I finally went to see Luis Baptista. (update to my earlier post, http://theinvisibleh.blogspot.com/2010/08/from-dust-to-upside-down-dance-story-of.html) I felt pretty unprepared because I was exhausted from walking around all day, and unpracticed in the event of a possible jam session… But then again, since I blogged about this moment well in advance and carefully printed out all of the photos that I wanted to give to Luis, perhaps I was more than prepared. I have been toting the photos around with me all week, so as to showing people my new aerial dance experiments just because I had a hard time describing it in Portuguese. It just so happens that there isn’t a word for “aerial musician who kind of dances and kind of sings,” in Creole or Portuguese. Somehow the words circus, building, and “singing” came into the description, which I mentioned with a scrunched frustrated nose while cocking my head awkwardly to the side indicating that I was sort of sideways… attempting a description usually came out even more confusing. But finally I realized that with only a few days left in Mindelo, I really should go see Luis. I should have gone to see him the first day that I arrived, but I figured that he wasn’t there working due to the festival activities. (I should have realized he was actually probably there fixing lots of instruments!).
Nevertheless, I jumped in the shower to get rid of an entire day of sweaty, city-meandering, and attempted to dress slightly similarly to how I looked the day i first met Luis Baptista. I figured I’d help them as much as I could to remember me, so that when I sense that they dno’t remember me, I know that I did all that I could to help them out.
Now how do I get there? I couldn’t remember the way to the little workshop. I had even scanned one of the photos that I took of the sign and put it on a usb pin drive.. but somehow I thought it would be more fun to find my way again. Except this time, I was going from a complete opposite direction. I could have gone around the big market, up the big hill, and by the bus stop where lots of old men just sat and stared and played cards… but I wanted to test my knowledge even further by accessing it from the house where I was staying. I sensed that it was close by, if my memory and good sense of direction [all you guy friends please stop laughing] was correct.
I caved. It was already about 5pm (I had waited till the late afternoon based on a suggestion from a musician. It was more fun to ask people how to get to the store. It opened up more room for adventure because it tested my language skills even further, and who knows, maybe I’d make another random friend out of it. I immediately asked a young guy with a backpack a block from my starting point. I whipped out the picture of myself with Luis and Eddy—myself in the middle holding up my cavaquinho. I think he was thinking “ok, TMI why are you telling me this?” in creole. But he was cool and said he’d walk with me to where he thought it was located. I hardly understood him because he didn’t really speak Portuguese, but it was enough because I really just kept describing things that remembered about the place’s location—rotunda, little sign, on top of the hill, little workshop, “where one makes guitars”, etc. He led me to a place called “academia de musica” which was a big music school nearby. Americo had recently told me about this school which teaches people about sound systems, audio engineering etc., but how it never got used because somehow the local government has a monopoly on the audio industry. Anyway, this was NOT the Casa de Musca of Luis Baptista that I remembered. I calmly told him thank you and said that this was not it, but that maybe the people inside might know. He looked puzzled and I explained that it was actually more like a house, where the bottom floor was a workshop, and the top was a little attick where they held classes. Oh I remember, my friend took me there once, he said in creole. So off we went, further up the hill. It was funny—I actually knew lots of people as I passed by—all friends or relatives of my main contact who lived in that block. Then this guy had some friends say hello to him as we walked by. I was secretly laughing, as if to compete for passerby-hello’s.
Finally the guy pointed to the little sign that I remembered so well. I thought about taking a photo, but it would have been the exact same photo as the one I took in 2008. Deep breath.
I entered as the guy drifted off sayin “nada, nada” when I thanked him profusesly.
There they were, Eddy and Luis sanding an instrument and painting a guitar blue. The sander was loud, so there was an awkward moment when all I did was smile and wave hello. Edy saw me first, and luis didn’t look up for a while until Edy told him to turn off the sander.
“um. Hi.” I said, holding a giant cvs photo envelope awkwardly under my armpit.
I remembered t
Nervously, I just began babbling quickly.
“I’m not sure if you remember me, but I was here in 2008 and you made me a cavaquinho.”… and I pulled out some of the photos… I hung out here when you made it, and since I was back for the music festival I wanted to pass by and show you where yoru work had travelled in the world.”…
They smiled. What smiles they had. Edy’s formally silent voice sounded with a little awknowledging sigh of surprise, and Luis, with his bright green eyes laughed and thanked me for stopping in to share. I dno’t think they remembered me at first, but then they did after seeing the photos. They loved the picturesof me dancing from the side of the Ford, and the posed picture of Luis holding a mandolin with “bling bling” sunglasses on inside. He motioned that he would put that one up on the wall. I don’t know if my picture will make it up there, but maybe I’ll find out during the next stop-by. I didn’t really tell him about the story behind the cavaquinho song, but rather awkwardly laughed at how I only really had one song, but I emphasized that it was a special and emotional song for a number of reasons. I asked him about their recent cd project ( I heard from people that he launched a new cd) and so I bought it from him. This time around we didn’t jam and hang out as much, mostly because I was strangely nervous, and because they seemed busy. They carefully looked through the pictures with bright powder blue paint all over their fingers. They also didn’t have any cavaquinhos in the workshop thatday, so neither of us could really share what we were up to musically.
I then insisted that we take a few more photographs. Instead of holding up an instrument this time, the cheesy snapshot now included me smiling with my new Baptistinhas cd, and Luis, holding the plethora of photos. The guy who we snagged to take the photograph kept snapping the photo too far to the left. I wonder if he had an equilibrium problem. I thought posting that one would be most relevant to the story.
I had about 5 little funny goodbye’s. I kept staying, “ok see you later” and then kept talking. A few times I think that Luis invited me to hang out… but I couldn’t tell if he meant, “you can stay and hang out here” or “lets hang out while you are here” or “next time we will hang out more,”so I just let it be and smiled and said “ok, I have your number.” I couldn’t remember if he was married, so that leaves even more possible interpretations of those phrases. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful moment, quite perfectly unexpected and also fulfilled what I had hoped would happen.
I should have brought my EP cd to give to them, so that they could listen to my cavaquinho song, but what is great is that I can now go back again with this second present when I swing by again to Mindelo in a few weeks.
Because I don’t want this story to end.
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