We finally managed to edit more videos of the concert. Our whole idea was to show to an audience how great these kids were, that their work can be performed alongside professional musicians, and that they are able to entertain their audiences. They did a great job and all their teachers were very proud of them. Robi also invited his friends and – as the children did – he also showed how much he learnt on the guitar. Here are some more videos of the concert.

Our last video is about the city that was our home for three months. Curitiba is a very nice town to live in – it is safe, its people are rather cool, it is very multinational and the climate is bearable. It has some fantastic parks, good restaurants and a nice centre. Finally, on our last weekend we managed to be tourists in Curitiba and see its famous buildings and streets. Robi complained that winter arrived just when he left the city. It is especially heavy in Curitiba because it gets cold but it gets cold only for some days or weeks so people don’t invest in heating therefore the inhabitants are frozen for these days. Robi knew that it was time to come back to the summer in Hungary. As I mentioned earlier, I went to Ireland almost straight from Brazil where the weather was awful – cold and rain for the whole time. I was shocked – thankfully we had no such extremes while we were in Brazil.

Of course we freaked out when we heard about the Air France plane accident – Robi took the Air France Rio – Paris flight a couple of weeks before this happened. Even worse – we knew the Hungarian guy very well who was on the plane. I used to work with him on the A38 Ship – a music venue I used to manage. He was a very interesting guy and our prayers are with him and his family.
Although life is happening here in full speed, we think a lot about Brazil and our fantastic three months there. We definitely want to return because we miss our friends and the music very much. Again, thanks  for everybody who made this happen for us – we are very grateful. As I really enjoyed writing this blog, I may continue writing (not this one though) – this is really good fun. And we learnt to use a very simple film editing programme which is also great.  Well, good bye – anybody who reads it and wants to contact us, please do at agancs@gmail.com. And to close this, here is Robi’s real heritage – this is the gypsy music and virtuosity he was brought up with.

This will therefore be a short post based on my short telephone conversations with Robi in the past days. After I left Robi spent most of his time rehearsing for the concert and for the recording with the musicians from Curitiba. We have started a collaboration project based on Brazilian choro music and gypsy improvisation and Robi and his musician friends recorded three tracks so we can start working on the continuing the project. Instead of the planned 2 hours they spend 15 in the studio but everybody is soooo excited because the outcome is really something! I have not heard them yet but Robi as well as Joao are really pleased with the results. They were in the studio this Tuesday.

On Thursday finally the concert with the children and local musicians happened in the HSBC Theatre. I still have to get the full account of the concert and the see it on the video – it was recorded by Rafael, Joao’s brother on our camera – so I will be able to write about it when I go back to Hungary to meet Robi finally in Budapest. But in the meantime, here are some pictures that were taken by Robi’s teacher swimming and the leader of the gym we went to three-four times a week while we were in Curitiba.

Robi playing solo

Robi playing choro with his guitar teacher

Playing choro

Happy Joao and Robi

And here is something we have not talked about yet but we were doing during our three month visit. We joined a very nice gym at the beginning of March nearby our apartment, and as one of the good side effects of our trip was that Robi lost 17 kilos and I lost 12. It was intentional as – due to difficult times and stupid eating habits we we looked and felt awful when we arrived. So we decided to eat well (it is easy in Brazil as you can happily live on excellent fruit, great meat and vegetables and nuts), joined this fantastic gym – again, the specialty was not in the hardware but the people who were soooo nice and good to us! We also took swimming classes which for Robi is a big step as he has had a phobia of water and never wanted to go anywhere near water other than the bathtub. We got up at 6.30 three times a week and walked to the gym. The teachers became our friends and we are feeling much much better. Claudio suggested to Robi to change his music career into a modeling one because of the transformation he has gone through.

I will go home on Wednesday this week and have the full story of the recording and the concert and will give a full account and reflections of this amazing and incredibly inspiring trip. I am missing Brazil and its people so much!

Last week was short as we only came back from Buenos Aires on Tuesday evening and Friday was national holiday. We were busy finalizing arrangements for the concert and practicing with the choir and the girls. I think the programme will be very nice and hopefully there will be a lot of people in the HSBC Theatre on 14th May. I said a very sad good-bye to the children on Thursday – they were really nice it was hard to leave them. When we first came to Brazil, we had no idea how these kids would be. Children living in shelters and underprivileged areas in Budapest are tend to be rather violent, rough and not very well looked after. This is why we were really surprised how clean, well behaved, happy and kind these children were. And we really got to like them a lot and appreciate their effort and dedication to music.

Yesterday, finally we had the opportunity to visit one of the shelters they come from. Here we began to understand the differences between our experience at home and here. I am sure not all the shelters are as good as this was, but this one is a little Paradise. Well, we should not forget, that Paradise is lost for these kids on the first place as most of them are taken away from their alcoholic, violent or drug addict parents. But given the circumstances, this place was really great with some fantastic people working there. The land is the property of the presbiterian church who – in partnership with the government – is running this shelter the insiute. They also look for sponsorship and support of non- governmental organisations. The HSBC Instituto de Solidaridade eg. pays for the psychologist and some teachers, and of course, they help those children who are in the choir. The place has 50 children aged between 4 and 18. Brothers and sisters are not separated and social parents look after every 10 children. They live in houses with kitchen, living room, bathrooms and bedrooms and the shelter has common rooms for activities, meals. They also have a book and video library and a laundry. They are trying to secure a house for those who pass 18 to be able to stay there for another 3-4 years.

