The setting is Guarulhos airport, on Wednesday morning (24). I’m about to board the plane that will take me to João Pessoa, where I would present, this Thursday (25), the event (merchandising alert) Talk&Taste, from the TV channel Sabor&Arte.
Between one news item and another on my cell phone, disgusted with the lies of the criminal who misgoverns us, I look up and something captures my attention.
He is a person who could go unnoticed in that environment. Man, in his late 50s, dresses like a straight-laced executive would when boarding an important meeting in another city.
Dark suit perfectly molded to the slender body; dress shirt in a subdued, subdued pink color; teal blue tie splattered with small figures that, by far, I didn’t identify.
But the hands, instead of fingering an indefectible cell phone… they lovingly manipulate a chimarrão gourd.
First, he watches her carefully, as if to assess the condition of the object and decide the moment to approach. Apparently satisfied with what he’s seen, he continues on with the action.
He grabs a huge thermos –which he first lifts by a long handle– and, pressing a top plunger, pours steaming water into the gourd.
Once this is done, he puts the bottle down and takes a bottle of yerba mate, which he opens carefully before pouring part of its contents into the container where the water was already resting. The grass forms a sharp hill jutting over the edge.
Without noticing my fascinated attention, the man continues his ritual. He wields the straw that ends in a flat, perforated spoon, a gleaming silver that he first raises to his eyes to peer gently.
Then he uses it to carefully flatten the mound of grass until it is level with the edge.
It was time for the reward after such meticulous preparation. The spoon disappears at the bottom of the gourd, and the straw is about to receive the caress that precedes and accompanies the sips of the mate.
For this final act, the man removes the mask that until then had covered his nose and mouth. For the first time I see his features. The fair skin, which I had already noticed, was not different from what I would imagine being a gaucho, since the state is full of descendants of European migrants.
But now he saw features –perhaps the high cheekbones in the thin face, the straight hair although already graying– that could refer to the original gauchos, the Indians who peacefully inhabited the pampas regions before the invaders’ fury descended upon them, when they began to be hunted by greedy Portuguese or indoctrinated by fanatical Jesuits.
I had seen gauchos with their pet gourds, carefreely sipping their infusion in public places, ignoring their surroundings or circumstances. But, in general, in more prosaic situations – a park bench, a faculty room, a van transporting journalists.
The executive bearing in impeccable robes, in complete opposition to the hat, spurs and blouses of the folkloric image, was probably what caught my attention. What nonsense.
As he walks away towards boarding, I notice that his complete kit rests on his wheeled suitcase: a canvas case with a handle, where a bottle, gourd and mate are housed.
I admire that person’s commitment to traveling, ostensibly carrying their roots – and, in this case, literally feeding on them. I remember a cook from Pernambuco, Rivandro França, who, wherever he goes, carries his cangaceiro leather hat on his head.
I like to get lost in the world, blend in. But I didn’t stop admiring at this moment those who opened up the pride of their origins in this way.
