Goal!!!

Here I am back in my beloved Salvador, but what an adventure it was to get here. I think I´m still trying to get used to the idea that I actually made it. After a crazy last few days of packing, not just my stuff for here but the apartment as well, since I´ll be moving to a new place when I get back to chicago, i finally made it to O´Hare, only to miss my plane by 5 minutes, and end up being re-routed onto one leaving town at dawn to Miami. All ok, I thought, maybe I was leaving in too much of a hurry any way, but then when I got to Miami and boarded the next plane that ended up not leaving at all because of some technical problem, I began to wonder if something or someone was trying to keep me from leaving the country at all.. Especially when even my last flight almost got canceled in Sao Paulo due to problems with the airline. But, I´m here now and all is better than well. My friends rushed me to Cachoeira on Friday to spend Sao Joao weekend there. We danced samba and reggae till dawn and had a great time (hardly any forro though, which was strange since Sao Joao traditionally is all about forro). And now I´m back in Salvador where the streets are filled with people in their yellow and green clothes cheering Brazil to victory. I´m so happy to be back here! And tomorrow I get to work on my research again too. I´ve been invited to a ceremony for Xango, the orixa god of justice and thunder. He is often syncretized with Saint Peter, whose day it is tomorrow, so in addition to the Candomble there will no doubt be a bonfire.