Brazzil

Organized over the Internet, gringo sambistas from 19 countries invaded the Sambadrome in Rio in celebration of Brazil's 500 years. They created the Unidos do Mundo escolas de samba. With the gringos parading in the avenue, the question became not whether or not they could samba, but whether or not they could actually become Brazilian.
By David de Hilster

This article is dedicated to everyone who made this dream come true and who made samba history.

I reached the painted line in the Sambadrome that says "final" and the documentary film crew approached, camera rolling. "So, how was it?" they asked. Yes, I thought, how was it? How was it after four years of dreaming and fighting for something and to have it come true? Was it a success? At the moment I had many mixed feelings. One side of me said it was a great success, but the other side remembered the long journey to this point that was full of melancholy and uncertainty up to the very end.

With a few weeks behind me now, I realize that it was a super success. Yet it wasn't just my dream or success anymore. It was that of Alessandra Pirotelli, who worked 1½ years full time on the project in Rio getting the Brazilian government and the League of Samba Schools to accept the project while getting money, people, and places for it to take place. It was that of her husband Ricardo Pavão and hundreds of Brazilians who poured their heart and soul into the design and implementation of the parade.

It was that of hundreds of gringo sambistas who saved their money for months and years and traveled many thousands of miles putting their trust in a project that had no model in the history of samba. It became that of millions of Brazilians in Brazil who saw the historic event on television and tens of thousands in person in the Sambadrome—all embracing the idea that samba schools truly existed outside of Brazil and that there are gringo sambistas.

Yet I saw something incredible happen along the way. The question we all asked in the beginning "could gringos samba?", had changed to "can gringos become Brazilian?" The answer took me by surprise. In fact, the question not only took me by surprise, but only appeared one day before the event itself.

Adjustments, Adjustments, Adjustments

Alessandra Pirotelli took on the project late 1998 and was the other person who made the dream a reality. For the project to be a success, the gringo sambistas and the Brazilian sambistas in Rio had to work together. Alessandra and I had the same vision for the project and we worked together like old friends sending e-mail back and forth at a frenzied pitch discussing our ideas, dreams, and worries about making this project a reality.

We struggled over many issues: price, format, the samba enredo song to name a few. People close to us struggled alongside. My wife Doris constantly argued with me about the important issues as well as did Alessandra's husband. It was a battle of mind and heart and more often than not someone went away unsatisfied.

The first obstacle was price. How do we price something that has no model, that must be coordinated worldwide, and work in a country whose economy is as volatile as a jealous Latin lover? At first the price was too high. Alessandra worked wonders to lower the price without knowing how she was going to pay the League of Samba Schools for the right to parade (tens of thousands of dollars), pay the people to make costumes, the float, people to push the car, etc, etc, etc. After all, gringo sambistas like their Brazilian counterparts don't have very much money, so the price had to be attractive. And to top it off, we had to collect money from all points of the globe via the Internet.

The second obstacle was format. How many gringos would come? Fifty? One thousand? How could we assure stability without knowing how many people were coming? And all this with a budget? This is absolute madness! At first, I wanted to have different samba schools come together but remain separate. Alessandra suggested one samba school that united the whole world. It made sense. We couldn't guarantee that schools would come in force. Most likely we would get a few from many schools for the first year (that is what indeed happened). She also suggested adding Brazilians in the mix to provide stability and to fill in the variable number of gringos that would end up in the event. With this all in mind, the name of the school came very naturally: Unidos do Mundo (United World). We had a format that would work with 50 or 1000 gringos.

The third obstacle was really created by my attempt to get gringo samba composers to compose the song for Unidos do Mundo. After all, it was only right that a foreign sambista write the song for our foreign school. I started the contest for the song in 1998 and it ended early 1999. This turned out to be a very hotly debated subject among the international sambista community and among myself, Alessandra, and our spouses. Very few candidates were submitted for the samba song during that period and of those candidates, none were quite up to standard I have come to know during the years from the better gringo composers. To remedy the problem, we decided to allow the sambistas around the world to vote via the Internet on several options on the samba song for Unidos do Mundo. We made this decision only months before the actual event and time was running short.

The choices were: (1) to go with one of the candidates submitted knowing that they were weak, (2) to allow for a composer from Brazil to work with one of the samba songs and to make it better, or (3) to get a guest composer like Martinho da Vila to compose a new song for the school. It turns out that Doris and Ricardo (our spouses) both were against Martinho or any non-gringo writing the samba theme song, but Alessandra and I disagreed on grounds of marketing. Putting Martinho, Alessandra argued would bring much needed publicity to the project. I agreed as did eventually Doris. I don't know if Ricardo finally agreed, but to make sure that we did not make the final decision, I put it to a vote on the Internet. As it turned out, the option with Martinho as the composer won with a clear majority of votes. Martinho ended up agreeing to write the song and indeed brought well-needed publicity to the event in Brazil.

Other adjustments we made included eliminating worldwide tryouts for the bateria and dancers. There simply was not the money and time to travel the world to pick sambistas for the event. So a smaller version of the same idea was born: Alessandra would travel to two places before the event to stimulate interest: in this case, Los Angeles and Portugal. Our Carnaval for our samba school was in September and she would travel to Portugal shortly after that.

Her trip to visit our modest Carnaval turned out to be very important for the emotional well-being of the project.

Virtual to Real

I was visiting the dozens of people spending sleepless nights before Carnaval, preparing the costumes for our parade in Long Beach, California, near Los Angeles. We had invaded the house of a friend who had nothing to do with samba and who ended up during the course of the weeklong invasion, making us dinner and even sitting down and helping hand sew a costume. In the middle of the day before our Carnaval, Alessandra was arriving. I was afraid to meet her face-to-face. I'm not sure why.

Maybe it was because virtual communication doesn't let one judge someone by their appearance. Maybe our appearances would turn each of us off! I heard she arrived at our barracão (literally "big tent") and was heading my way. When we finally met, it was very nice to touch the person you had only talked with virtually over the Internet and telephone. Her physical beauty matched the beautiful person I had met over a year ago over the Internet. We were now real friends!

I then became nervous knowing that she was going to see our modest parade and school the next day. When she asked me if we had a bateria (drum corps), I was shocked. I said "of course!" Just days before, I was at the national headquarters of Varig Airlines, a Brazilian sponsor for our project, and heard someone say, "Don't expect much there in Long Beach on Sunday". That also shocked me. Heck, we work all year, have a bateria of 40 people and more, have costumes that we make ourselves that are very beautiful, and a samba song we write and sing in Portuguese and English. I was shocked, but nevertheless concerned.

That night I was up until 3:30 in the morning working on last minute preparations for our Carnaval and got up at 7 am to pick up a van, fill it with our instruments (all on my own), and receive the portable toilets, booth tents, sound equipment, and inspectors at the Carnaval site. I would have to sing by myself that day and my voice was hoarse.

Alessandra, our sponsors, and thousands of people started to arrive and Doris and myself became extremely busy. I didn't have much time to dedicate to Alessandra and felt bad that I had no money to even pay a hotel for her. All my money was tied up in an event that I hoped would loose less than $1000 that year. As we got closer to parade time, the event was extremely crowded. We had more than double the number of people from the year before, putting our estimates at six to ten thousand people for the entire day. I went to the beginning of the short parade route and got the sound equipment ready. I got my microphone and we started the bateria. The parade was on!