The children are very well looked after, the “parents” and the couple who runs the place seem to be really nice and loving. We met happy children there and very kind adults. Generally speaking, Brazilians are really fantastic with children and the children we met were very very kind. I was first rather concerned about going to a shelter because I was afraid of horrible sights and circumstances but it was absolutely the contrary. Today, driving to the airport Dulce showed us some of the favelas the children are coming from eg. Barbara, one of Robi’s violinist girls – well, it is hard to imagine that she goes home, takes out her violin and practices. But she does and she lives with a beautiful smile.

We know that it is not at all like this everywhere in Brazil. Our beloved Marialuise – the adopted daughter of our landlord and friend Antonio – was in really horrible condition when Antonio found her in the orphan shelter in Bahia. She was three, she could not speak, was very hungry. She ate and ate and ate for 8 months after he took her home – it was only after than she said no to something that was given to her. She was abused, beaten and abandoned by her teenager parents before she ended up in the shelter. Now she is very happy and looks like a little Boney M singer with her amazing hair. Whenever she came in our apartment, she left behind an empty fridge, an exhausted Robi and a big mess. It was very hard to say good-bye to her this morning.

(More Chinese people are turning up here, one of them have just sat next to me reading with interest what I am writing, smiled very happily and talked to me in Chinese… I really have no idea what he wanted, but finally he left. Maybe he is bored or interested in my computer.)

Good-byes. On Saturday I said good-bye to the city that was our home for almost 3 months. Of course – as it always happen – we have travelled around Brazil but never managed to see Curitiba in a touristy manner. Finally we took the tourist bus and did the 3 hour tour around the city to see its most interesting sites. Well, being a tourist is rather tiring but the trip was very nice.

I also said good-bye to a lot of really fantastic people I met. The children, Enoque, Dulce… Dulce took me to one of Curitiba’s amazing parks on Sunday, the Parque Barigüi. We were watching beautiful fish, birds and capivaras. I have no idea how these funny animals are called in English – we call them waterpigs in Hungarian. They are lurking around in the park, small ones, big ones – and enjoying a good life. In the evening we went out for a great seafood meal with Claudio, Joao and her wife. Oh yes, I almost forgot! With Joao and Juliana we also went to dance forro on Saturday night to the Alice Bar. Life starts there at midnight, mainly couples turn up, the live band starts playing forro. It is a dance coming from the North East of Brazil – even more “latin” than samba and it is relatively easy to dance. Of course, to be a good forro dancer takes time and a lot of moving of the hips but it is really great fun. The rhythm is very catchy, sounds a little bit like reggae sometimes. We had a couple of caipirinhas, listened to the music and danced and we were very grateful for God – and everybody else who made this trip happened – that we are in Brazil. The following day we had a bit of a problem waking up – surely it was the fruit in the caipirinhas that gave us headache…

Yesterday we did a lot of packing (we had to buy two extra luggage for all the scores, CDs, books, cachasas etc. we bought) and final arrangements. As I was managing our life in Curitiba in the past 10 weeks, I had to give Robi a lot of information. I also called all our friends and important contacts to make sure they will attend the concert on 14th. In the afternoon I had a really good meeting with the marketing director of HSBC Brazil to give them a report about our stay and to make some recommendation for the Christmas show they organise every year. They seemed to really appreciate my ideas so I will follow it up with them.

Well, as more and more Chinese men are interested in what I am writing and it starts to be a little bit annoying, I finish it here and take a little walk before the 12 hour flight. From now on the blog will be based on Robi’s single life in Curitiba for the next two weeks and probably about my reflections of this absolutely fantastic trip.

We fell in love with Buenos Aires as soon as we got there. On the way from the airport our taxi driver – in the very funny English they all speak there – explained us his incredibly mixed origin and very proudly told us that in Buenos Aires there is no racism, everybody is equal. This was a very sympathetic start. We stayed in a hostel right in the centre of the city – a very convenient location and an absolutely OK room (it looked much nicer on pictures but nevertheless for the price we paid it was more than good). First of all – Buenos Aires is very cheap now. It is incredibly cheap compared to Brazil – everything costs at least half of what it costs here: taxis, accommodation, public transport, not to mention clothes, electronic goods and CDs. I don’t think I have to say that we came back again with about 30 CDs and DVDs – tango, what else?

