For about a year now Irini has been taking classes of capoeira. An athletic and heavily tattooed Brazilian man comes our way and spends about an hour working with the little ones (between 4 and 6 years old) working on their kicks, their handstands, their flips, the moves and vocabulary. The start was slow as the kids started from zero going in a direction that no adult watching understood, but slowly, and definitely steadily, the time and experience added up and brought with it a level of skill that was mildly impressive by October.
By the end of the month the girls (Irini's friend Tara is in the class too) were told that it was time for their first "batizado" (i.e. baptism). It would be across town and involve a good number of kids from a whole bunch of different capoeira groups across town. Off we went!
When we got there the hubbub was hard to overcome. The turnout was higher than expected and the number of kids and instructors was pretty overwhelming too. Irini's first reluctance to even change into our capoeira clothing began to change and finally she changed and participated in the whole group activities. When the children were called up, by group, to "do their thing" though, Irini would have none of this "doing stuff in public view" and so she stayed behind with mommy, daddy and sister as Tara marched out and went through the process involving a whole bunch of bending down and high kicks and moving to' and fro'. For those new to the concept it was an interesting mix of awkward breakdancing and some form of modern tango.
The day ended with tantrums. We were there far too long but at least we got some indian dinner out of it. The car ride back was rather quiet. Daddy snuck a peak in the rear view mirror. The girls were out within minutes.
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