Corujas Azuis! (Blue Owls)

Here you can see we’re almost ready for our big debut at the Sambadromo in Rio. At this point we were waiting in the staging area with the rest of the blue owls that comprised our ala or wing of our samba school’s parade. The desfile or parade for each school is taken very seriously, all the schools are judged and points are detracted for anything done wrong during the whole several hour ordeal. Our part in our school was relatively simple, we had to sing our school’s song, dance around looking as happy and full of life as possible, without leaving any gaps in between the individual owls or crowding the ala in front of us.

But all of that was still ahead yet, at this point we were enjoying some really cold black market cervejas, really cold because it was a million degrees inside the costume, and black market because the organizers didn’t want anyone drunk for the parade (they will eject you if you appear unable to perform well). But when there’s a quick real to be made, Brasilians can be pretty resourceful, some guys with little coolers were jumping the wall and selling the beer to us paraders.

From left to right: Camile, Dinger, Christy, Patricia (our Brasilian friend from Porto Alegre) and Gary.

Sambadromo, Rio, RJ 2008