Rio Journal: New Year's Eve Edition

Here's what we think we understand.

On New Year's Eve, there's a massive party with hours of live music and about 2 million people all dressed in white on the beach.  At said party, disabled folk, for whatever reason -- from safety to being able to see to ....-- are given some separate space next to the VIP folk right in front of the stage.  The irony of this seems unbelievable, given some of what we've learned about the general social status of crips in Brazil, but we're off to give it a go.  We will be packing water, beer, fruit and headphones to ward off the noise.  Our hotel windows have been vibrating all day; I can't imagine what it will be like up close.

The beach is already crowded; about 20 ships, cruise to cargo to yacht, have pulled in close to the shore. Everyone wants to be part of this.  It's raining now, but with luck that will pass and the praia will be free to party.  The sound checks (2 day's worth) are over.  The tv screens are up; the peeps are gathering.

In other news, we've been working our way around Rio, but have to report in detail on yesterday's events.

So, three wheelchair users (French, Brazilian, and Brit/UK) and friends show up at the tram to the huge Christ the Redeemer statue. ...

Well, no national stereotype jokes here, but you can see there's going to be a problem.  The little trams and their staff aren't accustomed to dealing with more than one disabled person at a time.  We all get tickets, but somehow I end up on the train 90 minutes before I am supposed to be.  This pisses the French guy off, but it does give me and Wizard the chance to talk to the Brazilian women.  We discover that they know no English -- we resort to napkins and scraps of paper and much guessing.  But they are fun (and they seem to think we are, too!)  We make the ascent on the tram, slide down the ramp, ride the elevator and are helped up the escalators and there we are!

We're right underneath the statue of Christ the Redeemer.  I keep in mind the complexity of the statue's history with regard to the Portuguese colonialists and their faith, but I still find myself moved by the hugeness of it and the weird gentleness of the statue's face.  Equally as interesting to me as a dancer are the things people do in relation to the statue.  We soon discovered that most of the tourists wanted to have pictures of themselves with their arms outstretched in the Christ position.  But nary a tourist could accurately replicate the position.  The statue's arms look, at first sight, as if they were pieces of wood stretched at 90 degrees to a standing body.  But they are not; they curve a little and that curve creates warmth in the arms.  Given the arms, the statue's hands could most easily be palms upward, but they are flat.  Interesting.

People made "v" shapes, "w" shapes, "t" shapes, "y" shapes and unrecognizable shapes in their dances with the statue, but no one got it completely right.  Pictures of my own attempts annoyingly show either my palms turned upwards or not enough curve.  In one, my arms are right, but my fingers are spread.  Dang.

Post includes a picture of me arms stretched out, head back looking up at the massive statue.  I am checking my arm position -- they are too straight.  I'm wearing a blue dress; the statue is in grey soapstone on a black marble base.

As we went around taking our pictures and admiring the view, we connected with the Brazilian women and took some joint pictures.  When the French guy showed up from the later train, he pushed aggressively away from us every time he saw us.  And then.  And then, all hell broke loose.  All three of us wheelchair users had waited until the bitter end.  We all wanted to take the same train down.  We had a problem; the staff had a problem; the other people waiting for the train had a problem.  No one had the same problem.  I was last to arrive; French guy made the point by jostling in front of me at every chance he got.

We all importuned the staff in our various languages for a seat on the train.  Wizard and I agreed with the Brazilians that we could all go together.  I asked French dude if he would get on board with insisting we all go together; he corrected my preposition.  (Way to go with the dis, dude.)  It was war.  Or at least it was until the staff tried to take us down the hill to the train.  We all wanted to go by ourselves.  But no.  We all protested vociferously at being taken down backwards.  But no.  We all wanted to get on the train ourselves.  Certainly not.  Once on board, we broke our chairs down and built a pile of chairs and wheels.  French dude wanted to make sure that our chairs weren't damaging his, but he had decided to sit so far away from us that he couldn't see.  But at last we were onboard, the remaining people applauded; it had been quite a show!

Disembarking was the same set of protestations.  French dude ran away into a taxi.  The rest of us decided to take a bus -- free in Brazil for disabled person and accompanying person, provided they have the appropriate identity card.  The Wizard and I had had positive experiences with the bus the first time around, so we were pretty excited about this trip.

We missed the first bus -- did he see us coming?  When we saw the second bus, my chair-using friend and I pushed laughingly away from the stop.  We knew the bus game, despite our language barriers and despite the fact we both lived worlds apart; Wizard and her friend hailed the bus.  YAY!!  Until he started to drive away; he wasn't sure we wanted to get on, we think -- they leapt into the air and banged on the sides.

Brazilian buses have space and tiedowns for 1 chair user and a chair for the accompanying person.  This driver was not going to have anything to do with us.  My friend belted herself in; I folded up the chair and hoped the bus ride wasn't going to be too wild.

May the New Year bring you peace and happiness.  Thanks for reading.