Simply Jeri...

Once upon a time there was a bay... No! Once upon a time there was a magical enchanted land... That’s not good either... It’s very difficult to start, talk about, describe, write about this place. And that’s due to several reasons... The obvious one: I’m talking about a gorgeous place, a beach planted in a marvelous bay made of clear blue water and sand dunes that blend into each other. In one of the ends coconut trees hide this enchanted place’s houses, where time is lost, slowly, unhurriedly, at the hamocks’ swing pace, flowing with the wind, following the undulating sand dunes, diluting itself with the sun or the moon that sets over the waters, loosing itself in the thoughts that come and go. Jeri is a little piece of heaven that no words or photos can accurately describe, mostly because this is a place to be experienced, known, lived. But to me Jeri is even harder to describe because I don’t think I can truthfully express what I lived there and because I am both afraid and conscious that this description, by being so personal, can inflate the reader’s expectations about this place. The last think I want to do is frustrate the reader’s future visit to Jericoacoara, or Jeri, the way I should call this place, showing the care and affection one gives to an old friend.
I arrived to Jeri very tired, secluded from myself, due more to mental than to physical fatigue. When I got there I found curious eyes, arms wide open, smiles that opened up at the speed I opened my own, at the speed friendship grew. Food and caipirinha seasoned this ancient recipe I seemed to have forgotten about, or that I insisted in forgetting about... The friends I made in Jeri will forever be in my heart and mind because of the huge saudade that Jeri means. While in Jeri I tried fruitlessly to explain this Portuguese word, but saudade simply means Jeri, this feeling of wanting to be somewhere, having been there, knowing we will forever be there inside our hearts, with the same people, even if we never go back to that place again. Saudade is this certainty of forever being in a magical place and smiling just because we can remember about it, with a slight feeling of sadness because we cannot stay there forever.
That’s what Jeri is, or at least that’s what it was to me: a huge mix of feelings intermingled with caipirinhas, frenetic capoeira circles, magical moments on the dune watching the moon set, endless hours discovering myself and one of the most marvelous groups of people that ever crossed my way. Because of all this, to me Jeri is and will always be simply Jeri.

Somewhere in the Northeast, Brazil, February 2009