We were walking a lot in the city, first we went to see Plaza de Mayo with the Government Palace. This is the famous square where the Madres de Mayo in their white scarves were protesting and demanding information about their disappeared sons, and from where Evita addressed her people. Walking on Avenida Mayo and the surrounding streets we felt at home – Budapest and Buenos Aires are strangely similar: the architecture, the streets, the condition of the houses, the cafes all reminded us of home. It feels that the two cities have a very similar past (but probably a very different future). When the film Evita was shot in Budapest, we had the fake palm trees around the central area of Pest – now we saw their original versions.

The scales are grand in BA – the squares are big, the avenues very wide. But of course there are barrios where you have small streets with very charming houses, like San Telmo. We spent the Sunday afternoon there to see the little cafés, antique and design shops, and the great antique market. During the market day there are many street performers in the streets – puppet shows, tango dancers, musicians, comedians. We had great fun and I bought a beautiful “filete de Buenos Aires” – this is the art of hand painted wood and metal boards in a kind of Art Nouveao style. (I think this will be a strong inspiration for the next Budapest Bar album cover…)

This area is very different from Porto Madero where we spent the morning – this is a rehabilitated area of old docks with fantastic modern buildings, a beautiful pedestrian bridge and very chic restaurants. The weather was beautiful and the whole area so pleasant, Robi and I decided that we want to live there one day.

On the way back to the hotel on Avenida Mayo there was a stage of free shows and we saw a really high quality orchestra tipica and some fantastic dancers. We talked to the musicians afterwards and by chance asked information from the producer himself and we were convinced to go to a tango show of theirs in the evening. In Buenos Aires one cannot avoid tango – not that we wanted to. There is tango everywhere – in the streets, in the shops, in the books, in the bars, in the cafes… There are special shops of tango shoes – the interesting development is that there are very cool looking clubbing shoes made for tango -, tango dresses, tango scores, tango instruments, tango memorabilia, everything. In the evening we went to see the show of Tango Porteno in an absolutely beautiful converted theatre. They took out the theatre chairs and changed them for tables – we just wished we had a place like this for Budapest Bar (Budapest Bar for those who don’t know is Robi’s band and music project reviving some great songs of the 30s and 40s of Budapest, including of course some tangos www.budapestbar.hu). We enjoyed the show so much (it started with a gypsy music inspired tango called Amor en Budapest) – it was really well done, very good musicians and dancers. Not at all something you would expect from a “tourist show”. It is worth checking out http://www.tangoporteno.com.ar/

The following day we decided to tango ourselves. It was not easy to drag ourselves out of the hotel room at 9pm because we were walking around the city all day to see some of the great sites including the colourful street in the barrio Boca called Caminito, the beautiful parks of Palermo and Retiro and the interesting Museum of Latin American Modern Art (MALBA).  We also had a nice apple pie and icecream in the famous Café Tortoni.

We decided to go for an underground tango place for a milonga and class that was organised by the young orchestra Elafronte. It is good to see how young and very cool people also embrace this old tradition and dance tango amazingly well. First we took a class with a very nice young girl. It was very funny and not easy at all. By the end of it my feet and legs were in pain partly because of the tension all beginners experience I guess, partly because Robi was constantly kicking me. The idea is that the man leads and the woman has to feel what is happening and where to step. But it takes time to learn this. I guess, quite a lot of time. After the class people started to turn up, set down, changed their shoes and the milonga started. We saw some amazing dancers and we stayed for a while to listen to the band. We had a bottle of very good Argentinian wine, took a taxi and collapsed in our hotel room. Unfortunately we had to leave the following day and after a bit of shopping we went to the airport. Mi Buenos Aires Querida is one of the most famous songs of Carlos Gardel, the famous tango singer and personality. The people of BA love their city and we really join them in this sentiment.

This is a city where we want to go back for sure and spend more time – we had the impression that it was a really great time to visit now. The prices are low, it is a great time for tango (there were times when Portenos – this is what the people of Buenos Aires call themselves – were not very enthusiastic about tango), the food is excellent and the people are very cool. We were sad to leave but we were happy to come back to Brazil to meet our friends again.

We walk around the centro and we saw some really interesting looking people and shops. Near the market there is a street which is flooded by thousands and thousands of people and which has the most awkward shops one can imagine. Two storey large stores are selling costumes – you can buy batman, spiderman, you name it. And people do seem to shop there! Around the area we saw very large shops dedicated only for coat hangers – different sizes and colours -, others were only selling glasses or bijou. Imagine large – like a middle size supermarket full of coat hangers – and not only one shop but many! The Municipal Market is great – we saw even more exotic fruit and vegetables and tons of dried fish.
We visited Liberdade, went to a FNAC to buy some more CDs – I think we have about 60 or 70 now, will be fun to take them home – and I bought some – again, very heavy – books to continue my studies of Portuguese. Towards the evening we walked around Avenida Paulinista where all the office buildings are. From the various taxis we took, we saw many different faces of the city – we were really going around a bit but only managed to see a tiny part of the city.