I had three microphones in my hand from television stations and a documentary film crew and was singing in English and Portuguese, sometimes getting mixed up a bit because of being so tired. Part way down the avenue, the speakers on the truck began to fall, so I jumped up and tried adjusting them, all the time singing the song. I looked next to me and who was there but my wife Doris. The two people who put the entire event on are the ones up in the truck doing the dirty work.

At that moment, I realized what it was like to be a president or a samba singer in a samba school outside of Brazil. No president's office. No president's salary. No rest before Carnaval to pamper your voice. Just pure madness. But we were bound to keep things going no matter what. We are after all, on the front lines of the new frontier of samba: gringo samba.

As I sang and paraded, I saw many important people in the community: the Brazilian consul, sponsors, VIP guests, all smiling and bouncing to the beat of samba. I didn't see Alessandra. We made our way to the stage and with a hoarse voice I continued to sing—a total of an hour and a half. SambaLá—that's the name of our samba school—put on a great show and the Carnaval with the other bands for the rest of the day was a great success.

Only afterwards I met Alessandra and got to talk with her about impressions of our parade and samba school. It was then that she revealed to me that along the avenue as the bateria passed by, 50 or more ritmistas (percussionists) strong playing tightly and with rehearsed breaks, that she cried. She shed real tears. She saw for the first time something she didn't expect to see—something that Brazil would see in the year 2000 in the Sambadrome: real sambistas from a foreign country that had heart, soul, and the swing of a real Brazilian samba school.

We had several important meetings after our Carnaval about the event in Rio. But after our parade and Alessandra's reaction, I knew that the trip had not been only for meetings. The moment she revealed to me that she had been moved to tears to see our modest 150 person samba school parading that day, I knew the trip's purpose had a greater significance. Alessandra now knew that Brazilian samba truly did exist outside of Brazil and that the project would be a success. Now we just had to convince the gringos and the Brazilians of this. And more than that, we had to earn their trust.

It had all come done to faith. Faith in that what Alessandra and I were doing would make samba history.

The First Steps

A journey always starts with a first step. And in this case, the steps for me were big ones. King-sized in fact. My first goal in the actual journey to Brazil was to get our King Momo (Rei Momo) onto a plane and to Rio before Carnaval. Our incredible travel agent Dagmar Sabat had gotten us one free ticket in trade for getting a group of our people to fly Varig, and managed a discount for Doris, myself, and the extra ticket for our Rei Momo ("Bear" as we call him) who needed two seats because of his kingly size.

We got to the airport and we boarded the plane. Rei Momo had ticket 17A and I had 17C. Seat 17B was left for overflow. But when we arrived at the seats, the armrest in between the two king seats did not lift up! In fact, they were the only seats on the plane where the armrests did not lift up! Some very nice Brazilians behind us switched seats with us to that we could lift up the armrest and seat our king comfortably. We were on our way.

Whirlwind Tour

When we got to Rio, Bear and I settled down in a friend's house, and then went to meet Alessandra at their barracão (the place where they were making costumes). There we met Alessandra and all the people who were involved with the school. We were very tired, only having slept three hours during our flight. This is where I truly have a difficult time remembering what day we did and when. We simply did not stop.

We went to Beija-Flor's barracão where all the floats were stored and where there was a meeting of all the presidents of the great schools—Beija-Flor, Mangueira, Viradouro, Mocidade, etc. We were there to do publicity for Unidos do Mundo. Beija-Flor after all was helping sponsor the event. We made our way through a thick crowd, meeting people. One of my favorites to meet was Neguinho da Beija-Flor. He is considered to be one of the best samba singers in Brazil today and meeting him was a great honor. We talked briefly and of course I took a picture with him. I couldn't imagine singing with him in the Sambadrome. It was a personal dream come true. He was very kind and gentle. We continued making our way through the crowds, around the great floats that towered to the ceilings of this vast warehouse. Important samba people were everywhere.

Bear, our Rei Momo, was a "big" success with the waiters. Waiters were constantly moving about trying to feed the population in the hall but with little success. It seems that during Carnaval, most people are always eating something delicious and hunger does not seem to be a problem. The moment they discovered our Rei Momo and his kingly appetite, they became very animated and happy. Bear was not shy in sampling everything multiple times until even he had his fill.

Finally, we met some of the presidents of the major samba schools who were there to choose the judges for the Sambadrome. Right before the private meeting started, we were on our way leaving what was at that moment, the most important samba meeting on the planet.

Next we appeared at what was to be our quadra or practice area or "quad". A quadra is where a samba school gets together to play, dance, and rehearse for their parade. There, Bear was introduced and he gave a speech that I translated for the public. Next, I spoke and talked about the project and our vision and thanked everyone involved with the project. And from the moment before and during regular Carnaval, we were constantly being filmed, videotaped, recorded, and photographed by journalists, documentary film crews, and television. We were the spokespeople who represented all the gringo sambistas that had come and were starting to arrive in Brazil. Taxicab drivers, doorman, and people on the street would recognize us and even thank us for our "wonderful" project. We were very exhausted but happy with the reception. Alessandra had just done an incredible job on marketing the event.

Gringos Arrive

Slowly, day by day, gringos from around the world began to arrive. It was very strange to have someone come up to me who I did not know by face, but who knew me by face and by name. "Hi, I'm Thomas from Sweden!" "Hi, you don't know me, but I am from Chile. Thanks for your work." I was truly astounded by the power of the Internet and its reach around the world.

Some encounters were very special. One in particular I wanted to meet was Krzysztof from Poland. It was only two years before that I received an e-mail from a lone Pole who loved samba and wanted to start a group in Poland but did not know how to go about it. I told him to do what I knew best: make a Webpage on the Internet. "Then what?" he asked. "Sit back and wait," I said. A few years later I got a photo from him showing him and others playing samba along the side of the road in the country. I laughed a lot because being from a gringo samba school, I immediately understood.

You see, all samba schools outside of Brazil have the same problem: noise. I bought a decibel meter and once measured the loudness of our percussion or bateria as they call it in Brazil: 125 decibels. That is just between the loudest rock band and a jet engine at close range. Império do Papagaio of Finland actually plays in a bomb shelter below ground so not to perturb their neighbors during practice sessions! Another group in New York practices in Central Park. Krzysztof was experiencing the same thing with his group and was forced to play out in the country by the side of a road.

On the Sunday of Carnaval, we all met at the Rio Othon Hotel and I finally met this Pole. A shy, kind man with glasses came up to me and simply said: "I'm Krzysztof". I yelled: "Krzysztof!!!", and we hugged. I got tears in my eyes. I asked, "How's the group?" "20 and growing" he replied. He added, "The Internet really works!" It was a wonderful moment that I will always remember.

One by one, Alessandra and I greeted these pioneers who saved their hard-earned money, and put trust in Alessandra and I and our crazy idea. We all hugged and talked to one another with a wonderful feeling of kinship, knowing we all loved samba and had much in common to share.

Little did I know that this ideal moment would not last long. The road to success was less than a week away, and soon I found it was not all paved with gold. One person from our group who had just joined our group in Los Angeles wanted out of the project on the first day. That was hard. This was in part a business and we had to treat it as such at times. But it was still emotionally hard for me.

