Unfinished thoughts about African Influence

You may recall, in my little story about the old lady who didn´t die, that I asked Heitor if it is a common practice for friends and relatives to come to the house of someone who has died, and that he said he thought it might be common in the Northeast. Since I knew that the Northeast is the part of Brasil with the strongest African cultural influences, I thought Heitor meant the practice might be common in areas where African culture has influenced christianity. But, no, wrong again. He reminded me of a Brasilean movie we saw that was set in the Northeast state of Ceará, an area with no significant African influences. There was a scene in the movie when someone died that was more like what I imagine an Irish wake to be than anything else. The body was in the house, with family and friends, not exactly partying I guess, but not in obvious anguish either.

I only came to know recently that Brasil has 5 distinct regions...North, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast, and South. I am reasonably sure these regions are not governmental units, but they are clearly defined on maps. I can hear an elementary school teacher asking students to name the 9 states that make up the Northeast or the 5 that comprise the Southeast. (All of which made me wonder about groupings in the U.S. like New England, Middle-Atlantic, Deep South etc. According to Wikipedia, there are "nine geographic divisions within the United States that are officially recognized by the United States Census Bureau." Who knew that?)

Since my original thought was about African cultural influences, that subject is on my mind. The state of Bahia in the Northeast is famous for its Afro-Brasilean culture. Do a Google search on Bahia or Salvador, its Capital, and you will see why it is the one area more than any other in Brasil that I have always wanted to visit. I don´t know the source of this quote, but I like it: "Before there was Brasil, there was Bahia." It was the most important region of early colonization, and Salvador was the original Capital of the colony. By coincidence, I was at a little party last night at the home of one of Heitor´s friends. She and a couple of her friends had just returned from three weeks in Salvador and Recife. It was her first trip there, and she was ecstatic about it.

My apologies, by the way, for an odd posting or two that I didn´t mean to make, which has (have) since been deleted. It must have been happy hour.

Tchau