The second concert with Andrea Bocelli was very nice with an incredible number of 25000 people watching the show. This time there were some local stars invited – Toquinho, the famous bossa nova guitarist and Ivete Sangalo, Brazilian super pop star singer. The audience was very excited about Ivete’s appearance – well, it did not impress us so much and Garota de Ipanema would have needed a bit more rehearsal together for such a big crowd and concert. Anyway, the public was very excited about Bocelli and Ivete singing together and her appearance made the headline for the Folha de Sao Paolo (leading daily paper). Thanks to this, Robi’s picture is in the paper and we saw him also on television the following morning.

All in all, it was a truly great experience – not only for Robi to meet the orchestra and make some new friends there, but also to see this big show from backstage. For me it was a bit strange not to have to work, but it was fun to see how things were managed – or mismanaged sometimes… I have not been to an Andrea Bocelli concert so it was a new experience to observe who was in the audience. It is amazing how he unites old and young, rich and poor. Old ladies were singing the Italian opera-pop along Bocelli but many rather cool looking young people also were extatic about him. Interesting.

After our return Robi was very busy preparing the girls for the concert on 14 May. I was a little bit ill – as I said, autumn arrived and I got cold. Luckily the weather is fantastic again and Buenos Aires (where we were last weekend) cured my illness.

The other big event of last week was the 24 hour Choro day to celebrate the most famous choro composer’s, Pixinginha’s birthday. He composed – amongst hundreds of others – the song called Carinhoso which seems to be the second national anthem – whenever it is played, everybody sings along.  This is a very beautiful song and I especially love the soft tongue of Portuguese. It is worth checking out this version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IhqXDQkWpQ or also the one Joao Gilberto sings on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzvrg-vLz94

The 24 hour Choro really started at midnight on 22rd April at the Beto Batata bar, and continued non-stop there, in the main street of the city (in front of the HSBC headquarter) and in the Conservatory of MPB. We went to the bar at around 10pm and Robi joined in with Joao Egashira’s Roda de Choro along with the excellent clarinet player Sergio de Meira Albach (he is the music director of a wind orchestra called Orquestra Á Base de Sopro. There was also Julião Boêmio playing the cavaquinho – this is the mini guitar with 4 strings. It was amazing because he is a really big man and I seriously don’t understand how his fingers cope with the tiny neck of the cavaquinho. But he is an excellent player. It was very nice and of course it finished with everybody singing Carinhoso. Robi was struggling a bit because he had to improvise for almost 2 hours but he made some nice contributions.

The next update will be about our amazing trip to Buenos Aires and about TANGO!

Last week started rather uneventful – Robi was teaching, learning guitar, I was studying my Portuguese, there was a rather nasty blockage in our bathroom which I was cleaning a whole morning (nice…) and I broke some plates. Robi was happy with the girls who very diligently practiced during the Eastern break – especially Lu did a fantastic job on the piano. The girl really got the hang of it – despite the hardship at the beginning she became one of the best of Robi’s several girls. She is almost ready with her programme for the concert, they only have to fine tune her pieces. The whole music school was really surprised by her advancement – good teacher, good student. The violinists are also making progress although of course violin is much more difficult. But Robi gives them really difficult tasks – they are already practicing a little chamber piece together, all playing different lines. It is interesting to see how the four of them making progress – first Barbara was the best, now she has difficulties with playing clear notes. Natasha, who was not very good first is getting really better. But the key word is “PRATICAR!” (practice, of course). Some classes were canceled because the choir had two small concerts during the week.

Life from Wednesday evening became rather eventful though. About a month ago we learnt that HSBC is sponsoring two mega concerts by Andrea Bocelli and the marketing director had the idea to include Robi in the orchestra that plays with him. We had to give Robi’s CV, but for a long time, nothing happened. It seems that there were some problems choosing the orchestra because it was only decided very late. And on Wednesday night we got a phone call from the production company that Robi is in, we are traveling to Rio on Friday morning. Thursday resembled scenes from Mission Impossible – I was getting various pieces of information on the phone and by email from different people concerning flights, hotel, schedule and tuxedo renting. This latter was the funniest bit of the day – I was sitting, getting my manicure done (this is what women do here all the time, it is incredibly cheap and there are shops in every corner) when I started getting text messages about locations for renting a tuxedo. Finally at 6pm, just before they closed, we turned up in a shop that seems to be an institution in Curitiba. Lots and lots of tuxedos, suits and evening dresses are for rent. The shopkeepers were incredibly nice – the one that fit Robi was short but they fixed everything in 15 minutes. It was not cheap at all though. Before I get into opera land, let me talk a little bit about prices in Brazil.

If somebody thinks Brazil is a cheap country, forget it. Food is relatively cheap if you shop in supermarkets and eat in cheap restaurants. Drinks are also much cheaper than in Europe, although it is only true for local products. Anything that is imported is horribly expensive. Electronic goods cost more than twice as much as in Europe (we could almost make one flight ticket worth of money if we sold our camera), renting apartments is very expensive, hotels are not that cheap although budget alternatives can be found. The most expensive though is to buy clothes or any household items. Of course there is Chinese made, very bad quality stuff everywhere for very low price (although more expensive than at home) but anything that is remotely better quality is very expensive. Books and culture generally is also pricy – theatre and concert tickets are much higher than in Europe. Joining various courses though and learn things is relatively cheap especially if you enroll in a SESC course. It is a strange association that runs all sorts of different courses and activities including dance, language, sports etc. for very low price.

OK than. Let’s go to Rio. We took the morning flight and we were met by Adriana from Dancar (the production company) who has been our guardian angel. She is really cool and very kind, although she has problems with orientation. We gave her a hard time about taking us next door via a one hour extra ride to Leblon. Anyway, she took us to a very plush hotel overlooking the ocean in a very surprising area in Rio. It is called Barra and it is a new development with high rising houses, beautiful gardens and swimming pools. This is the area where HSBC built an Arena three years ago for the Pan-American games and as far as we understood the development around the games gave this area a kick. The HSBC Arena was the venue for the first concert by Andrea Bocelli.

The orchestra started rehearsing on the Friday with maestro Eugene Kohn. We later found out during a bus ride (through Leblon) that he has Hungarian origin – his grandparents were Hungarian. He is very famous and respected, he conducted the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Hungarian National Philharmonic amongst many other world class orchestras. Bocelli himself walked in the rehearsal and practiced some pieces with the orchestra. I have to say we both converted into huge fans of him – what a fantastic man! Of course we have known that he is one of the best voices of our times – and he does have a voice from heaven for sure. I am not a big fan of opera – and it is an euphemism here – but even for me every minute he was on stage (rehearsing or performing) was magic. During the soundcheck and rehearsal he was most patient, every question or wish of his was presented with utmost modesty. And he has a smile of an angel! Well, I guess he IS an angel who lives in the dark but shines like the brightest star.

The concert was beautiful especially when him and soprano Olivia Gorra came on stage. She is also fantastic and a great lady. After the concert finished Bocelli was surrounded by a lot of security and virtually there was no opportunity to see him or congratulate him. We were leaving the building just when he was ushered to his car – when suddenly some of his most devoted fans started singing an opera and literally sang him out of the car in order to take pictures and congratulate him. Robi was amongst the lucky ones who was able to stand next to him – here are the pictures!

Andrea Bocelli and Robi

As I said, now we are heading to Sao Paolo, the ride feels eternal but tomorrow the orchestra will have a day off and we will be able to see a little bit of this enormous city that is the commercial and cultural capital of Brazil. Next time I will write about the concert in Sao Paolo that will be in a park on 21 April, free for all, presented by HSBC. And I will write about Robi’s experience with the Symphony Orchestra and a little bit about cultural policies. Videos will follow!

We spend the Easter holiday in Florianoplis, or Floripa as the locals call it. It is a strange city – in fact it is a 2 in 1 package because there is a city (devided in two parts by the ocean) and there is the Santa Catarina Island that belongs to the city. It is a bit confusing but nonetheless beautiful. We choose to stay outside the centro and it was a very clever decision as the city was completely deserted during the weekend. We stayed in a nice pousada (bed and breakfast) on the north of the island, very near the beautiful Santinho beach. The weather was just ideal – warm enough to swim and enjoy the sun but cool enough to walk. We walked a lot watching the surfers and the waves, were hiking for even more beautiful views, enjoyed the sunshine, swam and eat muito muito seafood in various forms. On Saturday we decided to rent a car and visited the Lake – there are some villages in between the ocean and the lake, so if you turn left you see the lake, if you turn right, you see the ocean. A nice place to be. (Anyone ever thinks of going to Floripa, I can recommend the pousada – www.pousadadoatoba.com.br and we can recommend some really good restaurants including this one http://www.arantebar.com.br in the south of island in a fishing village called Pantano do Sul).

Last week was less eventful as there was a break in the school so Robi was not teaching. He had plenty of time to practice guitar, I studied a lot of Portuguese, we did some shopping, walking in the city. I don’t think I wrote about Curitiba before. It is a very pleasant city to stay – easy to get around, safe and clean (we are talking Brazilian terms of course, not Switzerland). It has a nice center with nice squares, large parks, a big cathedral, plenty of shopping (this is how shopping centres are called – just shopping), a nice walking street. Of course a Brazilian city is not at all like a European city with old buildings etc. It has very high houses – not quite skyscrapers, but high -, a lot of modern and not very nice architecture, small shops everywhere. The local transport system is really efficient with very convenient bus stations that look like UFOs. People are very European – there are a lot of people of Ukranian. Polish, German and Italian origin so a lot of the people we meet are called Natasa, Tatjana, Elena or Giovanni. People here are supposed to be much colder than anywhere else in Brazil – and it is true that in Rio people were more open. But still, they are very kind and nice so we can’t complain.

One of these days we will finally take the Tourist Bus and go around the city to make a little film. The rain stopped now and I stop writing as I have to do my homework of Portuguese for tomorrow. Unfortunately it seems that Lenita – my teacher – will have to go away for 10 days and I am very sad but she promised to give me some books to read (simple novels for young people – this is the fascinating thing about learning a language, you can speak like a 3 year old and nobody says that you are an idiot – well, they might think so but at least they don’t say but congratulate you for such a great achievement.)

