Carnival Story
Autor: Silvana Bil | Publicado: 2012-02-29T18:01:00-08:00

Once upon a
time a girl that had a dream: be in a Carnival Parade. I´m talking about me!
I was wearing
a beautiful costume called “Cana” composed by: 1 pair of pants, 1 blouse, 1
pair of fist adornments, 1 waist adornment, several feathers and 1 pair of white
shoes. I was feeling a little strange / uncomfortable but I was happy.


My samba
school Mangueira is considered&nbsp; Brazil´s most popular samba school.
The
organizers told me to not forget that the Parade is a competition and you
must sing and dance along the run way don´t forgetting that the world will be
watching you and your happiness is part of the show.

I heard
many rules but I didn´t see any difficulty following these simple instructions.


Everything
was going correctly; the people were happy, funny and I could see many artists.
I saw J.Lo in a famous beer vip area, Ronaldo (ex-soccer player) and lots of
influential people.

I`m not
sure but I believe had seen Bin Laden in the crowd (I drunk just a little).
Suddenly I
saw my English "gringo" teacher on the ground floor, Joshua is his name, dancing near the
Queen of Drummers. He was wearing an elegant costume made of imported jacquard,
black and white feathers, ribbons and decorative plates (the name of this
costume was “Corno”). 

He started flirting with&nbsp;her and he seemed a little drunk, a
little not, a lot. I didn´t know what was happening but she started scream and the security
men started beating on Joshua and in the heat of this confusion the Queen fell down and broke her foot,
and Joshua was
taken out. I went there to see what was wrong and
an incredible thing happened. Some&nbsp; people caught me and took me to a van and changed
my costume with the Queen´s one (all this happened in the begging of the
parade).Then like a miracle I was there like a Queen! This position is very
important you have to stay in front of the drummers introducing the percussionists
to the crowd – beautiful, happy and dancing that supposed to motivate and
inspire the hundred male drummers behind you.
What they didn´t know was I had not
danced in&nbsp;high heels for a long time and when we were in front of the judges
that have&nbsp;rigid rules I was trying to do my best performance and I tried to&nbsp;give
a “pirouette” but I unbalanced and fell down over a percussionist that fell down
over another percussionist, and over another, and another and suddenly a
lot of men were on the floor. Great! The head of the drummers group tried to do
this event like choreography. I´d like to finish this story here but I can´t.

On Ash Wednesday I went to sambodromo to follow the votes
counting given by the judges&nbsp;on a scale of 5-10 ( the judges are spread along
the samba avenue). The drummers need considerable scores but for the first
time Mangueira´s history they received scores like 5! I knew that it was my fault
and I could not let&nbsp;that happen. So, I invaded the restricted area kicked the
announcers, took the papers with the results and fled. The confusion was widespread.
The police arrested me and some other
people. I´d like to finish this story here but I can´t.


When they put me in the prison cell I
found Joshua my English teacher again.&nbsp;We hugged and laughed a lot. We will never forget
this carnival adventure.