that matter. Ernani though did well. When they asked him where he was from, it was obvious we were visitors, he told them West Virginia. They said Virginia and he insisted “No, WEST Virginia.” We had encountered this kind of confusion before in Acapulco. It seems for some reason the rest of the world does not know that West Virginia seceded from Virginia around 1860 or so. We are our own, darn it. So, we try to educate when we can, but it does not always work.

The hyper man continued to the next question: how did you like the fireworks (of course this was all in Portuguese). Ernani said they were so-so. The next day, Eduardo said he was briefly on channel 11. We had not seen it, but when I was watching TV that morning I did cringe every time I saw the news coverage of New Years; I was waiting to see if they would show us and was relieved when they did not. We were not watching the right channel to see Ernani, unfortunately, but thank goodness they did not show me.

After the fireworks, we walked up and down the streets and the beach where everyone was dancing and drinking. We did not see this, but it is another tradition in Brasil at New Year’s to jump 7 waves for luck and throw flowers into the sea to honor a sea goddess.

We did meet Rebecca later at the Maceio Mar Hotel. She was escorted there by Pajucara, which was good since she would never have found it otherwise. When we were ready to go, we walked back to the apartment. We got back at three AM and went to bed. Everyone else partied into the morning on the beaches and in the hotels and welcomed in the new decade. I could think of no better place to be at the start of the year than in Maceio.