We met a lot of musicians and producers there and – as far as my Portuguese went – we had some very interesting conversations. We also got to know Marcos Borgetti who is the brother and the manager behind Renato’s success. The funny thing is that here all the musicians or intellectuals know where Budapest is and that we have a horribly difficult language because Chico Buarque, the super famous and much loved composer and musician and also a very famous writer recently published a book called Budapest. The book is “about a ghostwriter who immerses himself in the Hungarian language… While having a beer one day, he decides to buy a ticket to Budapest. In the city by the Danube, he falls in love with “the only tongue the devil respects” – this is what the sleeve says. So we are coming to Brazil with this reputation – and I get a lot of compliments that I am able to apprehend Portuguese despite of the fact that I speak such an impossible language. I ordered the book in English from Amazon, recently received it and very much look forward to reading it. On the cover front page there is a picture of Rio de Janeiro with Chirsto and the names of our Budapest bridges written and on the back cover there is a picture of Budapest. Chico Buarque is famous for his fantastic and original lyrics and his sensitivity to languages. His father is a great linguist and apparently, his uncle wrote the most important thesaurus here – so no wonder he is interested in awkward languages such as Hungarian.

Now back to the fazenda and the birthday party. Renato’s father is a fantastic men of almost 80 and a very proud gaucho. He loves horses so much that about 10 years ago he crossed the south the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean on horseback – it took him two month to do it. He is called Borghettao. Well, again a little bit about the language – people here love to play with names. If they want to say that someone is small or very kind to them, they would say “inho” eg. Ronaldinho (the little Ronaldo). If they want to say that somebody is old, grand and reputable, they say “ao” eg. Borgettao (the great Borghetti).

Of course we had lots of meat because there was a big barbeque (a very big one, enough for 200 people), great vegetables and a lot of chopp (this is what draught beer is called here and pronounced shoppe). Talking about the language again – Brazilians are not able to finish a word with a consonant therefore they stick an “e” or and “o” in the end so rock becomes rockee, pop becomes poppee and hip-hop becomes hipee-hopee. Very funny… The fazenda where we were was beautifully decorated with lots of ballons and Dora got so many presents, too huge wooden box was not enough for them. She also had a pink and orange birthday cake. When the party was close to its end we went to see the horses coming back to the stables for the evening and we met the people and their families who look after them. In the evening we went to Renato’s fazenda which is equally beautiful and very peaceful (except all the little frogs that were occupying the bathroom – and Robi made Renato – the great musician and superstar of Brazil – to catch all of them for us. We have to get used to animals…

The Borghetti family and Robi

We had a lazy morning on the bank of the river with the family while Renato was drinking his mate tea. Drinking mate is a ritual – they put a lot of the green herb in a specially and usually beautifully made special cup, than they put the hot water over it and sip it with a very nice silves straw. Usually one cupful of herb lasts for hours as they keep pouring more and more water on it. It comes with a whole set of gear people carry with them everywhere (apparently the Borghetti band never goes without them for a tour in Europe and no day starts without drinking about a liter of it). It tastes rather strong and bitter, a bit like green tea. After a nice lunch we went to Porto Alegre. We saw the Borghetti office and later Robi bought some more scores. Now his bossa nova songbook series is complete and he is very happy. Porto Alegre, I am sorry to say, is a terrible city – hot, smoky, smelly and chaotic. It was a wise decision to only spend the two days on the fazendas and to stay there for an extra day. Although we heard that the music scene is good there, mainly that of the gaucho music.

Last week Robi continued teaching and started preparing the girls for the concert that will be on 14th May. Everybody is very excited. The choir was also rehearsing the song we all know – Brazil – and were encouraged by Dulce to dance samba while singing. They were very funny and enjoyed themselves a lot. It is rather difficult sometimes to teach for Robi and it is obvious that it is not easy to teach these children in traditional ways for instruments (well, this is what was asked from him). These kids many times do not have the time, place or energy to practice, have a lot of problems and although they are really excited about the instrument, do not get the support they would need from their families (well. many of them don’t have a family on the first place). But hopefully, still, they will benefit from learning an instrument and learning more about music. Robi spent time with them playing with rhythm, explaining the score which they very much enjoyed. For some of them, who like mathematics, it was a revelation to realize that music and math are not the far from each other. It would be fantastic to create a special music school for there children with special methodology.

Last week we also spent some time with Joao Egashira – the Director of the Orchestra das Cordas – and his girlfriend. They invited us for dinner on Tuesday and back for lunch on Sunday. Julia, the girl is of Italian origin and Joao is of Japaneese. We also met Joao’s brother, Rafael, who is a photographer but also started to work as a manager/ producer (producao as they call it here) for Joao and a couple of other musicians. Music production and music management is very chaotic here – at least in Curitiba. There are not so many professionals and we keep hearing that who exist, sometimes charge so much money, they earn more than the artist and many times the artist does not even know what is the deal. It seems to be a quite a chaos. So hopefully people like Rafael can bring some professionalism into this area. I want to learn more about the system here and I hope to meet some people working in cultural institutions soon.

