Blocos, Bandas, or Escolas!

Not only shows the world to play soccer-

The country that sweats to let the world drive, alas!

One who breeds sweet sweats-

Ethanol perpetuates,

There strives our Harry Potter.

The solitary candy girl sings in the field,

You can hear her in the afternoon-

A black song of motivation that barely covers her guild.

All this and many more,

That gives human skin the bitterness of colour-

They can be ignored driving downn Sao Polo inside a Maybach Saloon.

The same sun, but not the same burn-

Sometimes sipping Caipirinha in the beach resort,

And then while harvesting with a difficult breath, a farmer gives up a life well fought!

When designer and model Mari Giudicelli stepped foot inside the Rio Market in Astoria, Queens, she was like a kid in a candy store. “I looove it!” she exclaimed at the sight of a jar of goiabada—a guava paste you can eat with cheese. Her eye catches something else on the shelf: “These are delicious! Everybody had these bite-size cake desserts made with condensed milk and chocolate powder (called brigadeiros) at their birthday parties when we were little. They’re a staple, like hot dogs are here in the U.S.”

With the Olympic Games in their second week, the Rio-born beauty was on a quest to find little pieces of home in sprawling New York. Guidicelli has lived here for six years, leaving her hometown in Brazil to attend Parsons School of Design and later FIT in hopes of becoming a fashion designer. Now she has her own shoe label that is on the up-and-up, comprised of incredibly chic, Brazilian-made loafers, slides, and mules in leather and exotic skins. And while her business and modeling gigs presently have her travel schedule at an all-time high, she relishes the moments she can go home to the Botanical Gardens neighborhood where she grew up to see family and friends about once a year.

Currently, Giudicelli is living and working in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and missing that trip back to her grandmother’s house for moqueca (fish stew) and beach visits highlighted by acai bowls and sugarcane juice drinks. “When I was in Rio, I used to go to the beach on my lunch break,” she explains. “It’s much chiller there; I had time to really hang out during the day, but when I moved to New York, I quickly realized that I needed to get moving or I’d get left behind.” One day recently, though, Giudicelli did slow down to enjoy a day in New York inspired by Rio. She visited the market in Astoria, and said hello to a good friend, also Brazilian, who started a sweet shop on Porter Avenue in Brooklyn called My Sweet Brigadeiro. Guidicelli hung out at Beco restaurant, dining on traditional post-beach snacks like chicken croquettes and grilled sausage with onions, and had a beer. To end her Rio tour of NYC, she stopped by Miss Favela in Williamsburg to have feijoada, of which she says, “Whenever I crave it, I go to Miss Favela to get it.”

While sipping a caipirinha at the bar at Miss Favela she noticed the Olympics on the TV. She’s proud of her country for hosting the games this year. “I have some friends back home who are stubborn about Rio hosting and they think it’s bad for the country, but overall, a lot of the locals are enjoying it and partying in celebration,” she explains. “It’s not putting Rio on the map, because Rio already was on the map, but overall, I think it’s a positive thing. I think it’s really awesome.” For Giudicelli, home is where the heart—and really great food—is.

Above, Giudicelli finds a taste of Rio in the streets of New York.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-brisbane | www.marieaustralia.com/****-formal-dresses

jericoacoara, brasil

i used to think paradise was loud.
grand.
someplace with fireworks or a sign that said you’ve arrived.
but here
paradise whispers.
it hums like wind over dunes and the hush of tides kissing mangroves.

it starts slow:
bare feet on red-dust roads,
a lime cut open for caipirinha,
salt tangled in your hair
before you’ve even unpacked.

pedra furada stands like a portal
not just a rock, but a wound the sea never stopped carving.
you walk there at low tide,
thinking of all the things erosion teaches us about time,
and how light, at the right angle, makes absence look sacred.

at sunset, the many locals climb the dune like pilgrims.
all of us waiting,
as if watching the sun slip beneath the ocean
might give us permission to let go of something, too.
and when it disappears, we clap.
not for the sun, but for ourselves.
for choosing this place. for arriving.

in lagoa do paraíso,
you swing in a hammock half-submerged,
water licking your skin like a secret.
you forget your name for a while.
only remember the temperature of turquoise
and the ache of muscles finally unclenched.

there’s a bent tree they call preguiça: lazy.
but it’s not lazy. it’s free.
it grew toward the wind and stayed there.

god, maybe that’s what we’re doing too.

capoeira beats call you to the beach at dusk,
bodies moving like poetry before it’s written.
then forró after dark,
barefoot spins under fairy lights,
strangers holding each other like old friends
or future stories.

in the mangroves of guriú,
you glide silently between roots that braid water to earth.
they say seahorses live here, invisible to the rushed eye.
maybe you do too,
the version of you that still believes in quiet magic.

there’s a night when the stars are too many to name.
you lie on wet sand,
and the sky reflects itself around you
like the universe is closing in
just to hear your breath.
and maybe it does.
you make a wish on a bird instead of a star.
you don’t know why,
you just do.

and out of nowhere,
someone hands you a board.
you fly down a dune laughing.
you dance.
you say nothing for hours.
you say everything with a glance.
you remember who you are
before the rush and alarms and musts.

you begin to wonder:
what if the way out wasn’t loud at all?
what if escape looked like sunburned shoulders,
wind chapped lips,
and the sweet, slow ache of coming home to yourself?

so tell me,
how’s the escape plan coming along?
because this map drawn in sand and silence?
it looks a lot like freedom.

m.