And now some happier kids

Well, for a change of pace, how about let's focus on some happy kids! My 5 days in Recife/Olinda was terrific fun, and turned out to be perfect timing. More details later but I thought I would first post some of the photos I have of the maracatu kids, to help erase any mental images from the last sad story that I posted.

The maracatu groups, even more than the samba baterias of Rio, seem to incorporate kids of all ages right into the bateria. We saw lots and lots of excellent young teenage drummers, and almost every group had a clump of teeny-tiny kids in the very front row playing teeny-tiny alfaias. And they were really playing them, not just messing around. Lots of these little kids had learned the full repertoire and were doing the full parade.

The biggest alfaia I saw: (Estrela Brilhante)


And the two smallest: (also Estrela Brilhante)



... and look how the little kids are watching the mestre as attentively as any adult drummer! (more attentively than some adults, actually)

An assortment of other tiny drummers:



This kid was too small to hold his group's beautiful flag, but he really wanted to pose with it for me. I really like this picture.


Here he was later during the parade! He was a torch-bearer.


I took a lot of maracatu movies. Usually I'd start filming, and after a few minutes I'd realize there was a small cluster of kids behind me, on tiptoe or clambering up on some fence or tree trunk behind me, to get a better look at the tiny screen of my camera. They know about digital cameras and they love to watch the little screen and see what I'm filming. They always were thrilled if I turned around and took a couple pictures of them:






Here's Matt (one of my "Bay Area drummers") with a pack of Estrela Brilhante kids. Sorry, there was beer on the lens.


And another pack of kids nearby. (More Estrela Brilhante kids)


That group of boys with Matt, in Estrela Brilhante's home neighborhood, had seemed especially rambunctious till I started asking their names, and they immediately became so shyly polite that I think I could detect the mark of some careful parenting about how to greet strangers. They very politely introduced themselves separately, one at a time, all waiting their turn, and occasionally with hushed little consultations about who should introduce two younger kids who seemed too shy to talk ; then asked my name and where I was from. When I said "Estados Unidos" there was a shy little pause and then one boy very carefully announced "Muito prazer em conhece-la!" (I am very pleased to meet you, ma'am!) and held out his hand for me to shake it - a very formal thing for a young Brazilian kid to do. I shook his hand and said "Muito prazer em conhece-lo, tambem!" (I am very pleased to meet you too, sir!) and then they all seemed delighted that the formal greeting had actually worked, and then every one of them wanted to shake hands and go through the same exchange. They were so cute! I felt like a foreign dignitary.