inspiring adventurous people

Songs for the Road No. 14: Discovering Afro-Brazil Through Banda Didá, An All Female Drumming Ensemble

by Ekua on November 8, 2011 · 6 comments in Brazil,female travel,inspiring adventurous people,movies with movement,race/culture/identity,songs for the road,why i travel

When I look back at the time I spent volunteering in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil in 2006, it seems so natural, so inevitable that I would end up in there at some point in my life. I often forget about what drew me to it in the first place: Banda Didá, an all female drumming ensemble that is based there. Before learning about that group, I hadn’t even heard of Salvador, an Afro-Brazilian city in the northeastern part of the country.

Music as it pertains to social movements or social justice has always been a topic of interest for me. When I came across a documentary called Girl Beat: Power of the Drum, I was automatically drawn by the synopsis. It highlighted the Banda Didá organization and the work it did to empower females of African descent in Salvador.

Banda Didá was powerful. I couldn’t believe this group of women whose hands and arms pounded out the rage of the remnants of European enslavement to the beats of West Africa. At the same time, their bodies moved fluidly and rhythmically and their faces beamed with pride in their heritage.

The documentary revealed another world, one that I had not yet been privy to, but in which I felt I likely belonged: Afro-Latin culture. In mainstream grade school education in the United States, the fact that Africans were enslaved in many other parts of the Americas is often ignored. The vivacious modern cultures of Latin America and the African influence on many of them is often overlooked. At that point in my life, I was vaguely aware of Afro-Latin America, but that was the first time I’d seen it so tangibly.

As the daughter of immigrants from a small West African country, I’d grown up on the periphery of belonging. I’d accepted that position at that point. But Salvador da Bahia seemed like a place where the distinct mix of cultures that went into my creation was very much the norm in a very visible way. And sure enough, it was.

There’s a bit of drumming at the beginning of this, but skip to 1:00 for the good stuff. Those drums are heavy, and these women make dancing with one attached to your hips look easy.

I saw Banda Didá for the first time in person just a few days after I arrived in Brazil. Every Tuesday night from August until Carnival, they have a big party in Pelourinho, Salvador’s historic center. They call it a “rehearsal” for Carnival and it’s an insanely fun night of government sanctioned partying. There are concerts, street food and drinks, and baterias (drumming ensembles) marching down the cobblestone streets.

A drum circle with an intrinsic sense of spirit and all kinds of soul.

{ 6 comments }

A Break From Regularly Scheduled Travel Blogging to Bring You This Birthday Post

by Ekua on September 10, 2011 · 14 comments in female travel,inspiring adventurous people,musings

Earlier this week, I was flipping through the San Francisco Chronicle on my lunch break when an obituary caught my eye. Why am I talking about death in the week when I’m celebrating my birth? Well, hear me out.

This woman who’d died exactly a week after her 95th birthday was described as a “lifelong progressive, feminist and world traveler” — she sounded like a person I could’ve been friends with and a person who’d lived her life with purpose. Intrigued, I continued reading.

The obituary went on to say that after 40 years of homemaking and after her husband passed away, she started to fulfill her lifelong dream to travel the world. “At age 72, she she began a series of adventures around the globe, visiting 17 European countries, Mexico, South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina and both poles, and nearly two dozen states in 19 years.”

While I personally take a “travel while you’re young” approach, I love to hear about and know women who are a testament to the fact that age doesn’t have to prevent you from doing what you want to do.

My own mother is one of those women. At the age of 56, she has very recently begun a Peace Corps assignment in Namibia. A few people I talked to about it assumed that the Peace Corps was only for straight out of college young people. It’s not. To me, in a time when people haphazardly sign up to volunteer abroad, she is an ideal candidate — someone who had a Peace Corps teacher as a child, someone who grew up in an African country, and most importantly, someone who has lived.

A couple days ago, I entered the last year of my twenties. Amongst females I know who are around the same age, there seems to be a bit of a divide between those who’ve hit the 30 mark and those for whom it is rapidly approaching. Those who’ve reached 30 and beyond have told me they’ve realized it’s not as bad as they feared it would be and in a few cases, it turned out to be exactly the transition that they needed. With a few exceptions, the women I know who are under 30 are fearful about entering their next decade.

It’s such a big part of female culture in the United States to look at age beyond the 20s as just an ending rather than a transition that contains both endings and beginnings. And those beginnings and endings can be both good and bad. Sure, as we age, unwelcome changes begin to happen to our appearances. But also with living, truly living, you can acquire the perspective and self assurance that is required to feel good about yourself despite what you think others think about you.

And that is a major gift of living fully and getting older — the increased ability to know yourself and grow into yourself and love yourself as you are. This gift is available to everyone, but not everyone receives it. In order to receive it, you have to be open to it, be aware of it, want it, take the initiative to find it.

I’d like to end this post with a video I came across the other day about some fearlessly fashionable older women in New York who display their personalities and creativity through their outfits:

“Young women, you’re going to be an old woman some day. Don’t worry about it. Don’t sweat it. Don’t worry about getting older. Every era… it builds character.”

{ 14 comments }

Self-Proclaimed “Ugly Indians” Take a Stand to Beautify India’s Streets

by Ekua on April 28, 2011 · 4 comments in India,inspiring adventurous people

In India, I encountered a lot of Indians who would like to see India as what it has the potential to become rather than what it is right now. I also met a lot of Indians who seemed to truly want outsiders to enjoy their time in India and see the merits of their country. These are not abnormal things to want for your country, but in India, I encountered these desires with an intensity I had yet to experience.

So what happens when you talk about those desires realistically and use action to move towards ensuring that they are fulfilled?  A website called The Ugly Indian is beginning to come up with some of the answers as they pertain to one of India’s most visible issues: its excessive filth. I came across the site through the Bangalore-based blogger Aliyeh of A Turquoise Cloud. Don’t let the name The Ugly Indian mislead you — the organization is anything but ugly.

They use a mixture of unfiltered honesty and optimism to address and begin to tackle the filth in India. It was created by a group of Indians in Bangalore who have:

  • Acknowledged that filth that pervades India’s cities.
  • Addressed a tendency for Indians to ignore or gloss over the abundance filth.
  • Stepped off their soapboxes and taken small steps to beautify city streets using low cost, low impact, and self-sustaining methods.
  • Gotten positive results from their efforts, documented the process, and tracked the results.
  • Shared their ideas with people with hope that it will influence others to change their attitudes about waste disposal and general city upkeep.

A common theme in most of the example cases on the site is the idea that beauty begets beauty. The simple addition of plants and a new coat of paint in a certain spot makes people less likely to toss their trash or urinate in there and more likely to want to keep it clean so that they and others can enjoy it. It may seem too easy to be true, but in certain spots, its been working for months at a time.

While it seems that The Ugly Indian’s efforts thus far are heavily focused enhancing outer appearances, the people behind it seem to be aware of the importance of India’s need to build the right infrastructure to implement change on a larger scale and maintain the change. They are trying to get there little by little.

I hope that there are more successes ahead for the people behind The Ugly Indian. I hope that their grassroots ideas work their way around the globe and influence people in other countries that also struggle with filth. I hope that their name becomes obsolete.

{ 4 comments }

11 Traveler Meetings in 2010

by Ekua on January 1, 2011 · 12 comments in general travel,inspiring adventurous people,solo travel

“I can’t keep up with your international lifestyle,” my sister says jokingly as I explain the story of how I met the woman whose wedding will be my last of 2010. I laugh along with her because it is a truly unlikely friendship. She is more than twice my age, from England, and we met over four years ago while volunteering in Northeastern Brazil. And yet our friendship has endured. Even though my travel friendships make a ton of sense to me, I realize that others are often perplexed by the lasting connections I have with people I’ve met in random places around the world who may or may not live nearby.

