Coconuts on the Beach: Dec 31, 2009

The first thing I saw when I woke up in Brazil on the 31st was blue sky. No clouds. All sun. A deep blue sky. Ocean sky. I jumped out of bed. Rebecca was on the balcony and I went out immediately to see the ocean. Our balcony faced South and the ocean was to the East, so we looked left and there it was, sparkling and close. The street below us was not busy, but the street parallel to the ocean was because it was a holiday, so families were out on the beach. We had been to bed late and were pretty exhausted from travel, so we got up late, sometime around 9 or 10.

 

Ernani was impatient to get outside and explore, but Rebecca and I were much longer getting ready in the morning. So, while we were taking our showers, Ernani went across the street to Bompreco, the Brazilian Wal-mart—seriously Wal-mart owns it (a little bit of Arkansas everywhere I suppose). He bought us some shampoo, something we had all forgotten to pack. It is in my shower now and I use it sparingly for it is one of only a few things we have in Portuguese. I like to see it in the morning. He also bought a magazine for his sister-in-law Cecilia. Cecilia had majored in Portuguese in college and had lived in Brazil a while. She was now living in Iowa and we knew she was starved for the language in its everyday use.

Ernani also bought a ton of Marango (Strawberry) and other biscoito cookies that come in a long cylindrical package and taste like bits of heaven. This was a treat we only got when someone went to Brazil and came back with them for us. We could have all we wanted for the next ten days. He bought a bunch of varieties for us including Marango, and he bought more Marango for his brothers and sister. He got me chocolate of course.

And, he bought cheese. Yummy cheese. The local cheese was wonderful. He got a small wheel of yellow cheese with red wax around it that I was told was a holiday cheese because it was more expensive. He also got a less expensive yellow cheese. And later, Rebecca got a white cheese spread she used to hace when she lived in Brasil. We also got bread. Fresh bread. Every street had a Padaria, a place that made fresh breads and pastries. And the bread melted in your mouth. It was perfect with the cheese and an egg. Though I must also say that the bananas in Brazil were the best bananas I have ever eaten. They were not like ours and they were not plantains (which I also love), but something in between the two. I had no problem eating one every day and I am not a big fan of bananas in the states.

But, enough about food for now, Ernani got back and was impatient for us to get moving. We were not quite ready, so he explored the roof of our building while we were finishing getting ready. His Dad had told him we should check it out. Our morning routine was pretty much always the same: Get up, have some coffee, fruit, food, talk, gaze out and over the balcony, see who wanted to shower first, shower, put on sunscreen, hat, good shoes and head out. When we did all that, Ernani told us we had to go see the roof. He said it was amazing.

We took the smallest elevator in the world up to the roof (they really were small and made me very claustrophobic when anyone else was in them with us) . There was a small pool, fitness center, sauna, and lounge up there and places to sit outside. It was all open. Doors were just portals to the outside and mostly invisible, not heavy forces that keep out nature like they need to be here. Ernani showed us the amazing thing about the roof: the view from the top of the ocean and the city of Maceio in the sunlight.

If we looked right there was ocean and beach. If we looked left, there was ocean and beach. And straight ahead was ocean. Land was behind us. To the left was Ponta Verde and just past that a small lighthouse. The shore curved like a C to the tip of the point, or a bent L really. To the left, the shore ran straighter and a large port sat further down it and out into the ocean, a port where the big ocean ships and cruise ships dock.

One look at that view and Rebecca and I were just as eager as Ernani was to get down there. I wanted to put my feet back in the ocean. They would recognize it. I knew they would. It was salt water, it was home somewhere deep within the core of all of us. When I learned the womb was also partly salt water, it made perfect sense and explained the deep connection a lot of us feel for the ocean. We must have come out of there at some point. I could feel it.

We left the apartment building and headed right across the street and right through the sandy beach to the water. Ernani and I took off our shoes (we did not bring sandals, intending to buy them when we got there) and walked in the water along the shore.

The beach we were on is called Pajucara. Brazilians lined the beach and the further up the beach the people grew even more dense. Every woman wore a two piece no matter what their body looked like. What surprised me the most were the coconuts, green, rolling in the waves as the ocean gently receded and came back to shore. People thought nothing about drinking their agua de coco, coconut water, and then dropping the coconut wherever it landed and wherever they were at the time. Kids were playing with the coconuts, rolling them in and out of the water. The rules about litter change from place to place and they were lax here.

We passed a few mercados and artesanos and eventually one of them tempted us away from the ocean shore. We browsed the market. The northeast is known for its crafts and the people in Brazil are artists. They are fantastic artists. I bought a purse that displayed their filet (a sewing and filet crochet combo that the women do in the northeast. I had read they make great fish nets out of it.) and a hair ornament made out of a coconut shell. Ernani was looking for a pair of Brazilian sandals, Havaianas. We were thinking about family gifts, but knew we had time to find and look.

The mercados on the beach are large tents open to the elements. There was always a breeze on the beach and that breeze ran into the stalls of the mercados. Sometimes, deep in the mercados the breeze vanished, and then I would feel the heat, but all I had to do was walk a few feet and I’d be outside and instantly cooled off. The weather was perfect.

We continued walking down the main sidewalk the runs along the beach and the street. There were showers to wash the sand from your feet. Street Vendors lined the street: selling Aracaju and auga de coco. Cars parked along the street. There was a sidewalk for walking and a bike path for biking. I loved the bikes. They were not those sleek, scary things you see in stores around here that hurt a lot to sit on, for both men and women, and which I slip right off of without much provocation. They were the nice, stable, safe old fashioned kind that if I did fall off of, I would be okay after doing so. They were the Buicks of bikes.

 We kept walking down the street and ended up passing the point. A bit after the point Rebecca and I shared an agua de coco. Basically, they take a coconut (in Brasil they are green) and they cut the top a bit with a machete. They stick a straw, or two as they did for us, into the hole which leads to the middle of the coconut where the agua de coco is. Now, coconut water is not coconut milk. It was refreshing and not sweet but not bitter either. It quenched the thirst immediately and it is suppose to be very healthy too. We found a spot to sit under a coconut tree on the beach and rested our feet and shared our coconut. It was the perfect drink for the beach as we gazed out onto the ocean, watched the boats, and let the breeze remind us it was summer.