There were many other incidents on the first day that showed us that things would not be as easy as they looked. It is only natural that with so many different cultures together, there were bound to be misunderstanding and differences of opinions.

Carnaval

Almost all the gringos headed that day for the Sambadrome for the two days of the top schools parading on Sunday and Monday. Rei Momo ("Bear") and I got to watch the groups that showed up before the special group that paraded on Saturday. Two schools from this group would rise to the ranks of the big schools, so this was a very important parade. Bear and I were virtually alone on the bleacher side while Alessandra and her crew were preparing the space for Unidos do Mundo's VIP guests a week later. Bear and I felt like celebrities with the stadium and private booths all full except for ours. People were looking at us trying to figure out who we were.

While watching the parade, all of a sudden I felt someone next to me and I got a funny feeling inside. The guy looked like a student traveler with messed up hair and clothes and he spoke to me in English. He whispered to me, "Are you the guy who organized all the schools on the Internet?" At that point I got a bit nervous not knowing who he was or how he got into the private booth. I didn't answer the question directly and was more concerned about removing this funny character before something weird happened. Luckily, some of Alessandra's team saw him and started asking him questions. As they approached, he whispered again to me "hey, tell them I am with you or they will throw me out." At that point I really got scared and turned around and walked away as the Brazilians approached him. They took him out and I tried to ignore the incident.

At that point I not only realized that the Internet is a powerful tool where recognition is worldwide, but that I was no longer sitting safely at home behind my computer screen and the virtual world of samba that I had helped create. I was now in full public view and vulnerable. Sure, I'm no rock star, but even on the opening day it was strange to have so many people know so much about me without ever having met me. Heck, I was just a computer geek trying to use the Internet to organize samba. I never thought of the vulnerability I was creating for myself.

Another intruder made her way into the booth, but this one was a young beautiful Brazilian woman. Now that is not as bad I thought! But I must remember: I'm a married sambista, I'm a married sambista! She too was escorted away. My second "groupie" was somewhat more positive but I did become more attentive to my surroundings.

One thing I remember was watching the Brazilian crew cleaning and decorating the space. It was going so slowly at times for the "American" inside of me that I would help now and then to speed things up. I was not used to seeing workers sweeping rugs with brooms while standing next to a vacuum cleaner. I helped remove some of the stadium seats to clean underneath and took note at to the care at which the holes were made. Alessandra was standing next to me and I looked at her tired face (she was only sleeping a few hours each night) and I gave her a concerned smile. I walked up to her and pointed out the holes in the floor. The chair holes looked as if they were hacked out by a very large blind chicken. Some were double punched, some where square, some were triangle, and some were the round shape they were supposed to be. She sort of shrugged her shoulders saying "I know, this is Brazil!" I hugged her and said "I don't envy you. I had the easy job!" She smiled and continued working.

Truly, putting together a samba school and event in Brazil in less than 80 days seemed like an impossible task given all the obstacles one finds in a third world country. But Alessandra was pulling it off. She was dead tired even a week before, but she somehow kept going.

Parading with the Big School

I had arranged for two people from SambaLá (our school) to parade with Beija-Flor. Alessandra is the daughter-in-law of the president of Beija-Flor, so it was easy for her to arrange costumes to purchase so that these two could parade on Monday in the Sambadrome. Unidos do Mundo was purposely scheduled to parade on the Saturday of the Champions in part to give the gringos time to enjoy the regular Carnaval of Rio. These two wanted to experience what it was like to parade in a BIG school.

On the day of the parade, I found out a big surprise: Alessandra had also arranged a costume for me! I was really surprised, expecting to go home and try and catch up on some sleep, not even bothering to watch on TV. Now I was going to parade for the first time with a big school! I went home and rested a few hours before getting onto the subway with the hundreds of others traveling to the Sambadrome to meet up with the two people I arranged to parade with Beija-Flor. I got off the wrong exit and ended up walking what seemed like kilometers to find them. After a while, all the costumes started looking the same to me. I got lost several times among the tens of thousands of parade participants and passed our group two times before finding my fellow paraders.

When I got there, I had no shoes and my hat was all broken. I ran around trying to find shoes which I finally arranged with a director. I then found a piece of string on the ground and used American jeitinho (or cleverness) to fix the hat. It was around 3 AM and extremely humid and our costumes where uncomfortably hot! We were covered with several layers of costume and clothes including our head and a wig. We looked like 17th century French royalty. The costumes were gorgeous, but they were hot, hot, hot. We got in lines with eight people with each and all holding hands. Monica, myself, and Ross (all from our school) were all together ready to parade.

We found out that right in front of us was the guy that all of Brazil was talking about: the guy parading in all 14 special groups to break the world record. This was his second to the last school. The press was on top of him constantly filming and taking his picture. At least for this time, I was anonymous and could enjoy myself with my friends.

As we entered the stadium, the parade was in full force. Beija-Flor is supposedly the richest samba school in the world and it showed. The costumes, the floats, even the song were incredible. As I entered the Sambadrome, I paid special attention to Neguinho da Beija-Flor who was singing as we passed. I imagined singing with him the coming Saturday. Now he was involved with his own struggle: to make Beija-Flor the champion. He had to sing his best and that he did. It was only in November that he found out that samba schools existed outside of Brazil. He was very surprised about that. So much so, that he insisted that he help out with Unidos do Mundo.. He was not asked to participate nor was he paid. He took it on with his own heart. That was to happen again and again during this project.

I danced, I sang, practicing my voice on the avenida (avenue). My voice was strong and ready. Somehow when I sang in the Sambadrome, my voice was stronger. It was indeed a special place. Brazilians around me started to look at me funny when I sang and yelled just like a puxador (a singer of samba). I was proud to be a gringo sambista and it showed!

Monica and Ross too were doing their thing. They both danced some samba as did I. It was very hot, the cameras were constantly on the guy in front of us breaking the world record for parading, but we sang and danced without any great notice. And every time a camera was in view, I looked into it, hoping to be seen. I was practicing for Saturday.

I constantly looked up into the stands to see if I could find the gringo sambista group. They were all together in the stands and some of them knew Monica and Ross were parading. As we neared the end of the parade route, I was almost fainting with heat exhaustion. But somehow, I kept turning in the direction of the crowd and using my height, I kept waving as if to someone. And then, my eyes met with our mestre-sala, Byrant from SambaLá. He jumped up and waved as did the entire group. It was like having family recognize you. It was great! I turned to Monica and Ross and pointed and we all waved. Shortly though, it was all over and we were in a cab going home being heat exhausted and tired from the wonderful experience.

Wednesday, March 8, 2000

After the days of street bands, the Sambadrome, and sight-seeing, we finally met to go to our first formal meeting and practice. We were treated to a lecture on the history of Carnaval at the place where we were to call our own "quadra" or quad. Some people who arrived early were already familiar with the place and for others, this was the first time. We met in a small auditorium and listened to several speakers. I then was asked to get the gringos singing the samba enredo by Martinho da Vila. But being a gringo sambista myself, I knew that few people at this point could sing the song.

