Rio de Janeiro

It was in February of the year 1992 that I embarked on my first foreign trip by myself. Travelling from Lagos, Nigeria, we flew to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Varig, the Brazilian airline that at the time maintained the air bridge between South America and the African continent.

The flight was full, with lots of Igbo traders from Nigeria travelling to Brazil to purchase merchandise, with most of them travelling onward from Rio to the commercial capital Sao Paolo. There was a whole troupe of Yoruba Orisha practitioners in full traditional ceremonial regalia, which highlighted for me the deep connections between Nigeria and Brazil. Orisha, the traditional religion of the Yoruba people, is Candomble or Santeria in Brazil, versions of the same religion practiced by Afro-Brazilians with Yoruba ancestry. The two sides have maintained links across the Atlantic, I had heard that visits between them are common. Yemoja the Yoruba sea goddess is known as Yemanja or Iemanja in Brazil. There were several others too on this flight who seemed like tourists or diplomats or whatever.

This was the first time I was travelling abroad alone, but there were other firsts. It was the first time I was to cross the Atlantic ocean, the first time I would visit a country where they spoke a language I did not know. It was the first time I was to see with my own eyes the delights of the city of Rio de Janeiro, about which, through the tourism promotion programme 'Fantastico O Show da Vida' the Brazilian authorities had bombarded us from our TV screens for years. It was also the first time I would be visiting a country where I knew no one.

This was an adventure. I was excited, even as I anticipated the challenges that all those firsts could pose. There might have been some nervousness too, but I was curious, and adventurous. I might have even desired the challenge.

As it turned out, this visit to Rio de Janeiro was to become, among other things, the most enjoyable, most exciting, and the most frenetic two weeks of my life. An 'unforgettable experience' in every sense of that much used term. That I am writing about this three decades later is testament to this.

My trip coincided with the preparations for the annual Rio Carnival or Carnaval, which was set to commence in the week of my departure from the city. This seeming coincidence was not intentional, it was a genuine coincidence, but it was auspicious. It made for a vibrance in the city that was consistent, all day and all night, throughout my stay there; a vitality and exuberance that defines my entire memory of this brief visit to Rio, and, which made it an extremely pleasurable experience.

During the day there was the sightseeing and the wandering around town, the shopping for souvenirs, sampling street food; getting mistaken for an American by very friendly Brazilian people because I spoke English, enjoying the looks of surprise when they learned that I'm in fact Nigerian; having them practice on me what English they knew as they then tried to impress me by showing how much they knew about the Nigerian national football team.

Getting myself lost in the city afterwards, and in the process see places and things I might not otherwise have seen; venturing into the less well trodden parts, areas certainly not often visited by tourists, yea, I even strayed into a favela, one of the city's lively shanty towns. (We had been warned during the flight not to drink the tap water, to avoid the favelas, to beware of the many street kids in the tourist areas, and not to display any cash). But in the favela I visited on my own, it felt to me as if I fit right in, so long as I kept my mouth shut, and didn't betray myself as just another nosey tourist. I felt very brave, even as my credentials as a Lagosian came to bear. Or maybe it was just the fearlessness of youth? Today I might act rather more cautiously,

Then having to navigate my way back to the rented apartment, using public transport. I shared the apartment with two others, Nigeria Airways pilots who had come to Brazil for their mandatory flight simulator training exercises. We were on the 6th floor in an apartment block on the Avenida Atlantica, on the Copacabana beachfront. My flatmates would attend for their flight simulator training at night, so I was always alone in the apartment at night-time. During the day, as my flatmates rested, I was out in town on my own. So, basically, this whole adventure was one that I undertook and experienced all by myself. 

That is, until Mateo came along. 

There were samba groups out on the streets at night, the various samba schools practicing their samba song-and-dance routines in preparation tor the upcoming Carnaval. This especially on the Avenida Atlantica (where my apartment was), and the Praia de Copacabana (Copacabana Beach), which together with Praia Ipanema and the adjoining boulevards and avenues was where everything happened. Or so it seemed to me.

In the evenings the usually busy avenue in front of my apartment building would be closed to traffic and then shortly fill up again with people on foot, many of them in carnival costumes. The loud music and the drumming, singing, and dancing on the street, would begin; and on the beach itself across the road, the beach volleyball that is played all day never really stops. It surprised me to see people still playing volleyball at midnight.

Observing all this from the apartment's 6th floor balcony in the middle of the night, the sights and sounds were overpowering. I was drawn down from the apartment to street level again and again, each night, as if on autopilot. The street and beach were flood lit, the atmosphere was electric. It was impossible not to join in with the crowd on the street while spontaneously swaying to the heady Brazilian samba rhythm, even as I wondered what the actual carnival would feel like seeing as this was just a practice session.

After a couple of times of this, as I joined the crowd again, capoeristas appeared before me one night. I was mesmerised. I was seeing Capoeira this uniquely Afro-Brazilian phenomenon for the first time. I had never before even heard of this unique blend of martial art and dance choreography that originated from Brazilian slaves. One particular capoerista caught my attention, his charcoal skin glistening in the night light as he twisted, vaulted, kicked and cavorted to the music, gracefully, effortlessly, in an expert demonstration of Capoeira. I must have been transfixed, like a rabbit caught in headlights, because, he, the capoerista, could not but notice that someone was staring intently at him. Then his performance ended.

Mateo acknowledged me with a nod and in that friendly Brazilian way came forward and greeted me, saying words to me that I assumed was him saying hello and introducing himself, but in Portuguese. Responding warmly, I asked in English "what's your name?". Of course, he didn't understand, and I too had not understood a word he had said at first.

In the Portuguese language, "What's your name?" is "Qual o seu nome", so after repeating my question a few times in English, he recognised the name/nome similarity in the two languages, understood what I had meant, and responded, "Aah, nome", and with that huge Brazilian smile, replied, "Meu nome e Mateo". I then told him my name, painstakingly telling him how to pronounce it, something I've often had to do.

This was how I met Mateo. I wanted so much to tell him that I thought he was magnificent, and that he was the best among the capoeristas in the group; that I myself wanted to know more about Capoeira, and that I wanted him to be the one to teach me. 

Though I didn't know how to say all these sentences to him in a language he understood, I needn't have worried, because he seemed to catch on. We both shortly realised that in this brand new friendship smooth conversation would be difficult, but it didn't seem to matter, and it didn't deter us.

Communication was achieved, and even if less than seamless, it wasn't too difficult in the end, because we both wanted it, worked at, and both shared the will and desire to achieve it. It came naturally.

Meeting Mateo made Rio for me doubly more enjoyable. I learned then that when visiting a place, there's not much that is better than seeing that place from the perspective of, or through the eyes and mind of a person who is local to the place, During this visit I was privileged to see and experience a hard-core side of Rio that a tourist would not ordinarily see or experience. And for this reason, being in Rio became that much more of an enriching experience for me. As I was leaving, I promised to return to this city as soon as it was possible to do so, but I have not been able to fulfil this promise, even up till now more that thirty years later, Yet the longing today is just as raw, almost the same as it was on that day when I departed, a feeling that is as if I had left a part of me behind in Rio de Janeiro. 💔