Photos of the Weekend Events

During the last weekend of August, two major events (announced in the previous post) kept everyone very busy.  The two-day workshops of the Fundaçao Cultural do Estado da Bahia (FUNCEB) were serious affairs, dealing with the complex procedures that must be followed, in order to create and realize cultural projects.  Using both the big front classroom and the computer laboratory, the large group of participants, which included artists but also people with widely diverse backgrounds, received precise information on how to elaborate a cultural project, following all the steps necessary, from the first ideas to the concrete formulation of  projects, and then from the application for funds to the final stage: successfully putting the project into action.  This state-sponsored service is circulating throughout the Bahia state, forming grassroots movements to nurture Bahia’s astounding cultural richness, a treasure which has often lain dormant under a shroud of poverty and abuse.  The ICBIE is proud to have hosted this laudable initiative.

Jumping straight from theory to practice,  Sunday morning’s spectacle at Mestre Pedro’s burned-out center reunited different schools of capoeira, performing together.  Mestre Pedro and his sons also did a presentation of karate, and later there was more capoeira, with a wild roda, where everyone, young and old,  joined in. This big Sunday show was made even more special by the presence of a TV troupe. They filmed the whole event!

Meanwhile, oblivious of these wonderful ICBIE activities, the cacao pods in our back garden became fully ripe, and for Lu (and all Bahians close to the earth and its complex rhythms), this is the sure sign that spring has come.  The wet Bahian winter is over.

(And that’s a bitter taste of optimism for Marcella, Giovanna, Guido, Cinzia and Roy, who have returned to the northern hemisphere!  As consolation, these words by Caetano Veloso: No coração da mata gente quer prosseguir/Quer durar, quer crescer/Gente quer luzir.)