Notice to Brazilian men: Keep your eyes and hands to yourself!

My left arm is still a little sore from the three or four times I had to forcibly shake off a grabbing hand...here I am, walking from point A to point B. And here is a guy walking from point B to point A. He reaches out, yanks my hand, and tries to not only separate me from my girfriends, but won't let go! Idiots. The next guy who tried that little trick was going to get more than what he bargained for when I spun around...

I have never seen more shameless staring behavior. Erica and I postulated on our experiences this morning for almost an hour. There was this one moment when we were standing at the entrance, waiting for our friends who had taken a taxi and chased down a bus to collect their purse left on the seat (they found it miraculously untouched; almost unbelieveable in RJ these days...praise the Lord!). So we're standing there, and three men walk by, less than a foot of space between us, and stare at us in the exact same way that I've seen men choosing a hooker. Or the way you check out merchandise in a store window. Or ogle the monkeys at the zoo. Infuriated, I snapped out something about how this was not the "Jardim Zoologico, so keep your eyes to yourself, safados." Not that it helped; they were already out looking for the next piece of eye candy....

So that was irritating and put a bit of a damper on my night. But the karaoke and learing to dance forro and a little calypso and eat fried cheese and goof off was great. But the highlight of the night was this couple on the dance floor. She was rail thin with cropped hair and a tattered skirt and short combination, the exact image of someone who has spent years on the streets. He was stocky-thin, with baggy jeans and a worn t-shirt, just barely taller than his partner. They were doing a harsh, street-version of forro, with style and magnetic technique: totally showboating it, there was this one moment where he threw her onto his hip and as she is lying with her torso out in the air, he pauses for a moment to put his chin in his hand in imitation of "The Thinker" before continuing on their mad rounds...

I didn't see smiles while they were dancing; just these faces of deep concentration. But afterwards, when the music stopped for a moment, he led her over to the corner to sit, and put his arms around her, and they rested there, all grins. It was beautiful.