See You, Fortaleza

by Lia Widyastuti (Indonesia)

Making a local connection Brazil

See You, Fortaleza By Lia Widyastuti The town was paper, but the memories were not --- John Green, Paper Towns It's a long journey for me to finally visit Brazil. As a Moslem girl who wears a hijab, my fiancé, always worries about bringing me here because of Islamophobia. He is afraid I will get bad treatment from the people here. Even if I always tell him that I will be OK because we already travelled a lot to foreign countries and I have never been treated badly. Brazilian people really like spending time and gathering with friends and family, especially on the weekend. They will spend two to five hours having lunch. Then they continue drinking and chatting until dinner time. In Fortaleza there is a Spanish Restaurant called Don Pepe. I and my fiance, Sergio mostly spend our weekend lunch’s or dinners there. Juan, the owner is the second generation of his Spanish family who moved to Brazil to open a cuisine business. He is one of Sergio’s best friends. We made a really strong bond with other regular customers in this restaurant. Pires, is the only one who can speak English very well and is one of our best friends. Clei, he can’t speak English very well, but he is always nice to me. Pergurary is a very cultured retired professor who likes to talk to me about Soekarno, and his nice wife Lurdinha. Eduardo is one of Sergio’s closest friends and he has a very nice wife Suzane. Seginho who is the quietest guy, but a very nice friend, as well as Araken and doctor Roberto. Jesus and Edmundo are always happy and invited us to our first carnival ball. Not to mention Juan, the owner of the restaurant, the line that brings all these friends together and his mother, “Dona Kate” lovely lady. Sergio said that before nobody believed him that he has a fiancée in Indonesia until I was introduced to them. They were all surprised and never stopped asking how he found a girl from so far far away. Not just far away, but also a Moslem girl who wears a hijab. I told them that Sergio got a curse from my ancestors. He is Portuguese by blood and my country has long history under Portuguese colonialism. Now it’s my turn to take revenge and enslave him under my feet. All the people in Don Pepe laughed so much and we enjoyed a great time together. Lurdinha, a very nice lady in Don Pepe, since the first time meeting, she is very welcoming towards me. Her English is quite limited, but always try’s so hard to talk to me. Her husband is a retired Dean of the university; he is the only one who knows about Indonesia. Lurdinha invited me to have lunch at her house and she cooked a special dish for me called siri. It's made from carangejo (crab). After all this welcoming our worries about Islamophobia were meaningless. The one moment that I could not forget was that they had a special early Christmas dinner party for me and Sergio because we would be travelling to Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia during Christmas. This moment is so touching for me. How come they held a Christmas dinner party for a Moslem girl? Maybe this only happened once in a lifetime and only in Brazil, or as my fiancé said, ONLY IN FORTALEZA. *** Looking outside from the taxi window, I could not reveal my feeling. Ah, Fortaleza. How can I leave you behind? The entire corner of this city draws my memory. Along the beaches where we usually walked and enjoyed the sunset while drinking coconut water, an old Bahia lady selling acaraje, shopping in the night market, wonderful Portuguese food, warm welcome of French restaurant manager who is a wine expert, sweet little girl in Korean restaurant, beautiful church and old part of the city, and of course the warm and friendly people. I faintly heard the radio in the taxi playing the Jason Aldean, "Let's don't say goodbye. I hate the way it sounds. So, if you don't mind. Let's just say for now. See you when I see you ..."