hello humans! how are we today?
so first of all, i’m interested in learning all i can about the african religions here in brazil (if you know anything, please tell me!).
i know that the place i take capoeira is called projeto mandinga, and i know that mandinga has to do with africa (and ethiopia, more specifically, i think), but i don’t know what it is. it’s not even on wikipedia!
everyday as i sit in the car on the way to capoeira, we pass the “dique do tororó”, which is a beautiful lake with statues of orixais all over. in candomblé, their god (olodumare) is distant and unconcerned with humans, so humans turn to orixais for help. i learned that santeria is basically candomblé, and the catholic saints are disguises for orixais. my brother, michael (or in capoeira: bem ti-vi), told me how candomblé is a good metafore for the gospel- it’s not that olodumare is unconcerned with us, but we have turned away and distanced ourselves from him to turn to idols (orixais). i think this is much more clever than trying to convince them that there is no such thing as olodumare and they’ve been wrong all this time. i mean, God never referred to himself as God. We started calling him that and they started calling him olodumare.
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subject number 2:
did the creators of human beings love eve more than us (girls)? i mean, this was the absolute first human being on the created/recreated (depending on how you translate pre-history) earth. he could have created any single one of us, but he chose her. the first, the perfect, the quintessence of beauty and he chose eve. well, every once in a while i’ll look into a mirror and think that maybe i have some piece of eve in me somewhere… i am related to her, after all.
when i was little(er), people told me all the time that God has no favorites. ha! this makes me laugh out loud. what about mary, the freakin’ mother of jesus? was she not favored above the other women? moses? abraham? noah?
and you know how the God of the bible is a jealous God? well, i am jealous human! i can’t believe God loves ALL the humans on this earth and i’m just one of the masses! do i only get a small piece of the corner of his heart so everyone else can have a little too? i’m just kidding people, calm down, calm down.
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capoeira is going great! i made my own berimbau and today i learn how to play it! we had to do lots of flips yesterday in the second class. (i now go twice a day on mondays and wednesdays because i’m crazy like that.) they were really easy for me because of my previous dedication to gymnastics, and the teacher was so impressed! of course, no one knows i did gymnastics, they just think i’m incredibly talented :D. the teacher would say things like, “isso andorinha!” and “isso menina!” and then he called me a monkey, but in a good way.
well, i pretty much have a million more things to say, but i’ll save ‘em for later.
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October 8, 2006 at 3:03 am
niza and manus
Erica,
Isso Andorinha. Add to your skills of writing beautifully, and thinking elegantly, the ability to describe and analyze culture. There may be some cultural anthropology in your future, my beauty.
Dad
October 10, 2006 at 2:12 am
Erica
thank you!
oh my, i suppose i just want to quickly say that today i made myself super proud: when i was fighting in the capoeira circle, the master of our school (and the master of masters, as i call him!) came in to fight against me (which he does very rarely to anyone). so, when he did a kick called a “martelo”, i swept my foot under and did a “rasteira” and made him loose his balance! oh, he involuntarily took a couple steps backward and made a face like “well, well, would you look at that!”
another victory for andorinha!
October 11, 2006 at 5:31 pm
mairi petticrew
hey! WOW you are in brazil!!! thats awesome! you will need yo come to scotland some time!
October 11, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Mel
Isn’t it nice when those little past skills come to our assistance in the here and now? I personally found that my Spirit of Gymnastics Past helped me learn lifts in swing dancing. Why? Because I was fearless: I was already used to being picked up and flipped around by my coaches and spotters! Lol.
In a response to one of your comments on my blog, I said a bit about the mix beltween Christianity and indigenous religions that may or may not strike you as relevant to your conversation about orixais and olodumare. I am quite interested in what God calls things. Himself, and me as well. The Jewish faith’s books of wisdom (the Torah and the Talmud, which interprets the Torah) have some interesting thoughts on names for God as well. Check it out: http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm (When reading words in Hebrew that have been translated into the English characters it may help you to recognize them in English if you know that they do not include vowels; the presence of a vowel is indicated by little symbols that look to us like an apostrophe.)