1.   This traditionally financed the samba schools, which spend six months preparing for carnival.

2.   In Brazil, the whispered, syncopated chords of an acoustic guitar in a bossa nova are like the massed drums of a samba school heard from afar.

3.   The core members of the samba schools are the urban poor who live in the hillside slums called favelas.

4.   The families of kidnapping victims marched with banners, teen-agers scrawled PAZ, or peace, on their faces, and the samba schools sent their percussion sections.

5.   The musicians studied Brazilian samba schools, and the Cuban comparsas, and put together an inventory of portable percussion.

6.   When the samba schools parade, pedagogy turns into delirious spectacle, with images multiplied and repeated by the huge forces that the samba schools can muster.

7.   No-one from the Vai-Vai samba school was available for comment.

8.   Samba school joined by untraditional guests.

9.   The samba school from Madureira has decided to tell the story of carnival itself, with the theme that samba fans consider the most festive song.