While I am not on the road constantly like a lot of travel bloggers out there (although it may sometimes seem that way because my trip updates tend to take awhile), 2010 was a monumental year for travel and I spent a nice chunk of time exploring new places. Along the way, I met some great travelers and reunited with friends made on travels past. So I want to highlight some of the people who enriched my travels and my life in 2010:

Lauren Quinn

Lonely Girl Travels was one of the first travel blogs I really got into and I’ve continued to be inspired by Lauren’s narratives. What I love most about her stories is that she is able to pinpoint and beautifully articulate the often elusive motives that draw travelers towards exploration. We live in cities that are only separated by a bay, so it wasn’t long before we got a chance to meet up. We initially met at a gallery show in San Francisco and since then, we’ve hiked to a waterfall, ate Senegalese food with a group of travel writers, and took to the streets of the Mission District during San Francisco’s Day of the Dead celebration. Now, Lauren feels less like a travel blogging friend and more like a regular friend.

A Shared Passion for Food and Mexico

When I arrived in Mexico City, there were hardly any people staying at my hostel, so I had a chance to meet everyone who staying there. One turned out to be a vegan/vegetarian food blogger from Brooklyn and a kindred spirit, despite my more omnivorous tendencies. In Mexico City, we had an adventure wandering through the Condesa neighborhood, trying to find Orígenes Orgánicos. After that, she pointed me towards a great cafe in Coyoacan and suggested the chocolate row in Oaxaca. I later found out that the trip she was on was her second to Mexico that year and that she is as enamored with Mexico as I am. She is someone I can still count on to understand me when I am pining for Mexico.

A Classical Guitarist in Mexico City

Out of the 4.5 million people who ride the Mexico City Metro everyday, I happened to become friends with Ivan, a fellow musician who had plans to visit California later in the summer. At first, I didn’t think anything of it because he was going to be in LA. But he eventually made a trip to Berkeley with his friend and we met up again in San Francisco. Hopefully next time our paths cross, I’ll get to see him play guitar live.

The Aussie Vegans

I was apprehensive about having a pair of vegans in my group in Cuba of all places, but they were troopers, often surviving on toast and potatoes and whack Cuban salads. In our group, they turned out to be the people I could always share a laugh with or revel in the nuances of Cuban culture with. After Cuba, they spent a short time in Mexico, then went up to the States to visit Austin. From there, they eloped in Las Vegas and eventually made their way over to my city, San Francisco. I got back to San Francisco a day before they left and took them to my favorite place in the city for margaritas, followed by a taqueria that would satisfy their vegan desires. They saw through my attempt to have them join me in extending Mexico, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

Sarah and Jorge

Sarah Menkedick has a tremendous capacity to put words together in a passionate and inspiring way. Her creative nonfiction stories, along with Jorge’s wonderful photography definitely nudged me towards deciding to visit Oaxaca while I was in Mexico. I’m glad I got a chance to meet them in Oaxaca before they moved up to the States and was truly great to share World Cup matches and other special beautiful days with them.

The Casa Angel Crowd

In Oaxaca, I bunked at a great hostel called Casa Angel. It was only about 6 months old when I was there and it was still a work in progress. Over the course of my stay, there were many changes. Walls were colorfully painted, the rooftop terrace was transformed into a great hangout spot, and a waiting area for the computers was created. At first, the drilling noises on the roof drove me nuts, but it didn’t last long and I enjoyed watching the hostel transform. And aside from being a beautiful little hostel, I met some really great people there. There was Jim, an inspiring older traveler who I previously wrote about. There was Zach, a college student who was at the hostel the whole time I was there and beyond who I affectionately nicknamed, “The Little Brother I Never Wanted.” He fully took on this role and often managed to be simultaneously infuriating, hilarious, and endearing. There was Carlos, the Oaxacan hippie who tricked me into trying chapulines, but eventually redeemed himself by leading a group of us to a great Oaxacan street food stand nearby. There was Kat who worked at the hostel before Zach took over, an awesome artist who I met up with again in San Francisco in September before she moved back to Oaxaca. And there were the brothers who ran the hostel and filled it will homeyness and humor.

A Matador Meetup in San Francisco

When Hal Amen and his wife visited San Francisco during their summer road trip, group of local Matador contributors got together to meet them at Bissap Baobab, a Senegalese restaurant in the Mission District. Lauren Quinn was there, and in addition to Hal, I met Juliane, Naomi, and Valerie for the first time. Bissap Baobab is my go-to restaurant when I am craving a bit of West Africa in San Francisco, so being at one of my favorite restaurants combined with spending quality time with people who love to travel and write about it made for an awesome night.

Catching Up Over Cornbread

In 2008, I traveled through South East Asia, mostly on a loosely guided tour. There were two young Brits on the first part of that tour who I enjoyed spending time with. I met up with them a few more times throughout the trip when we found ourselves in the same cities. Then, like many people on round-the-world trips, they ended up in San Francisco, and I met them for an afternoon. One of them came back to California the following year, but she visited LA. But then this year, she came to California yet again and was in San Francisco. Since she was staying Downtown, an area I tend to avoid eating out in, I didn’t know where to go. Then I remembered farmerbrown, a restaurant in the Tenderloin that serves up comfort soul food in the typical local-organic-sustainable San Francisco way. When we sat down, the waiter brought us mini cornbread muffins. It was the first time my friend had ever heard of cornbread and I had to explain what it was. It was a brief meeting, but it was really good to catch up and fun to introduce a Brit to a different type of American food.

An Indian Wedding

I haven’t yet shared the impetus for my recent India trip on my blog: I was there for the wedding of a friend I made while traveling in Southeast Asia on the same trip I mentioned above. She was my roommate for the first part of it. Our birthdays were separated by just a week and a half, we’d both grew up with parents who’d immigrated from former British colonies, and amongst our group, we were the most into getting a well-rounded South East Asia experience. We bonded quickly and kept in touch after that trip. At first, when she invited me to her wedding, I hesitated. Then I said, “why not?” So I went, and it was great to see my friend again and meet her entertaining friends and family. And the wedding was incredible, the longest and most elaborate wedding I’ve experienced so far.

A Winter Wedding

I’ve already highlighted B in a previous post and she’s the woman with whom I have the unlikely friendship I discussed at the beginning of this post. In Brazil, we volunteered at the same school and she was one of the volunteers who was really helpful when I was getting started. She always had great activities for her class that helped me get my own creative juices flowing. She was always great at keeping in touch while she volunteered and studied Spanish all over the world and eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through her, I’ve met some other great local people she befriended on her travels and I’ve now met her kids who also seem to have been bitten by the travel bug. After several overcast days, her wedding day was sunny and joyful. The reception ended with her, her new husband and their band putting on a concert for the guests.

One Last Meet Up

I originally intended to make this a “10 in 10″ type of post, but a last minute meet up changed that. On Thursday, I found out that another co-volunteer was visiting San Francisco and we had a chunk of time where we could get together. She volunteered at the same school as B as I, and she was my go-to partner for traveling around the state of Bahia on weekends. We reminisced about the ups and downs of our experience in Brazil and all of the interesting characters we encountered during our time there. Her wanderlust definitely has not died since that time, and she told me about her plans to visit Jordan, Egypt and Israel in the spring. I came home that night amazed that in the span of two days, I’d gotten to see two of my favorite co-volunteers from Brazil and grateful for such things as Facebook, e-mail, and Skype which have allowed me to stay in touch with the awesome people I’ve met around the world.

{ 12 comments }

Do Not Go Gentle

by Ekua on December 9, 2010 · 12 comments in inspiring adventurous people,Mexico

One day at breakfast, I noticed a man with a head of messy white hair. It stood out in a room full of blacks and browns and blonds that likely had decade or three of pigmentation left.  A couple of breakfasts later, he and his travel partner took the seats across the table from me. The ongoing conversation began that morning.

