Festa no Clube do Laço

This morning, Duca and Lygia told me they were taking me to a party in Corguinho. What kind of party, I had no idea. Lygia reminded me of my big sister by asking if I would be her "doll" for dress-up. She rejected my dusty men's pants and stained tank top (my best outfit) and replaced it with a peasant dress and full make-up.

"The dress is too beautiful on you!" she exclaimed. "It's a gift! I don't want it back."

Duca recieved a similar make-over, and Lygia barely had time for herself before we finally got on the road with our cooler of ice-cold water and terere mug in hand.

After an hour-and-a-half drive down red dirt roads and a few stretches of asphalt, we arrived.

(The names get confusing. Corguinho is the municipality, sort of like a county, and also the central town in the municipality. Taboco, where I live, is a smaller town in the same municipality.)

We drove through Corguinho to what appeared to be a country fairground. A sign named it "Clube do Laço," the rodeo. We paid 20 reals (pronounced "hey-eyes") each, equivalent to $6 USD, and entered the ruckus hoe-down.

From left: Duca, Lygia, a gaucho, me, two more gauchos, and a young cowgirl.

I scanned the crowd to understand its social culture, and I was bewildered to see a mixture of familiar American country (boots, rhinestones, bleached-blond hair), motorcycle gang (full black-leather, combat boots, chains, gun-and-rose tattoos), and traditional Brazilian gaúchos (broad straw hats, red scarves, flowy black pants tucked into brown boots -- see the above photo).

Then I saw a banner tacked to the wall: "Sponsored by the Dinosaurs Motorcycle Club," decorated with a skull and crossbones. The bikers had come dressed up as the sponsors, the cowboys came in costume to barbeque the meat, and the rest of us showed up in normal attire which, for rural Brazil, is country. Nobody but me seemed to be paying the slightest attention to one another's fashion.

Dozens of beef ribs roasting over burning logs.

The lunch was an unlimited buffet of rice, feijões (soupy, salty, brown beans pronounced "fay-zhow"), farofa, lettuce, and a steaming pile of greasy tender beef. We ate firsts and seconds, then piled thirds into a plastic bag for the dogs back home.

I learned a two-step Brazilian dance, but I got dizzy from all the tight spins.

Then it was time to dance. The yellow plastic tables and chairs were cleared to create a dance floor on the concrete. The band played a booming set of rock and roll -- Hotel California, Hey Jude, Satisfaction -- recognizable by their beats but not their approximated English lyrics.

A young girl with long, curly hair was the star of the show. We great time dancing, though our heights were not quite matched: