Cleopatra as a Carioka

So when I asked my self where else do I feel home?

Another place, other than Cairo of course;

The answer was Milan and the vibrant dancing queen: Brazil.

I spent only seven days in Brazil but it was like a year of learning and sucking in the culture with all the details and warmth that it carries. If I can live in another chaotic, thrilling, alive city it would be Brazil!

The moment I arrived I felt my feet happy to walk on the ground of Rio. Even when still in the airport the peoples tanned skin and dark eyes made me feel home. The friendly smiles and the warm sound of the Portuguese language spoken from their lips sounding like music, was comforting immediately spreading a fun vibe, a happy vibe, a Brazilian vibe. Just walking down the street of Rio you feel sexier, happier and full of life.

When I visited Brazil it was at Carnival time, a magical festive time, a time when the whole nation dances and the introverts do not belong. In Brazil everyone has happy dancing feet and nobody stands still when the powerful sound of the Samba drums shakes your heart with joy.

Our beautiful hosts greeted us with what seemed like a dream come true, a sentence I never thought I would ever hear, they said welcome to the biggest party of the world. I was mesmerized by the sound of these words. I never thought partying could be a national thing.

In Brazil anyone can belong, Europeans, Africans, Asians and Americans and anyone can feel home. Although the typical Ipanema girl look is tanned with sun-kissed hair and an athletic body, the truth is any look can be a brazilian one since Brazilians are a mix of global marriages and all kinds of nationalities who migrated to Brazil brought their genes with them to the Brazilian nation.

The people from Rio have it all, the gorgeous beach, the beautiful mountains and the gift of music of-course. The whole country sings the same song, dances to the same beat and the samba moves everyone from their heart. The Carioka is a local from Rio, they usually wake up late since they were partying all night long, although the Cairene or the local from Cairo does not sleep early too or wake up early as a generalization of course, they do not stay up partying like the Carioka. The Carioka can samba, can sing, loves meat, loves food and enjoys life. The female body in Brazil is celebrated and is a source of pride. I found a lot of similarities between the Egyptians and the Brazilians. They both live for soccer, love music with powerful drums but sadly the Egyptians have lost their joy and love for life. Dancing has become a sluty hobby, and judgement has scared the woman who belly dances nowadays. The female body is neurotic not a source of pride or celebration. It should be covered, it has become a source of shame for low income families. Egypt used to be as happy as Brazil until the fundamentalists spread their vibe and made everyone travel to dance and hide to be joyful.

Egypt and Brazil both have a huge gap between the rich and the poor, however on the beach everyone is Equal in Rio. In Egypt on the other hand the rich are protected behind huge bars and beaches are segregated by class, and even religious outfits have separated us on the beach. In Rio everyone can enjoy the beach in a bikini in flip flops everyone is equal. In Brazil I felt like there is no anorexic complexities , everyone embraces their curves and size does not matter the way it does everywhere else. Finally I enjoyed seeing beautiful curvy proud girls dancing in the streets protesting the media's obsession with the models in the magazines as they do the steps of samba in their high heels and feathers.

The brazilians suffer from extreme poverty like the Egyptians but there is no segregation everyone is equal in the eyes of the carnival. Rcism does not exist so many dynamics of complexities disappear behind the loud drums of the samba music as it shakes your body with joy and life. It is impossible to be unhappy in Rio during Carnival time. Street dances stop traffic and the competing Samba schools train all year for the days that the national show of the most beautiful colorful parade happens. Three days of competition and the masses parade in elaborate costumes and people from all races and all ages dance and sing the song they learned together and to my surprise I was in the parade too, wearing a costume, doing the samba with my racing heart in the middle of the moving wave of people, singing in Portuguese with them words I never heard before I moved my lips and I could sing along. It was like a miracle and the locals called me a Carioka how I could sing a language I could not speak and words I did not hear or understand but I understood some how, what they meant, they meant we love life, we love music, we love freedom, we love dancing we are all one. Everyone was equal in the costumes, the seventy year old ladies, the children, the old men, the white, the black, the rich and the poor all danced to the same beat.

I realized that the power of dance and music unifies the country and they hold on to their traditional dance and they are proud of it, I was sad remembering the extinct belly dance and the fear to dance that has infected my country and all the complexities that complicate us rather than unites us. We have an amazing treasure of Egyptian music and even different dances from every part of Egypt but the people have forgotten it and feared it a long with judged movement to music as a thing they were too rigid to do.

Finally I was at a place that I am not a freak to feel like dancing, i felt like home, the happiest, warmest, most joyful place on earth is the carnival in Rio. Beauty, love, dance are all celebrated. Food is eaten, steps are taken, people unite, people dance together rather than harass each other, and anyone of any size feels desirable, and music fills the air.

To your disappointment the likes of Gazelle Bunchen and Adriana Lima do not roam the streets but out of every 50 girls is a brazilian goddess of beauty and out of every 50 guys is a brazilian symbol of masculine perfection. But everyone oozes an attractive energy and is proudly enjoying being in their own skin.

They are a people not scared to celebrate their beauty and not shy to dance their dance and sing their song when everybody else sings a borrowed song, they sing their songs and celebrate their existence.

Since my trip to Brazil I have dreamed about dancing schools in the slums of Cairo that can free the struggling souls who retreat to fundamentalism. If we gave the deprived children of egypt the gift of dance and music who knows what kind of dangers and anger they could be saved from. Like the Brazilians all we need is music and unity! I dream of a day when walls are broken and freedoms aren't stolen and women are not ashamed of their bodies and the people of Egypt can dance and sing together freely without fearing harassment or judgement, like they did once before, how come before they knew much more? May the people of Egypt lose their blinds, their fears, their anger and all the rigidness that stole the power of music, beauty, art and love from our world. The Egyptians created the Belly dance and the brazilians come to dance it here since they have no fear. I realized that in a past life I was definitely a Carioka.

There were days that Cleopatra was as happy and free as a Carioka.