At home, too many things could’ve stood in the way of this conversation, factors like age difference and the unlikelihood that our crossing of paths would’ve grown into anything more than mere passing. But we’d chosen to stay at the same hostel in the same city and that was all that was really necessary to build a connection in that moment.

Jim was excited to know that we were both from the San Francisco Bay Area. His travel partner was an artist from Vancouver, Canada. They were expats who lived in a small fishing village near Puerto Vallarta and had a circle of artsy expat friends there.

Jim had 60+ years worth of interesting stories and he shared them with a few of us at the hostel over breakfast or in the evenings when people would gather on the roof. He was a Vietnam veteran, and he described his younger self as a daredevil adrenaline junky. He talked about it like his thrill-seeking side had faded over the decades, but I had my doubts. He’d recently gotten into writing, and this was a subject I especially enjoyed discussing with him.

While I was in Oaxaca, it was election season. It seemed like Oaxaca’s favored candidate for governor, Gabino Cue, had the potential to end the 80 year run of the party that was currently in power, the PRI. Jim had the idea that corruption might infiltrate the election process and that Gabino’s PRI opponent could win, which would’ve angered a lot of people. The journalistic hunt for an election story was what drew him to Oaxaca.

But that was just his reason for choosing Oaxaca, there was a larger reason for the larger trip he was on. “I’m traveling until I die,” he told me one day, matter-of-factly. I nodded silently; it was the only response I could come up with. He explained that he’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer and told his time was limited. He’d asked his friend to go with him on the trip, a significant undertaking on her part.

When it came to certain decisions, he had a “fuck it, I’m going to die anyway” type of attitude. But there’d be moments when he was quite distant, and I can’t begin to imagine the reflective state of mind he must have been in at those times.

Election day happened to be July 4th. That night, the hostel had their weekly Sunday barbecue where we happened to eat cheeseburgers (at previous barbecues we’d sampled more local fare) and there happened to be fireworks that actually exploded in full color for us to admire, rather than the daily Oaxaca firecrackers that made a lot of noise but not much else. It wasn’t until those fireworks began that I remembered that it was Independence Day for the United States. I enjoyed the irony in inadvertently having a very American July 4th on the other side of the border

Months later, when I think of it, I can still feel the vivacity of that night. There was an intense, magical energy on that roof fueled by the kaleidoscopic mix of characters, the irregular and unexpected fireworks, the mezcal, the election hopes. We’d been on the roof for hours when we began to hear cars honking as they drove by. We ran to the edge of the roof, but didn’t get there in time to see what was going on below. Soon enough, another honking car’s flags confirmed what we’d thought and hoped, Gabino had won. People cheered. “Ga-bi-no, Ga-bi-no, Ga-bi-no!”

Though practicality made us wary of the amount of positive change a new governor and party would really bring the state of Oaxaca, we were all excited to be there on the day Oaxaca took a step in a new direction. Jim was surprised and happy with the results. But I could see that part of him hoped for more drama, an exciting story to tell.

Election day was my last full day in Oaxaca. The following night, I returned to Mexico City by bus, but not before exchanging contact info with the awesome people I’d met in Oaxaca, Jim and his travel partner among them.

At the end of September, Jim passed away. Though I’d only known him for a short period of time, I carried Jim’s death on my mind for awhile. A few days after I found out, I received a message from Jim’s travel partner, thanking me for being a friend to him during our overlapping time in Oaxaca. I’d assumed that I was the one benefiting from the conversations; Jim had led a fascinating life and his final trip inspired me. But in that 20-something heavy environment, he’d appreciated my willingness to interact with him.

Acceptance of others and acceptance of fate; these are the two reminders embedded in my brief friendship with Jim.

{ 12 comments }

← Previous Entries