Carnaval is coming.  The biggest party in the world starts, officially, Saturday.  Of course, it really starts Friday night.
And, in a sense, it started in January.  And, in another sense, it never really ends.  But it REALLY starts on Saturday.

The maracatús practice year round.  And, in Brazil, anywhere gather more than ten people, so gather hotdog and beer vendors.
And a party is born.  So one can find carnaval any Friday or Saturday night of the year, if one knows where to look.

And starting in January, Olinda has a mini-Carnaval every Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
And in Recife Antigo on Friday nights the maracatú practices grow larger, and other maracatús come to practice marching.
It’s just like Carnaval with one percent of one percent of one percent of the people who attend the real thing.

After New Year’s the local TV stations start playing frevo during the station ids.  RedeGlobo, the largest TV network in
Brazil (it’s like ABC, CBS, and NBC combined), plays station ids featuring semi-nude and nude women dancing samba.
The big pre-Carnaval parties (minus the old Parceria – the current Parceria is sponsored by the city and is a big concert
on the beach) start a week or two into January, and everyone talks about Carnaval all the time.  It’s very strange to think
that in the US, my old home, nobody is getting ready for Carnaval.  What are you people going to do this weekend?

Last Friday night I took the bus to Recife Antigo, for the night’s pre-Carnaval party.  As the bus came around the curve
and approached the bridge to Recife Antigo, I remembered taking the bus along the same route to Carnaval last year.
Because Carnaval hasn’t started yet, the roads are still open.  The bridges aren’t full of pedestrians, and the streets
aren’t lined with vendors.  And the tourists still haven’t come out in force.

But they will.  Tourists descend upon Recife and Olinda during Carnaval.  Prices rise in proportion to the strength of
one’s accent, and the number of languages overheard on the street rises from one to some higher number.  I feel some
sympathy for the tourists.  They are here to observe, without comprehension, a foreign culture.  And then they leave
after a week, maybe two, and never really get to know Brazil.  Carnaval informs and is informed by the rest of the year.

Carnaval reflects and is reflected by the whole of Brazilian culture.  Carnaval is the most important part of the Brazilian year,
and Carnaval is just another four days on the calendar.  Carnaval is huge, but life goes on.  Anyone whose first trip to Brazil
is for Carnaval will miss the forest not for the trees, but for one particularly large tree.

But all of this is words.  Carnaval is an experience.  Nobody could ever have described Carnaval for me before
I experienced it last year.  And nobody will ever describe it for me now.  Someone will say “Carnaval,” and I will understand.
I can’t describe Carnaval for anyone, either.  Friday night I came home from Recife Antigo at four thirty in the morning, in a
state of mind significantly different from my present state.  Before I went to sleep I tried to write something about Carnaval,
and I came up with the best description I have yet seen.  “Think of the biggest, best party you have ever seen, been to,
heard about, or imagined.  Multiply it by a billion.  Raise it to the billionth power.  Now multiply by a non-existent number
like a gazillion or a kajillion.  That’s Carnaval.”

And so it is.

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