Tranny Cattle

It's almost 7pm here and I'm watching the Wayans Brothers television show dubbed in Portuguese at my host's house. It just isn't as funny when you can't understand it, though I never thought it was very funny in English either. My host and his family are very nice and live in an apartment outside of the city in a town called Iraja. It's pretty run-down, sort of like being in East LA, but I've got a bed and a roof. My host speaks a bit of English too, so we've been helping each other with our respective languages. His English is much better than my Portuguese, however, and when he and his parents are speaking I get the feeling they might be laughing at my ineptness. They're trying to teach me a few things though, and with the help of my host's English-Portuguese dictionary and my new phrase book (!), I have learned a little.

Today we took the bus and the subway to the downtown area of Rio to meet up with some other couch surfers and hosts and go to the blocos aka street parties. Everyone was dressed up in something, whether it be a subtle mask (like me) or a full-on outfit. There were fairies, brides, flappers, and those were just the men! Women dressed in similar garb, though some were dressed as men as well. We drank a few cheap beers and then marched the streets of Santa Teresa dancing to the samba drums and whistles and chants. There were so many people, and since everyone was a part of this ongoing parade, it was as if we were being herded like cattle; transvesite, drag queen cattle. With all the bodies around us it was basically an orgy without all the sex, though I'm sure there probably was at some point. We finally made it out of there and moved on to another street where we were much closer to the samba band and actually got a chance to move around rather than march the whole time. It all reminded me of tailgating with no game to attend, and just dancing for the helluvit. While it was all very fun and crazy and eye-opening, I'm happy to be back at my host's home in the "safety"of East LA (at least for now, because it starts all over again in about 12 hours). Wish me luck...