Recife is getting ready for Carnaval. Decorations are going up in the lamp post and traffic lights in the center of the city. Traffic has been rerouted to allow for construction of giant umbrellas over one of the main streets. Television stations are advertising their coverage of the Carnaval celebrations (Recife/Olinda, Salvador, Rio). There are pre-Carnaval parties on the weekends, although Walmart killed the biggest one this year.

There is, or was, a chain of supermarkets in the Northeast of Brazil called Bompreço (Good Price – one of its competitors is Comprebem – Buy Well). This chain was, about thirty or forty years ago, so dominant in the region that people in their fifties today still refer to grocery shopping as "doing Bompreço," no matter which supermarket they use. Bompreço sponsored a big party the Sunday before Carnaval called Parceria (Partnership), on the beachfront street. Fifteen or twenty bands performing on top (the truck is called a trio elétrico) drove down the street, each with a different band performing on top. The party was a big deal, and some of the biggest names in Brazil performed each year.

About a year and a half ago the Dutch company Ahold bought the chain. And a few months after the purchase, Ahold’s financial scandal broke. Ahold sponsored the party during their brief time in charge, but around the time of Carnaval last year Ahold sold Bompreço to Walmart. This year, Walmart declined to sponsor the party, declaring (I am not making this up) that Parceria was not in keeping with the local culture. There is nothing more consistent with the local culture than a party. However, the traditional music of Pernambuco does not lend itself to parties like Parceria. The two traditional Carnaval music genres are Maracatú (groups of twenty to fifty drums and other percussion instruments) and Frevo (mostly horns – traditional frevo dancing uses colored umbrellas, thus the giant umbrellas in the center of the city). So, Walmart saw an opening and took it, because when was the last time Walmart cared about anything but squeezing the last cent of profit out of its stores? I used to tell people not to shop at Bompreço because of Walmart’s labor practices. Nobody listened. Now people are starting to take me seriously when I tell them not to shop at Bompreço.

There is a saying in Brazil, or at least in the cities with big Carnaval celebrations, that the year doesn’t really begin until Carnaval. This appears to be true. Most of Recife is on vacation right now, the schools are closed, and the streets are deserted on the weekends. However, there is one other date that could really start the year, and it was Sunday, January 16. The day the state soccer championships began.

It was a hot summer day, and the Ilha do Retiro wasn’t quite packed – several years of disappointments will do that – but it was close enough to packed. The cheap seats behind the goals were so crowded that people, like me, were sitting on the stairs. Most of the twenty thousand in attendance were wearing red, black, and yellow. The game started well, Sport controlled the ball and kept the pressure on until, in the twenty-fifth minute, Petrolina countered and scored a lucky goal against the flow of the game. Twenty-eight years of being a Redskins, Orioles, Bullets, and Caps fan came to the surface in my mind as I asked myself (conveniently forgetting the first Gibbs and Weaver eras), "Why do my teams always, always disappoint me?"

But Sport didn’t disappoint. Fifteen minutes later they equalized, and early in the second half they made it two to one. At any game in Brazil, or the US for that matter, about twenty percent of the crowd has a transistor radio next to their ears. Ten minutes after Sport took the lead, the fans with radios reported that Santa Cruz, Sport’s main rival, had given a penalty away. The cheer that went up around the stadium was almost as loud as when Sport scored. A few seconds later, when the penalty had been duly converted, the same cheer echoed around the stadium. Sport was winning, Santa was tied, and life was good. (Nautico, the rich folks’ team in Recife, the "third" team in the city, has a fan base entirely too small to be taken as seriously as Santa. Nautico lost, but Sport fans didn’t care.)

With about ten minutes left in the game, I noticed that everyone with children was leavin the stadium. This was my cue, and I left with them. As I passed through the gates, a roar went up from the crowd, and I knew that the game was out of reach. This year Sport turns one hundred, and it will be a good year.

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