The song was launched on the Internet less than a month before the event and most gringo sambistas had not even heard it. So I decided to go through the song line by line and translate it and explain its meaning. I knew that for most, this was the first time they really had time to sit and look at the song in detail. They would learn it later, but first, they had to know what they were singing and the meaning behind it.

This is where I began to see my role forming as international coordinator. I knew what I was to be in their shoes and adjusted accordingly. Alessandra and I became very confident in each other's intuitions about the event with my role being the eyes, ears, and hearts of the gringos. This proved to be very important in the coming days. Very important indeed.

We then headed to dinner. We were in an enormous space. The place was called Fundição Progresso and was a theater art space right downtown, next to the famous Lapa trolley cars and the conical modern Cathedral. After eating, we made our way down into the quadra where hundreds of our Brazilian counterparts who made up half of the samba school were gathering. With so little time, many positions that had to be rehearsed and choreographed were done by Brazilians. There was roughly one Brazilian for each gringo and tonight they were to integrate.

The bateria was on stage while the groups of dancers were sent to their respective order in a parade. But because quadras are square and not like a long street like the Sambadrome, rehearsals in Brazilian samba schools go around in circles. The order of the groups were arranged on the floor. The gringo group that was in the spotlight this night were the sambista dancers. Could they dance samba???

Paying Your Dues

I must digress here. For herein starts the tale of the gringo sambista. It turns out that the Brazilians were scared of the gringos. Not because they would be better sambistas. No chance of that. But they were scared of whether the gringos would be able to do any samba at all. There were enough Brazilians to fill in all the functions needed in case the gringos would pagar o mico ("pay the monkey", roughly translated as making a fool of oneself). I experienced this myself a week earlier.

When I first arrived on the Wednesday before Carnaval, I did not sing right away. The director of the school, Ricardo Pavão (Alessandra's husband) and Walter, a puxador from Mocidade, were on stage at our quadra and were singing the samba song. They sort of ignored me a while, giving me the Brazilian signal that they wanted the singing to be done right. When I was finally given a microphone, the microphone was very low and I had to have a strong voice to be heard. I didn't dare ask the sound guy to raise the sound out of respect.

After all, who was I to demand anything. Two days later, I did a show at a shopping mall to advertise Unidos do Mundo and was the announcer. I also sang with Walter who sang as principal with me tagging along. That evening, I sang with him at the rehearsal more as an equal, having gotten to know him through conversation. But I still did not earn my spot.

The Wednesday after Carnaval, the first day of rehearsal for Unidos do Mundo, Walter was not there and I found myself as the principal. That evening, I asked the cavaquinho player from Caprichosos to play the samba enredo in my key, so I could sing comfortably and for a longer time. He obliged and that turned out to be very good for me. I sang over two-and-a-half hours as principal singer with a short break. I sang harmony and even threw in the phrase "I love you" to add a touch of gringo. When I was through, the Brazilians all came up and shook my hand and said, "Good job, puxador" (samba singer). That night, I proved myself to the Brazilians that I could hold my own as a samba singer. I earned my place. And I knew that the gringos coming to Rio were going to have to do the same.

Back to Wednesday, March 8, 2000

Back on day one, the Brazilians were busy integrating the gringos with the Brazilians. The most crucial group to integrate were the sambista dancers. There were about fourteen female gringo dancers and two males. They were paraded around in circles, and told to dance their best. They were told only some of them would make the position of sambista. A sambista in the Sambadrome is a place of high honor. Only the best dancers are allowed to be in that position. There were two other important positions: rainha (queen) and madrinha (head dancer). But for these were decided that no contest would be held. They would eliminate some of the gringo sambistas this night.

As they paraded around and around, each gringo sambista did their best trying to outdance the other. They were in a frenzy and at the same time scared that they would be cut. Finally, they came to the stage to find out who would be the gringo sambistas to parade in the Sambadrome. Each one was presented by name and the audience clapped for each one. And then came the decision from Alessandra: "Because we think you all are very good, we have decided to include all of you as passistas!". At that moment, they all became very, very happy. The bateria played and they all danced with a happiness that could only be described in their dance.

The passistas had passed the test. They earned their place.

Thursday, March 9, 2000

On Thursday before the day of champions (March 9, 2000), we all met at the Rio Othon Hotel at 2 PM for a field trip to Beija-Flor samba school. After that, we were to head to the Sambadrome for rehearsals there. We boarded the buses for the hour-long journey to Nilópolis, a city that is north of Rio's Guanabara Bay. On the way, the bus drivers got lost. The gringos at first found this amusing asking how a reputable travel company could hire professional bus drivers who did not know the way to such a famous destination as Beija-Flor. "Don't they use maps in Brazil?", they asked. Some Brazilians laughed. This simple inconvenience would turn out to be the beginning of culture differences that were to grow to a pitched frenzy that night.

The two buses finally arrived late at Beija-Flor and we were treated to a number of talks about samba schools and the spirit of Carnaval. We toured the grounds of Beija-Flor and we were told of the community work that schools performed in their cities. The gringos were taught how to open their souls and hearts to the world as they paraded. It was a wonderful start to the day of workshops. Then came some more cultural annoyances.

Due to the rains, the president of the League of Samba Schools in Rio decided that the Sambadrome became unsightly and that it needed a new coat of paint. So our trip to the Sambadrome was canceled. Most gringos did not think much about this at the time since they had no idea why they would go to the Sambadrome before the day of the parade. We ate dinner and then headed back to our quadra in downtown Rio and were given an impromptu tour of the city to kill the time we were supposed to be at the Sambadrome rehearsing. That is when the gringos started grumbling. "If I wanted a sight-seeing tour, I would have taken the Love-Boat to Carnaval." "I came to learn samba, not to see the sights of Rio at night in the dark." The gringos were getting restless. I could feel the tension and frustration growing. It wasn't a good time to paint the Sambadrome I thought.

When we finally got back to our quadra, the sambistas were very anxious to learn what they needed to know to parade in the Sambadrome. The place was full of Brazilians who were practicing for the parade. That night, the director Ricardo Pavão was away busily working on some of the components in the parade. Alessandra was also very busy doing the same and was away from practice area. I was exhausted from everything and was not singing that night in order to conserve my voice for Saturday. Instead of paying the needed attention to the gringos, I walked around, relaxing, letting the practice continue. Everything seemed in order. But it was not.

My first indication that something was going very wrong was when some gringo samba dancers came by to complain. They said that they expected workshops each day and were not getting what they had paid for. They stood around waiting for a class that never happened. They said they were not sure that they wanted to continue with the project. I understood their frustration and immediately went to Alessandra with the news. She immediately started trying to solve the problem by planning changes for the following day.

As the practice began to wind down, the other bomb dropped. Outside waiting for me were a dozen or so people from the gringo bateria. I was told how that many of them did not play at all that day and were very upset, some in tears. Those who had brought their instruments got to play. Those who were aggressive got to play by muscling their way to a drum. But many did not play the entire night. Again, I listened to their complaints and they were right to be upset.

I immediately went again to Alessandra and told her we had an immediate crisis we had to fix right away or there would be no parade on Saturday. She immediately dropped everything and I explained what was happening. It turned out that this day, Thursday March 9, 2000, was the day everything went wrong.