Joao and Robi are really fond of each other and Joao is keen to learn some gypsy tunes. Robi is very happy to show him some and they already played together some tunes in gypsy – choro style, a very interesting, and, I have to say, a rather adequate mixture. Why adequate? Because choro is composed music as well as the style of gypsy music that is Robi’s own tradition, but both are based on folk music and both require rather high level musicianship (as opposed to some folk music). The choro tunes are very sophisticated and melodic, the style of playing is rather virtuoso. The tunes allow improvisation – as well as gypsy tunes – but have a structure they follow. We will see what will come out of it but it seems that they want to do something together for the future and also, with Claudio, Robi’s guitar teacher and maybe some other musicians. On Sunday Claudio, Joao and Robi played a lot together after lunch, they formed a “roda du choro” (a choro circle).
This week we have holiday because of the Semana Santa (Easter week). The children are on holiday so Robi does not teach. Instead, he plays the guitar all day and we are having our classes. This weekend we are going away to Florianopolis, the beautiful city in the state of Santa Caterina on the beach.

Unfortunately Robi had to say good-bye to three violinist girls because he figured that they would need much much more time to learn a little bit about the violin. This is a bloody difficult instrument to play and it seemed that for the three of them it was impossible. They admitted also that it is too hard for them so they joined the flute group with Dulce. Robi now has much more time to work with the ones who are really talented and good. Even like this it is very difficult to achieve something in such a short time but he and the girls try. Robi gives piano classes to Luciana who – after a difficult beginning – is really doing well.

Some words about the kids and the choir. Most of the children come from orphan shelters and the rest from very disadvantaged families. Most of them have very difficult lives and it is a great effort from them to study, to practice. HSBC is helping them in many different ways – provides them with the infrastructure for the choir and to play music (buys them instruments, hires the place where they rehearse) but also gives them clothes and school material (bag, pens, notebooks etc.). Hopefully soon we will be able to visit a shelter to really see how they live. We were really surprised how well behaved and kind they all are – we know that kids with difficult background can be rough but somehow these guys are really nice. And they are sooo enthusiastic about music and the choir. Dulce is really fantastic with them – and sometimes have half of the choir in her apartment for the weekend (practicing the violin…) – she is a real hero.

On the videos a cross appears all the time, this is because the venue they use for rehearsal belongs to a church. It is a music school during the week and I guess they use the place for church services during the weekend. In fact there is a proper church in the courtyard and several rooms plus the big auditorium they are rehearsing. But the choir has nothing to do with the church. (Well, everybody else seem to have though – on Sundays there are church services everywhere in town – not only churches but small and big halls all over the city.)
Last week Robi and I taught them a gypsy song – Chajorije – and Robi made arrangements for the choir. They enjoy it, having so much fun because they can dance, clap etc. Robi is even teaching some of them to use spoons as gypsies do – look easy but it isn’t in fact. Next week we will teach them another one. Tomorrow Robi will do a serious music class for those who study the instruments because they do not seem to understand music sheets. It will be interesting again with 3 languages… Otherwise Robi now can cope very well with the language – the girls start understanding some Hungarian, Robi starts learning some words in Portuguese and of course my Portuguese is now much better so communication is perfect (although really funny sometimes…)

We are continuing our studies – my Portuguese is definitely getting better and Robi as so enthusiastic about the guitar. He loves choro – again we bought many scores, songbooks and some CDs. (No instruments this time, thanks god, because we are already thinking about how will we take back the instruments to Hungary.) Our new discovery is a female singer called Maysa and guitarist Raphael Rabello (who unfortunately died very young).

Last Friday night we took the bus to For do Iguacu, booked a room in a really beautiful hostel outside the city and near the National Park – Hostel Paudimar for those who are planning a trip. (Foz do Iguacu, the city is not worth a visit, really so it does not make sense to stay there.) The hostel had a beautiful park, a little swimming pool, cool people and basic but clean room and was very near the Park (Cataratas as they call it). Our only problem with the room was a stupid little frog that we were chasing for hours one evening but finally Robi managed to “golf” him out of the room without making any harm to him (or her, who knows with frogs). We had a great laugh – none of us is very good with animals and here there are many of them everywhere.

The jungle

Robi's friend

In the Devil's Throat

Lots of water

Robi and more water

Rainbow

My friend

Me and a parrot

The first day we went to see the Brazilian side of the National Park and booked ourselves in a safari that contained a tour with a jeep in the forest (jungle, yes), a short walk and the boat trip. The whole purpose of the boat trip is to get completely wet because the captain makes sure that at the end of the trip he manouvers the boat under one of the falls. This is a stupid touristy thing but actually it was fun and very very beautiful. The biggest fall is called the Devil’s throat and very rightly so.

The following morning we got up early to reach the van at 8.30 that is organised by the hostel and takes people to the Argentinian side of the falls. A very funny driver drove us there who spoke half Spanish half Portugese and knew basically everyone we saw on the way and waived Brazilian football (fotebol – futcheebal as they say) flags in Argentina. If the Brazilian side of the fall is beautiful, I have to say the one in Argentina is a pure wonder (sorry, Brazil)! There is a much better view of the whole area and all the falls (there are some 200 of them) can be seen. We saw rainbows, crocodiles, funny animals and millions and millions of beautiful butterflies. We had a fantastic but very tiring day. On Monday morning we decided to chill out in the garden of the hotel – I had to write my homework and Robi had to practice – and in the afternoon we went to see the bird park. This is on the Brazilian side and a very nice park with incredibly colourful parrots and tucans and other beautiful birds (and some funny looking other animals). Near the park we bough a couple of hammocks – this is what we wanted to take back home and we found some very nice ones so we were happy.

On Tuesday we came back and started our workweek. Today I had to go back to the dentist – I am not sure whether I said before but I broke a tooth and I need to get a crown made. Luckily I found a very good and nice dentist – thanks to Enoque – and Brazilian dentists are supposed to be very good. This weekend we are going to Porto Alegre to visit Renato Borgetti, the very famous gaucho (this is what the local “cowboys” are called) accordion player.

Last night we were invited to join Claudio and his musician friends for a little jam session in a potato bar – a very nice bar with overpriced potato dishes – because some musicians from Rio and Brazilia gave a concert that night in Curitiba and they wanted to meet local musicians and play choro. Claudio decided that Robi is now a local musician so he was invited. About 10 musicians got together and it was so much fun! The three “guests” from Rio and Brazillia were flutist and professor Odette Ernest Dias – http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odette_Ernest_Dias -, her flutist daughter Beth and her guitarist son Jaime. Out of 6 of her children 5 are musicians, apparently all are excellent and famous. They played beautifully – we love the flute and when they play choro, it is just absolutely heaven. Robi soon had his violin out and watching the hands of Joao (Egashira, another excellent guitarist from Curitiba) he soon was able to join in to everybody’s pleasure. As I probably said before, good violinists – especially in the area of “popular” music – are rare here, so Robi’s skills are being really appreciated. And in the end he played some gypsy improvisation to a very happy “audience”. This was a fantastic evening! We hope to meet these people again.

Last Thursday Joao invited us for a concert of their trio in a really cool theatre called Teatro Paio. The gig was very nice and the audience was really entusiastic. The atmosphere was warm, the audience reacted to everything and in the end everybody stood up – really nice.

Five of the eight violinist girls are progressing really well, they were very happy today to be able to start playing notes. And Robi is very happy because they are very talented and really keen. The director of the music school where they have classes is asking Robi to give a master class of teaching for the teachers. The choir almost managed to learn the Hungarian text of the song by now and we have selected the repertoire for the concert with the choir and Robi. So everything is going fine and keeping us busy. I look forward to our meeting about Christmas, hopefully it will happen this week.

And now here is some observations about Brazil. The strange things: administration and bureaucracy here seems to be a national game. Last week we bought a blender – we are making our own fruit juices based on Claudio’s wife’s advise. The blender cost c. 40 USD so not a big investment. For this, we needed to give our name, they wanted our passport and they filled in three different papers. If you go to a shop and buy eg. a T-shirt, first you get a little piece of paper, than you take this paper to the till, pay and than you get the T-shirt.
Washing machines look very different here – they are huge and have transparent top. Brazil is a dentist paradise – they are dentists in almost every houses. Last week I had the luck to get to know one – a very nice and good one – because I broke a tooth… In every block there are about three chemists or beauty shops – you can buy shampoo day and night in every corner. Brazilian people – as I said many times – are very kind and nice. There is a lot of kissing involved in the every day communication – you kiss with your hairdresser and basically any people you know or meet. But when they drive, it is a different case. Of course they don’t use the indicator, red lights – especially in Rio – are just there to tell you that there must be some danger around but nobody cares. So sometimes we really don’t know how to cross the road because they just turn full speed without any indication and they are very angry if there is someone on the road. But life is rather pleasant here in Curitiba – the city is clean, calm and people seem to be rather happy.

I praised Brazilian fruit here many times – we really love them. I did have my Portuguese class in a “frutaria” and even the shopkeeper was teaching me the names of the hundreds of vegetables and fruit. Food is also nice – a lot of vegetables and a lot of – mostly – grilled meet. Curitiba is interesting because there are many Italian restaurants as well as some Russian, Polish and Japanese. Brazilians seem to love sushi so in almost every Brazilian buffet restaurants there is sushi (sometimes not very good though). There are also cheap Chinese restaurants where you can eat as much as you want. A very good invention is the “por kilo” restaurant – you take as much as you want from the buffet table and you pay by the weight. The national dish is rice and bean and most Brazilians we meet say that they cannot imagine their days without these two. After almost one month we started missing some different tastes so I started cooking – a nice change.

OK, this is it for now, I still have to play a little bit with the videos. In the weekend we are going the the Iguacu Falls and I have to make some research on the net.