All we really wanted was the acrobatic, crazy stuff

So now the gang’s all here. First Jessica and Lola Mae arrived Monday night from a marathon journey, Sydney to Salvador. I’m not even going to attempt to calculate how many hours Jessica must have been sitting in a cramped economy seat with Lola squirming and wriggling on her lap. Have done flights with Lola Mae before I know what a nightmare it can be just trying to eat for five minutes, let alone get any sleep. The concept of pins and needles in various limbs reaches a new dimension. Jessica still looked in good spirits and utterly beautiful as she approached from the baggage carousel, and Lola looked enormous perched in the handbag cradle of the trolley. When I picked her out of it she gazed at me half blankly, half remembering (I hadn’t seen her for nearly a month which amounts to about 10% of her whole life) and she continued to do so all the way to the house we were staying in. When we got there at midnight and were hanging out on the bed before lights out, she suddenly became hugely animated and hilarious, showing me all her new tricks like standing up and falling down, clapping, and throwing herself around. It was a real headache trying to get her to sleep. Where her body clock must be at right now is a mystery, London – Sydney – Brasil…

And yesterday India Rose arrived from London with a T-shirt on that said ‘Headfuck’ and dyed red hair. She’s nine by the way and it was a formal invitation to freak out and scold her mother long-distance, but I’ve matured over the years and these attempts to get my attention, I’ve learnt, are best ignored. It was a truly emotional reunion though and it reminded me of when her Mum had taken her to live in New Zealand when we split up and refused to come back. I only got to see her once or twice a year in those days and it was heavily charged meeting her in all those airports, running into each other’s arms and so on…I’ll spare you the scene.

Today was our first outing en mass since we were recording in Africa earlier this year. In the bustling downtown area of Salvador was a shabby building where the ‘more serious’ Capoeira school practiced. We had to weave Lola’s buggy through a really hectic market and honking, smoky streets to find it and then climb staircase after staircase before we heard the twanging birambau’s of the Capoeira musicians. We entered the gymnasium which had their posters all over the walls and instruments hanging up, and there was Duncan already miking them all up in different combinations as they sang and played. Capoeira is a kind of half dance, half martial art. They say they ‘play’ Capoeira. Indy was quite fascinated and I thought she was going to have a go. As we’re home-schooling her for this trip (she’s missing a term of school) we have to keep giving her tasks to find things out and educate her at every stop alongside her two hours a day actual ‘lesson’ time. So she was sent off to find out what their instruments were called, how you spelled them, and one or two things about Capoeira.

Meanwhile, we set up the shot over the grid-like floor to shoot them from above. When they got started, Duncan and I looked at each other and telepathically had the same moment. ‘These guys aren’t what we’re looking for’. I hesitate to say they weren’t very good. I mean, I’m certainly no judge of what constitutes good and bad Capoeira, but this seemed to look pretty tame and they didn’t seem to be really getting into it. Duncan was opting for packing it in right there and then and admitting to ourselves that we were as shallow as this school thought the beach Capoeira players were. All we really wanted was the acrobatic, crazy stuff, not the technical, more boring looking dancing. We persevered for a while, and who knows, maybe if we slowit down, or speed it up, it might get used (ungrateful?), but we did leave feeling disappointed and our fingers are firmly crossed for tomorrow’s beach session.