I relaxed that day because I was worried about my voice and did not check with the gringos to see that they were happy. That was not normal. After all, I am the international coordinator. I did not do my job. Alessandra also neglected the gringos. She was busy with other things and did not check. Each night, Ricardo her husband had taken care of the rehearsals, but he was gone and did not look after the gringos. We were supposed to have workshop classes, but it rained and the Sambadrome had to be painted. The teachers for the planned workshops in the Sambadrome went one way and we went another. The gringos ended up at a practice that was supposed to be only for Brazilians and directors did not expect us to be there and ignored us.

Alessandra and I got very depressed. Two workshop days had passed and there was only one more day before the parade and the gringos were wanting to pull out of the event. Alessandra was exhausted. I was exhausted. Doris my wife and the show director at our samba school in California had arrived that day and she was tired from shows she did in Los Angeles during Carnaval there. We all talked about what to do. Doris and Alessandra said "we can turn the project around". "Tomorrow we can turn the emotional state around from negative to positive." I was depressed and less optimistic. The two Brazilians had faith. The gringo did not. Later I would understand all this. But at this point, I was very depressed.

Friday, March 10, 2000

I didn't want to go to the Rio Othon, not after last night. I didn't want to confront the gringo rebellion. But I knew I had to go. We supposedly had the problems solved and the gringos attitudes would turn around today. I knew I had to go eventually and face them. But I was exhausted and my strength to confront the complaints was quickly leaving me. Maybe Doris and Alessandra were right and a good night's sleep would quiet them down some. I had to go. I started this whole thing, so I couldn't quit now.

I got there a bit later accompanied by Doris. I was very worried, but I did not let her know it. As we got there by taxi, I got out and started walking around. The gringos were there in force and I kept moving around hoping no one would stop and talk with me. A couple of people talked with me, but there was not the same enthusiasm I had seen during the first few days. Finally, the gringos that were most upset came up and started complaining about the first two days and how they were not doing "workshops". I really began to hate that word: "workshop". What a horrible word.

They told me that on the flyer they were sent a year ago that a workshop was planned for all three days and that two days were gone with no workshop. I tried explaining to them that the first day was "integration" and that for Brazilians, this WAS a workshop. They did not see that. Another cultural conflict. I also explained that the rains had changed our direction yesterday and that we and the teachers for the workshop ended up in different places. They still were not satisfied.

I tried various times to explain to them what had happened, but there was not much I could do to fix the past. I only hoped that today would change their minds.

Doris turned to me and asked if she could talk to everyone on the buses before we headed out to Beija-Flor and "real" workshops. Being so emotionally and physically exhausted, I agreed with pleasure. "Please talk to them. I have no more strength left." After all, they always ended coming to me because I was the guy who got them into this project and I was ultimately responsible. Doris was shielded from that exposure until now.

Doris entered the buses and talked with them. I was oblivious to what happened. But when I found out many days later what she said and what happened inside, the importance of what she did became enormous in helping save the spirit of the project. (Thanks, Doris! ;-)

Doris came off the second bus and said "David, let's go". I followed her willingly and we got on the bus for the hour ride to Beija-Flor. On the way there, I continued my depression. I looked outside the window, watching the Brazilian buildings go by thinking to myself "Wow, I made it all the way to the day before the event and it has become a failure." For four years I fought with what seemed to be an eternal optimism. When I had no one in Rio to do the project with only one year, six months to the event, I still fought on with a blind faith that it would all work out.

Yet at this moment, my emotions and physical state collapsed into a deep despair. I imagined a couple dozen gringos joining the 400 Brazilians and the parade going on with all the Brazilians watching wondering where were all the gringos we promised would be here. I imagined instead of hundreds of positive messengers of Unidos do Mundo that I would send hundreds of negative messengers to spread the news of disaster to the entire world and that the project would be viewed as a failure. I have to admit that at this very low moment I told myself: "David, at least you tried."

Doris, noticing that I was sad, took my hand and asked, "Are you ok?" I told her that I was very depressed but did not tell her I thought the project would be a failure. I was still too proud to give up even though my hope was lost. She patted my hand and said, "David, everything will be alright. The spirit of this group will turn around today. You will see." I heard her words, but did not believe them.

I composed myself and tried to get myself back to reality. On the way, some Brazilians who came from other countries accompanying their gringo spouses and sambistas began to sing and play their drums. There were only a few people participating. The spirit was still pretty grim. We were going to turn the spirit around! No more problems right? Wrong. We got lost again.

I couldn't believe it. After getting lost the day before, we got even more lost today. Even the gringos began saying "didn't we pass this same house three times already?" The answer was yes. I let the bus driver ask about five people directions before I started to get really upset. "Jeese!", I said. "I can't believe these people can't get directions to the most famous place in their city!" "Que país é esse?" ("What kind of country is this?", I quoted from a song). I went up front and sarcastically asked, "Are we lost?". The guide responded, "We took a wrong turn here, then there, but we are close. We just have to keep asking so that we don't get lost even more". Satisfied that I had made it clear that I was concerned about the service, I turned around and headed back to my seat. "We lost, Dave?" they asked. I just signaled to them with the traditional thumbs up and headed back to my seat.

I knew at that point two things: (1), we were REALLY lost, (2) we couldn't make them get there any faster no matter how we tried. We were in Brazil. This is another cultural difference. We continued to ask directions every street block until we got to a dead end road where we had to turn around. That process took us 15 minutes. I was really mad now. Right when we had to show the gringos that everything was in order, the chaos became almost unbearable. We were over an hour late and we were only showing the gringos more incompetence. Right when we had to turn the spirit from positive to negative, we get so lost that arrival that same day was becoming questionable. I smiled in quiet frustration and sat down again.

After what seemed to be an eternity, we managed to turn around and we were at least moving again. We passed the same places for what seemed the hundredth time and I went back into deep depression. Now on the last day before the big event, we were so lost that we were going to have to go back home. One more day without a workshop. The project was doomed I thought. But then something happened that I never would have expected. Something that for me, was the defining moment of the entire trip.

A Brazilian turned to everyone and said: "Let's sing our song!" He started to beat the back of the bus seat and began singing the song that Martinho da Vila had so carefully and lovingly written.

I looked around and everyone, I mean everyone, was singing the song. They sang as if they were soldiers marching off to die in battle. They found themselves in an unfamiliar land in the middle of a war and the only way to lift their spirits was to sing. I got a lump in my throat. I could not sing. It was not my turn to sing. It was theirs. I was the general and the moment I thought that my troops were going to abandon me, they all began singing to lift their spirits.

I held back my tears and got my video camera. I wanted to capture this moment. A moment of melancholy where happiness and sadness came together. A moment I could have never predicted during the last four years I struggled to make this project a reality. I never saw it coming.

At that moment I saw and captured on video, gringos becoming a bit like Brazilians. They were collectively suffering the same frustrations that Brazilians live day in and day out. They were in a situation from which there was no escape. They were not from here and did not understand the system, but they all shared two things in common: they were all experiencing Brazil like Brazilians, and most importantly, they had samba to raise their spirits.

I then began to feel my spirits being lifted by those who had came along on this crazy journey and who had spent the last day complaining to me about it.

