Opinion – Zeca Camargo: Brazil, reconvex

“Serene of love, serene of loving, because of the brunette I’m going to die, I’m going to end up, oh, serená… ..”.

The Rendeiras da Aldeia sing their songs in a patio in Tiradentes, Minas Gerais. They come from many corners of Brazil, but in Aldeia Jesuítica de Carapicuíba (SP), they meet and join song and craft in a synesthesia of sounds and images, inviting us to stroll through this Brazil that Sunday will choose to be happier.

In the wake of these serene verses, I, there, sitting on the grass, leave revisiting what I know: a country of beautiful and diverse people, courageous and faithful, affectionate and good.

I reconvex, I affirm, doubling, inspired by Caetano, the bet that we contain ourselves in a sphere of union. So I travel to other illuminated corners of our Brazil, and dance a thousand cirandas.

With the oyster fisherman from Galinho, in Rio Grande do Norte. With a farinheira family in Barreirinhas, in Maranhão. With an intern celebrating the first job he got with his degree in Sinop, Mato Grosso. With the women who prepare breakfast in Burarama, Espírito Santo.

I know every corner of these. I gave each of these people a hug. And I felt in them the warmth of being what, for four years, they didn’t let us be: a loving people. I’ve gathered evidence of this everywhere.

On an autograph night in Rio Branco, Acre. Painting my arms and face with the Karajá-Javaés in Tocantins. In a sunrise at Praia do Rosa, in Santa Catarina. On a museum boat on the São Francisco, undecided whether to dock in Alagoas or Sergipe.

I know about these receptive people who know that we are bigger than the lies we’ve heard since January 2019. People who invent, dance, run wild and kiss.

And, on this trip, I keep holding the hand of the image of Sister Dulce in Salvador. I lie on Grandma Nescy’s lap at Lar Luz e Amor in Bonsucesso, Rio de Janeiro. I hug the sanshin player who, in Dourados (MS), learned music from his grandfather who came from Okinawa, Japan. I sit at the feet of the Bahian women blessing those who arrive in Imbassaí (BA).

It is this Brazil that votes 13 and chooses the president this Sunday. And it reaffirms itself as a place of understanding. This Brazil made up of people who want to exchange, never isolate themselves.

Who hears Fernanda Takai’s whisper in Beagá. The voice of Dona Onete in Pará. The chorus of Jovem Dionisio in Curitiba. Adoniran’s musical children and grandchildren in São Paulo. Johnny Hooker’s scream in Recife. Margareth Menezes calling the pharaoh in Bahia. The rhyme of Djonga from Minas Gerais and the beat of Rio de Janeiro’s Anitta for Brazil.

We are not division. We are Brazilians together, bursting with joy and imagination. That’s what I get when I arrive at any destination, with an intimacy that almost defies my title as a tourist.

It is like this for the gaucho vineyards, for the waterfalls of Goiás, for the sands of Ceará, for the vastness of Amapá. This is how I step on the grass of Trancoso (BA), on the land of Amambai (MS), on the asphalt of Brasília, on the shallow waters of Delta do Parnaíba (PI), on the rocks of Paraty (RJ).

I know every corner of my country and that’s why I believe — I don’t believe, I know we deserve more. We are children of all this light that bathes our territory, of all the winds that blow our beaches, of all the rain that waters what is born here.

And let’s celebrate it all again, from north to south, from east to west, from the mountain to the sea. From this Sunday. We all know that our destiny is to love. And the one who can get us there is a man named Lula.

“Oh, Serena…”.