Last night Flor de Macambira had the pleasure of playing for the crowd at Parnamirim's annual Bull Fest (well, at least the crowd in the SEBRAE tent), which teemed with candy apples, cordel poets, saddles, horns of bulls, popcorn, cachaça, more saddles, rides, weird sized fish in murky pond exhibits, cool handmade things and of course the bulls. Well, actually I only saw cows, but that's because I only saw the sights as we whizzed by late for the sound check. I'm sure there were bulls somewhere. The hoedown is on a giant lot, roadside interstate BR-101, in Parnamirim just past the airport. Local cordel poets including Paulo Varela were out and about. Local cordelista, Erique, was working on an Umburana woodblock print for the cover of his latest cordel (traditional, rhymed verse, published in signatures). The old guard were all-a-mayin' as well, in jeans and flip-flops, sweet-smellin', ironed, button-down shirts, and the youth with hair pinned, and primed, polished like the candy apples. The whole boisterous affair reminded me of county fairs on the border at Mexicali and El Centro. Odd to be so far away from one's origins, and encounter one's origins.