Again I must digress…

Days later I found out what Doris had said and what had happened in the morning on the buses when she talked to the "troops". She later revealed to me that she had gone into each bus and said (and I paraphrase): "Look. I know things are not going as you thought they would. I know you are upset about many things. But you have come this far. David and Alessandra have worked very hard to get us to the place where we can show Brazil that gringos can samba. Are we going to give up now? Are we going to show them that we are going to give up right before our time in the sun? No way! Let's show them that we can do samba outside of Brazil. Are you with me?" Doris told me that both buses clapped and cheered.

She gave the old General Patton speech and it worked. It is hard for me to know how to thank her for what she did. She later told me say that she found the strength by looking back at how Alessandra and I had worked to get to this point, and could not let it die just one day before it was to come true.

We humans need each other for sure. I needed her that day.

Gringo Bateria

Two nights before, the gringo samba dancers proved that they could samba well enough to dance in the Sambadrome. Now it was the bateria's turn. Seven players and directors from Beija-Flor's bateria were on hand with a truck full of drums from Império do Tuiuti. Each drummer got the drum they wanted to play in the parade. No one was without a drum. Each gringo was given a drum, a strap, and a stick and were carefully and politely treated. The samba dancers had one male and one female teacher to teach them samba moves that they could learn quickly, which they did. Everyone was given the attention they wanted. Hopefully, we were making up for the attention we did not give them the night before.

The Brazilians lined up the gringos in the parking lot of Beija-Flor to get them to play and march while playing. Of course, all the gringo drummers had a lot of experience with this, but the Brazilians did not know. In fact, they didn't know if they could play, let alone play and march at the same time. They spent a lot of time talking and explaining before they started the gringos playing. Yet, the gringos were restless to play. Finally, after delaying a good 45 minutes, the directors gave the calls to play. The leader called, the gringos answered. The leaders called again, the gringos answered. The leader finally called to start and the gringos started, somewhat tentatively at first, but then they grew stronger and more confident in a few short minutes.

They marched up and down the parking lot. They then moved inside and played with one of the official puxadores (samba singers) from Beija-Flor. Again, they played very well. A break was then given to see a dance demonstration. I stopped video taping, I happened to pass by and hear the seven Brazilian instructors talking about the gringos in Portuguese, whispering to themselves. "If I had half of these gringo drummers here today, I could throw out half our bateria at Beija-Flor!" I guess that was a compliment. They were truly impressed. I let the gringos know about what I heard right away. It brought some smiles.

Brazilians have to remember that we gringo sambistas study, study, study samba. We don't grow up with this stuff so we have to study it later in life to try and make up for lost time. Maybe the Brazilians were slowly starting to understand this.

Needless to say, the gringo samba drummers or bateria earned their spots on the last day before the parade. But one question still lingered: is Unidos do Mundo a gringo school or a Brazilian one?

Unrest or Satisfaction?

We ate our final dinner at Beija-Flor and I agreed to talk to the group right before we left. It was time to see if the gringos egos and emotions were repaired from the wounds of the previous day. Just before talking with them, I sought out Alessandra who was hidden away on her cell phone making the millions of decisions, plans and adjustments needed for the huge job of parading 700 people in the Sambadrome the next day.

I found her and waited for her to end her current phone call. She looked at me with very tired eyes and said: "E aí?" (What's up?) That was becoming her standard comment when she saw me. We had learned very early on that we could trust each other and that our intentions were always good and that communication was everything. I told her I was a bit worried about opening up the discussion to the gringos about the difficulties of yesterday. She told me that she had some news that I could tell the gringos. I listened intently to her and then went to my speech. I was my turn to face the participants. I had no idea what to expect. I just hoped it would turn out positively.

"Did you like the teachers from today?" The bateria motioned yes. "They will go with you back to Rio as will all the of drums, and you are to take the stage. The stage, the quadra, and the school are yours. Unidos do Mundo is a gringo samba school. Yes, the Brazilians will be there but they are there only to help you. The school is yours."

There was only silence. But the stares and emotions were so thick that they could be cut with a knife. People looked at me and at each other thinking. I believe they were thinking of all the suffering and struggling and work and money it took to get themselves to where they were today. They were upset, yes, very upset and they had the right. But as they sat silently, they began shaking their heads in quiet agreement. They could not cheer or laugh. They were still in a state of melancholy. A state of happiness and sadness and anger and delight all at once. Their feelings again were very Brazilian. I sense this having spent three years of my life in Rio and knowing the feeling.

The gringos not only could play and dance samba, they could in some important way, feel Brazilian.

"Let's go then!" I said and people slowly got up and headed for the buses. One person I passed when going to the busses—a person who was very upset from the night before—seemed to sum up their feelings in one simple word: "Thanks". I think that was one of the sweetest "thanks" I ever heard.

The Last Rehearsal

That night, the rehearsal was intense and the energy beyond belief. The gringos took the stage with their drums and they were joined by an equal number of Brazilians. Celebrities were there this night and one of them, very unexpected.

Neguinho da Beija-Flor is known throughout Brazil as a top samba singer and he was there to rehearse. He was surrounded by fans and onlookers and I made my way to him to hug him and thank him again for his support.

But then I saw someone who at first, I didn't believe could be there. She was there in great spirits with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in another. I looked at her several times and she glanced my way but I wasn't sure. Because of the crowds of people and reporters, I had people constantly coming up to me with comments, thanks, and questions. A little while later, one lady who I had met before said: "Let me introduce you to someone". She walked me over to the mystery person and then I knew. It must be her.

"Beth, this is David. He is one of the founders of the school and was the one who organized everything over the Internet". "Oh!" she replied with surprise, turning to her friends. She then introduced me to her friends saying "this is the guy who started all this over the Internet!" I told her that it was a great honor to have her here and that she was a legend to everyone including we gringo sambistas. Later on, she would tell us all why she was there in her own words. Right now, I had to get ready to sing.

Pavão, the director of the school, introduced Neguinho, myself, and Ricardo from Portugal as the puxadores for the school. Neguinho and Ricardo talked to the crowd and then Pavão started putting the parade groups in order to rehearse. Pavão had another person he said would like to speak to the school and especially the gringos. She came on stage and called me next to her so that I could translate. She spoke in Portuguese in one lovely sentence that expressed her feelings of why she was there to help give her support. She then turned to the bateria and asked me to translate. I did so by first telling them who she was.

"This is Beth Carvalho". You should have seen the looks of amazement on the gringo bateria. They were so emotionally involved and charged that they did not recognize her at first. Now they did. Their mouths hung open in a collective gasp as I translated. "Beth said that when she came to know about our project Unidos do Mundo, that it lifted her heart and spirit so, that she had to be part of it." That said it all. It seemed that everyone was catching the spirit of the project that kept both Alessandra and I going for so many years despite the obstacles. It was now coming true in the most remarkable ways.

Pavão then announced that the last rehearsal would be started with the gringo puxadores—Ricardo and myself. This was Ricardo's first time so I sang as principal. Neguinho was standing next to us with a lyric sheet to help him learn the song. I started and Ricardo and I sang the first two times through alone. The bateria came in and the dancers were whipped into a frenzy. The quadra was truly the gringos quadra and the Brazilians were there to help and to participate alongside.

Neguinho began to sing and we three sang for a few verses together. There were only three microphones so we had to rotate as the night went on. Beth Carvalho came to the stage and I shared my microphone with her for the refrain which she already knew. She then moved away as we sang the rest of the song, animating the crowd and taking it in. Now I really knew why she is the first lady of samba in Brazil. She lived and breathed samba and she knew that we were making samba history—something already familiar to her.

One Favor, One Chance

Back in late 1998 when Alessandra joined the project, I asked her one favor. It wasn't money, or a plane ticket, or a hotel. I paid my way and the way of a few others to get to Brazil for this project and had no special treatment. But there was one special favor I asked: not for me, but for someone in my family.

Jairzinho lives in a town north of Rio and is an incredible person. Liked by all, he is humble, yet very strong emotionally and physically. But most of all, he has a big, big heart. He had once been called to sing at a big school in Rio when he was younger. He went to Rio but at the last minute, he got scared and didn't show up for the meeting. He was from a small town, was young, and was not emotionally ready for the chance.

My wife and I also tried to get him to come to the United States a few years ago during Carnaval to sing. He composed some very beautiful songs for SambaLá, which we sang, but again he declined the invitation. He was still not ready.

But this time, I invited him to a place and at a time in his life he could never refuse: to sing in the Sambadrome with me. It is the dream of tens of thousands of samba singers all around Brazil. That is the biggest show on earth for a samba singer. It is the Carnegie Hall, the Albert Hall of Rio. And this time he didn't refuse. He said "David, we'll show them how to sing, you and I!"

So I asked Alessandra if my brother-in-law who was a samba singer and composer could sing with me on the avenue in the Sambadrome. She told me, "Of course!". But I really didn't know until the week before if it would happen. There are so many politics involved in putting us in the Sambadrome that I knew that there was a small chance he may not sing. But she kept telling me that it would happen.

Well, Jairzinho was there that night when I started to sing during the last rehearsal. When I was singing with Beth and Neguinho, I was concentrating on my singing—my technique, not singing too loud to ruin my voice for the next day. I was using techniques I had learned in my lessons from a top singer teacher in LA so that I could do my best. But this concentration was suddenly broken and the emotion of the moment took hold. Ricardo from Portugal had handed the microphone to Jairzinho and he moved up front next to me and put his arm around me.

There we were: Jairzinho do Império with David from SambaLá singing in between Neguinho and Beth Carvalho. A dream come true for Jairzinho and I. A time to remember.

After a bit, I handed my microphone to Walter, a puxador and composer from Mocidade who also was singing with us tomorrow. After all, I had to save my voice for the big day as all of us. We were there until very late.

Saturday, March 11, 2000

We all met at the Rio Othon to go to the Sambadrome. This was the day. It was threatening to rain but so far had held off. We were to parade at 8 pm, right after the children's samba school and right before the Italian Carnaval group. A noticeable portion of the gringos did not have their costumes and were already letting me know. I told them they would be sent to them in the concentration area of the Sambadrome and to go with us. We piled onto the bus and headed out.

When we got there and started to put on our costumes the rains began. SambaLá's porta-bandeira and mestre-sala costumes were made of velvet and they began to get very heavy. For our King Momo, the rain was a nice cooling shower for such a great-sized man. But I really didn't even notice the rain. I went with everyone to the concentration area and met up with the cavaquinho player and other singers. We hid under the side of our float to keep dry and not to catch cold and ruin our voices.

Alessandra had reached her wits end. This was her first really big event and she could no longer function. Pavão, her husband, and my wife Doris were calmly solving a thousand problems a second, waving some off as impossible to solve, others they improvised. I kept with the singers. I had to have my voice strong so they could feel the presence of a gringo in the song.

Finally, the bateria entered the Sambadrome and all we singers and musicians entered behind. We looked down the Sambadrome which looked a thousand miles long filled to capacity looking as if we were gladiators going to battle. We were pumped! Neguinho came running up to me and told me that O Globo wanted to interview me before the parade. I went to them and answered a bunch of interview questions right before we started. Finally, there I stood, next to the sound car in the Sambadrome, with Neguinho da Beija-Flor, Beth Carvalho, Jairzinho, and hundreds of gringos and Brazilians ready to parade. Four years of work were about to come to a head. I didn't even have time to talk to Alessandra. It was show time!

A few seconds before the start, another newsperson tapped me on the shoulder. I didn't really have time for another interview. But when she showed me her badge, it stopped me in my tracks for those few seconds. She was a reporter from Brazzil magazine. I didn't even know her name but at that moment, it hit me as to how far I had gone during the last four years. There she was, a reporter for a magazine that was local to our area and country and produced by my friend Rodney, standing next to me in the Sambadrome. A piece of home was close by during this historic event. It shook me for a moment.

Then, it started…

Sixty Minutes of Heaven

Neguinho yelled out his praise for the school and its members and began to sing our song. At his side was Beth Carvalho who although did not sing, was there showing her support. All we other singers bounced in time with the music ready to sing when the time came. Once the first two lines were done, Neguinho turned to us and we began singing. What an emotion. We were so ready. We were more than ready. We were super ready. And not one tear. Just singing, singing, singing our hearts out! Singing the best we could! The clock moved to zero hours, zero minutes. Our sixty minutes of heaven had started. This was our time. But would the audience react? Would Brazil react and understand why we were there?

At the right moment, the bateria did its breaks and came in strong without missing a beat. The paraders on the avenue in front of us began to swing and sway and jump to the beat. Each person did their part. I watched in amazement as the spectacle passed by. We were stationary in the traditional holding area for the bateria and sambistas as the rest of the parade passed by until our place came to enter the avenue. Neguinho was amazing with his voice and had an incredible respect for our new small school. He turned to me while singing and with his booming strong voice called out my name: "Davidgee!!!" (That is the way Brazilians pronounce my name, David). What an incredible rush! I sang better and stronger! What an amazing person to recognize that this was our school that he was here to help. Incredible!

To add a touch of "gringo" to our song, during our practices I added the English phrase "I love you" in between the verse saying "Eu te amo, eu te amo, eu te amo Brasil." Now that I was in the parade, I shouted this at every chance that I could at that point in the music to let Brazil know that we gringos were there and that there was a gringo samba singer.

It was finally our turn to parade and we turned onto the avenue. It was still raining and the avenue was wet, but I only remember that as a fact, not feeling. Emotionally, I didn't feel the rain. What I do remember are two incredible sights, sounds, feelings. First, looking down the avenue and seeing the Sambadrome entirely filled with our school. I had always imagined that it would only fill a small part of the 750 meter length of the Sambadrome, but it filled the entire length!

I was immediately struck by what an incredible job Alessandra, Pavão, and their staff did to put together such a spectacle! Second was the crowd. They were on their feet clapping in unison and singing and waving. What a sight! What a feeling! I looked at the clock and there was still 40 minutes left and I wondered if my voice could hold out for that long. I hit my stomach muscles with my fist now and then to remind myself to project. Voice, don't fail me now!

Doris came around to video tape us singing and I grabbed a hold of Neguinho and Jairzinho and we paraded past Doris as she filmed. Neguinho was such a sport to let us sing with him. He made us feel so comfortable. Doris disappeared behind us and we continued singing. She then reappeared and this time, I felt that I wanted to record a more intimate moment for our family. I grabbled Jairzinho and we paraded in front of the camera.

