Oi Gente!

Well, I arrived in Recife late monday night on a cheap flight from Salvador. Imagine, the flight was only about 10 euros more than the bus! My Italian friend picked me up on his motorbike and we had a high speed ride into Olinda with me holding on with my big backpack trying not to move the weight around too much as we rode on the highway with speeding trucks coming within inches of us and my friend honking every time we passed a car (he later explained that in the past year he had had several near death experiences with cars suddenly swerving across lanes of traffic in front of him).

So, we made it safely to Olinda and had some wine as he told me about his experiences of trying to become a legalized citizen here (involving a questionable marriage that he is presently trying to annul). He left the next morning to travel north for a few weeks so I have his apartment until February. I´ve had some interesting conversations about forró music and the local music scene here with some of the locals. One comment: "The northeast and its people and culture have always been looked down upon by the richer southeast. Only recently have some avenues been opened up, through music, that are recognizing that there is great cultural richness in these so called 'poor and backward' areas of Brazil."
I set up an interview for this morning with a local musician but he wasn´t at home when I called to confirm and instead I spoke with a little kid who asked me my name about 6 times before telling me "não, ele já saiu!" (No, he´s gone already!)
I have another interview marked for this afternoon so I´m crossing my fingers that he will show up. His band makes some very interesting forró with the rabeca (fiddle) in place of accordion. Hopefully I can get the woman who plays fiddle to give me some interviews as I have not seen many women playing forró (except occaisionally singing). There are forró dances held tonite through Sunday in various places around the area so I will be at them all and hopefully get a good jump on some informants.
I went to the Terça Negra (Black Tuesday) event the other night with a fellow researcher that I met here that is held every Tuesday in a plaza in Recife. Great music, heavily African influence, alot of maracatus, cocos, afoxes, and good vibes overall. Some interesting comments made by the performers: "You all don´t have bad blood. You are worth something even if they try to make you feel like you aren´t."
Yesterday was one of those days that you set out with good intentions trying to get something done and end up not really accomplishing much. I did get a list of questions for my interviews today, but didn´t succeed in too much more. Hopefully the next few days will make up for this. It´s so hot here that it makes you really tired being out and about midday.