No wonder the fresh shrimp guy is smiling. I’d rather have the fresh shrimp. The dried shrimp is used in countless Brazilian dishes, however, and ordinarily I would have been more interested in the flavor possibilities, but for some reason I was feeling a little revolted by the thought of all that dried shrimp in my stomach. Hmm. What was up?

I continued on, immensely enjoying the experience, including the smells. Robo was kind enough to use his head as a reference point for the size of the shrimp and his skin color as a reference point for the freshness. I was beginning to get the idea that he didn’t care if I took his picture whenever I wanted to. I like people like that. He also posed willingly in front of the nice rooster painted on the wall. It was neat. Kind of like something at the Alabama State Fair. It looked very American.  But it had been there long enough to have seen a lot of market days, and its age and seniority were impressive.
Notice the Havaianas that Robo is wearing. They’re the craze in Brazil, and obviously here, too. I saw an ad for them in New York Magazine. Their TV ad campaign in Brazil is fantastic. Funny, sexy, spot-on. They’re great, no doubt. The ones Carol got us had a tiny little Brazil flag on the thong part. The story I heard from Patricia is that Giselle Bündchen (Brazilian supermodel, who came to US attention on the arm of Leo DiCaprio and now hangs with Tom Brady) is making her own line of flip flops and sandals (not Havaianas) hot in the U.S.

But it’s as if they were the greatest thing since sliced bread, and so new and hip and all. They’re just flip flops from our childhood that used to cost 59 cents at Woolworth’s! Came in all the colors. Same material. Same propensity to blow out. Fantastic product. One of their most distinctive features was your having to get over “flip flop shock,” which inevitably set in for about a day when you first started wearing them in earnest at the start of summer.

I was glad to see this classic so well recycled and received. They cost about 12 to 15 bucks here. I think they were about 5-7 American down there. Long way to travel from 59 cents, albeit 59 cents from 50 years ago.

We proceeded on through the market, stopping to gawk at the likes of the octopus (above) and other stuff so exotic, so unfamiliar, and so utterly common to the people who were speaking the language I couldn’t understand.

By this time, we had acquired the company of a nice Bahian lad named Ian (pronounced Yuhn), who was more than willing to push the grocery cart, help with the vendors, and in general make himself as useful as he could. He couldn’t speak a lick of English, but was fascinated with our Americanness, I’m sure. He was all smiles, all help, and actually trying to make a tip or two instead of just hanging around the market. Carol speculated that he was the child of one of the vendors, and that many of them had grown up on that same spot, doing the same thing. But never did I get the idea that anybody there really hated their jobs. Bahian smooth. That’s what they were. I began to think of how many of them had grown up with the rooster painting.

In the next picture, Ian is helping to pick out and weigh a soursop. Looks like something from Yellow Submarine. We also went in search of a good jackfruit, but had no luck that day. Carol was great about serving us every unusual Brazilian fruit and vegetable she could find, explaining it all as we ate. It never ceased to blow my mind how many different types of foods there are on the earth, and how they can be nonexistent in one place and common in another.
Pettus and I wandered outside to look at the flowers and stuff. By this time, I was so brave and at home that I was casually taking pictures of anything I felt like, always asking first, of course. Nobody said “Não”. I think some of them must have thought I was from an American travel show. They get those more frequently these days.

How crazy are these flowers? The ones on the right look like those things you use to dip honey out of a jug. They are so unreal looking, but symmetrically perfect and beautiful. Nobody tops nature. Of course there was a dog, and of course I began to pine for our two papillons, Zoey and Spike. They’re unbelievably obnoxious, but are so entertaining to Jean and me that the downside is worth it.

Whenever we go out of town, I always “personify” Zoey and Spike using other dogs, and oftentimes other animals as well. Spike is easier to impersonate because he’s the dumber of the two. Even beach birds remind me of Spike when I’m missing him and Zoey.

Strolling back inside, we hooked up with Carol, our assistant and Robo. I was hot and I was thirsty. What a great time to run across this next item–tobacco, I think.

Woo! Needed some water bad. Carol bought us all drinks, and I chugged mine while explaining in my fabulous virgin Portuguese to the guy that sold it to me how I was sweaty. I can’t spell it properly right now, but will correct:  estoy suado is what I heard when Patricia told me how to say it. So I would go around Salvador telling everybody that I was suado, as if they couldn’t tell by looking at me. Of course, they probably had no idea what I was saying, and just wondered what the sweaty guy was babbling about. But when I was saying it correctly, it would usually get a giggle out of the girls.

Of course there’s no “checkout,” since you buy your stuff from each vendor, so when we were through looking, we were ready to go. Ian took all of Carol’s stuff out to the car, and in what became quite a production, another guy joined in to make sure that Carol got out of the parking lot with no mishaps. I think she tipped our assistant about one Real (plural, Reais), and maybe even gave the parking coordinator something, too. Maybe some change. But as she explained to me later, it’s a good thing to have these people looking out for you and your car, not only for security reasons, but also because they will always find you a place to park.

On the way out, Carol pointed out a guy who sold a type of porridge out of a little metal heat box on wheels. She said he comes through the neighborhood and the stuff is delicious. I got the idea it was like smooth grits with sugar, possibly cream of wheat. At any rate, I think it was a hot cereal that was tasty with sugar and milk. There are lots of Salvadorans that make their living serving food to the public in a floating fashion. Consider also the water guy, who totes the bottles of water up Carol’s steep hill and brings them to the door. There is absolutely nothing slacking about the Bahians.

We serpentined ourselves up the steep hill back to the house, got the happy thumbs up from the gate guy, said “hey” to the birds, and barreled in the house. Suely and Carmen were working on lunch. Jean had just finished her massage. The activities were very domestic and comfortable, only in a language that I didn’t understand. It just killed me.

I can’t say much about lunch, except that it was fresh, delicious, and totally local, with fresh crazy fruit on the side and manioc flour front and center. For some reason, my appetite was severely depressed, and I only wanted water. Strange.

I took a couple of shots whilie we sat around after lunch, with the highlight being the proper homage to Our Lady of the Ping Pong Table by Robo and Daniel. Perhaps I should have joined in. Maybe it would have helped alleviate the tiny knot in my stomach.