Sure, we were live on TV, there was a documentary film crew filming us, and 65,000 people were in the stands, but this was a personal moment. Jairzinho and I sang not for the audience, but for Doris. A stream of tears larger than Brazil's Iguaçu falls started falling down her face. She wasn't even looking into the video camera's view finder. She just held the camera next to her head and was bawling like a baby. I kissed Jairzinho on his clean cut head and we went on with our bliss.

The Parade

The parade of Unidos do Mundo made history in so many ways. The one float we had from Porta da Pedra school stopped in the middle of the Avenue and half the paraders went up one side and out the other. The float was a huge computer screen and the participants entered the screen on one side symbolizing them entering the Internet in their country, and walked out of the computer screen into the Sambadrome on the other side. First time a parade went through a float.

Another first was the big ball. A flag made up of 19 countries were sewn together to make up one large Brazilian flag and for the round blue part in the middle, there was a two meter ball. Once every so often down the avenue, the ball was hit around by the participants in the parade eventually landing back in its spot. Each flag was supported by a person dressed as a candle, each representing a country of the participants.

The most spectacular part of the parade however was the front commission (comissão de frente). There were eight people in 25-foot (8 meter) high wedges that looked like sailing ships in front when separated, and moon crescents from the side. They all came together periodically to form a globe of the world which then spun around and around. When it stopped, people inside would come out and juggle and do tricks, then they went back inside to repeat their choreography. This part of Unidos do Mundo was so good that the league of samba schools said it was better than half the front commissions of the top schools.

These incredible creations and ideas came from Ricardo Pavão and his team in Brazil. Incredible job, guys!!!

Our school, SambaLá made some history that day. We were the first samba school outside of Brazil to parade the following in the Sambadrome: mestre-sala, porta-bandeira, madrinha da bateria, rainha da bateria, Rei Momo, and first non-Portuguese speaking gringo to sing. Something we can tell our grandkids!

And what held everything together and told the millions of Brazilians on TV and the tens of thousand in the stands why we were there was the song. The song by the musical genius Martinho da Vila told everyone there that we had traveled far to see them and to help celebrate their 500 year birthday in the year 2000. It told our story to the Brazilians as did our floats and our costumes. But it was our dancing, playing and singing that showed them we are gringo sambistas!

The crowd by the end of the sixty minutes were singing along with us. Beth Carvalho paraded down the avenue pointing the gringo bateria, dancers, and singers out to the crowd and applauded along with them for their efforts. Carlinhos Jesus, a famous Brazilian dancer also joined in the fun and spirit. The TV announcer noted that they had not seen such spirit of fun in many years on the avenue and of course, never so many gringos!!!

Final

I reached the painted line in the Sambadrome that literally says "final" and the documentary film crew approached, camera rolling. "So, how was it?" they asked.

"It was sixty minutes of ecstasy between total chaos" I said. And it was. Carnaval is a moment of bliss between the struggles of everyday life. And the gringos lived this during this trip. But now it was over.

At the end, Doris, Jairzinho and I found each other and we put our heads together for a group hug. We had no words. No words were necessary. I then looked for the other half of this project: Alessandra. We got close to each other and we both let out our emotions in a flood of tears. We put our hands on each other's shoulders and pressed our foreheads together like Siamese twins joined at the head. Our hands linked our hearts and souls. "Conseguimos" we said in unison. "We did it!"

The Future

Thinking back now, time has not diminished my feelings. During the writing of this article, tears and a lump in my throat were the norm as the words of this piece made me relive the moments of the last four years over and over. The emotions do not go away but only get stronger.

But if there is one defining moment during the four years, I would have to pick something that I already knew defined the entire project, but during the parade, only reflection would make this clear.

Jackson was born during the first year we started our samba school in the Los Angeles area back in 1994. His mother is the madrinha of SambaLá and he accompanied her in the Sambadrome on this historic day. As I watched the video of the parade, I saw little Jackson for the first time in the parade walking along the entirety of the Sambadrome playing. People were throwing streamers, which were landing on the avenue along with bits and pieces of costumes and floats. Jackson was fascinated by these treasures on the avenue and during the entire parade was picking them up, playing with them, and then throwing them away. At one point he innocently offered a streamer as an imaginary banana to Beth Carvalho to eat.

At first I felt angry. Angry that he did not play or dance down the avenue. He dances and plays samba very well and people are always impressed by his ability at such an early age.

Yet years before I arrived in Brazil, I knew that Jackson had to be there with us. He was symbolic of samba in the 21st century. Before, you could only grow up with samba in Brazil. If you lived outside of Brazil there was no chance to be as good as a Brazilian sambista. But it was now different. Jackson has grown up with samba all his life. He thinks that being in a samba school is normal. He danced his first samba show before he was born and samba is in his blood. When he got to Brazil and played and danced samba with the Brazilians, it was as if he lived there all his life.

What I didn't understand when I saw him in the Sambadrome was his complete lack of want to do the samba. I couldn't figure that out.

Then it hit me…

Jackson didn't need to samba in the Sambadrome. His samba world wasn't Rio de Janeiro. Sure, Rio is the Mecca of Samba and we adults know and feel its importance. To him, the Sambadrome was filled with fun toys and fun people. To him, Beth Carvalho was just another ordinary person who needed to eat like the rest of us. Samba is what he does at home at SambaLá in California, not in the Sambadrome. When he returns to the United States that is when he will dance and play samba again, not now. Now is his vacation.

Samba is truly becoming universal. Gringos cannot only samba with some of the best Brazil has to offer, but can "feel" a bit what a Brazilian feels during Carnaval. Participants of the first Unidos do Mundo had suffered through what Brazilians suffered each and every day—things not working as well or as fast or at all. But through this suffering, a universal bond formed between Unidos do Mundo participants and they not only made history as founding members of the first gringo samba school to parade in the Sambadrome, but they also experienced a bit of what it is like for a Brazilian sambista to parade during Carnaval—a melancholy of all the emotions—good and bad—of life.

Epilogue

A fire broke out a week after the event, destroying everything but the front commission globe. Everything that was being stored for next year's event was turned to ash. But thankfully, no one was hurt and Alessandra's family business had no damage. Alessandra and I believe it as a new beginning for next year. But we don't know how the fire started, nor does it matter now. Thank goodness it didn't happen BEFORE the parade!

Unidos do Mundo returns to Rio and parades in the Sambadrome on March 3, 2001 and you are welcome to join us! Workshops will be bigger and better and will run the days preceding the parade. Check www.unidosdomundo.com for details in the coming months. All participants of the first event are considered founding members and will have special privileges and discounts for all the hardships they experienced during our first encounter.

We are looking to take Unidos do Mundo to different countries once every so many years, but always returning to Rio regularly. Maybe we'll follow the World Cup? Who knows…

Unidos do Mundo and samba continue strong into the 21st century and beyond but with one big difference thanks to our small but historic event: samba is truly universal and is uniting the world.

David de Hilster is one of the founders and is the International Coordinator for Unidos do Mundo. He is the founder and president of SambaLá samba school, a chief research officer of a software company, an accomplished and collected artist, and is president of a worldwide physics society that is replacing Einstein's theory. You can e-mail him at david@dehilster.com

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