Day Eighteen: Sunday, January 24 – Samba School!

Special Note (repeated from yesterday’s entry):  We publicized the wrong date for our public presentation night in February.  It is really on THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, at 7:00 p.m. in the Soda Center at Saint Mary’s College.   Sorry for the mix-up.

Other Special Note (also repeated from yesterday’s entry): Our internet connection has been somewhat unreliable due to off-and-on heavy rains.  We hope to catch up on our web postings today.  We have also had some late evenings filled with events and those shifts in our schedule have thrown us off a bit as well. 

Sunday morning brought us scrambling to get to the beach at 9:30 (we arranged with Georgete to start a bit late today due to last night’s birthday festivities).  Today was a special day on the beach because a local capoeira group came to work with the kids (and us) to help teach this traditional Brazilian dance/martial art.  It is hard to describe capoeira, so hopefully the video and/or photos will help to make clear what it is. 

We all got a big kick (no pun intended) out of trying capoiera and so did the kids.  Each of us tried to learn a little bit; some were better than others.  A few of us even discussed forming a capoeira club at Saint Mary’s when we return.  We’ll see. 

After our beach work and lunch were over, we all headed back to the storefront to get as much work done as we could.  We continued to do cement repair (a few of us are getting REALLY good!) and we continued to prep the walls for painting, this time using a massive drum of spackle to smooth the beaten up space (at least somewhat). 

We helped Jaime’s uncle, Daniel, finish the frame for the front roof and we helped him begin to install the terra cotta tiles.  It was raining during most of the afternoon (not torrentially, just annoyingly) so every job was a little more miserable than it might otherwise have been.  We weathered it all pretty well and got quite a bit accomplished. 

We hurried home for dinner so that we could finally achieve something that we’ve tried every week: we made it to mass at the big church in the city square.  Last year’s group faced similar struggles trying to get to church.  One week we overslept, one week they changed the time for the service, and another week they changed the location of the service.  This year we missed our first Sunday because we didn’t get up in time, the second one we missed was due to the long bus lines at Alter do Chão, and this was our big chance to make it.  We did!

We went to a 7:00 p.m. service and were surprised to find the church absolutely full.  More than 80% of Brazilians self-identify as Catholics (not that they are all observant), so going to a Catholic mass is a primary cultural event here.   We could pretty well follow along despite the language barrier; they even sang one song that a lot of us already knew so we got to join in on that part of the service too. 

After mass, we hustled to a nearby part of town to experience another major cultural event: the rehearsal of a samba school.  As Carnaval time nears, groups of musicians (mostly drummers and other percussionists) practice their approaches to the parades that will happen all over the country over the course of several days.  The groups are called blocos, and the bloco we found was called Bloco da Pulga.  They gather outside of their rehearsal space, get going with vocals and instruments, then bust out all of their drums and march through the streets while the locals (and we) follow and dance along. 

We had a complete and total blast, especially because the leader of the bloco, Chicão,  recognized a couple of us from last year’s group.  He immediately spotted us, identified us as the Californians on bikes from last year, and located tables for us right in the center of all of the action. 

When the truck and the drum line got ready to move, Chicão let Shawny ride inside so that she didn’t have to crutch along while we were all dancing.  (We gave up on the wheelchair long ago; this place was not designed for navigation by wheelchair.)  The singers were right in Shawny’s face, so she got to have a blast even though she wasn’t out there with us.  The rest of us had an even bigger blast, especially because a local samba dance teacher took us under his wing and taught us some moves.  We were leading the entire parade at one point, following at other times.  Always, we were ecstatic. 

As it turns out, the Bloco da Pulga has chosen to honor one of our other local friends in their Carnaval celebration this year: Laurimar Leal, a local artist, musician, and historian that we have met on our previous trips.  The bloco made cool shirts with their name and a picture of Laurimar on them.  Even though the shirts are not yet for sale, they offered some to us because they were so glad to see us return.  The shirts are flashy and loud and oh-so-Brazilian, so we will wear them proudly when we get back to California. 

We were tired but jazzed when we returned home.  We seldom have nights out (we usually work on our projects and this blog in the evenings) so to have two nights out in a row was almost too much for us.   We managed, though, and we even have plans for tomorrow night as well: we are attending a local fashion show that will feature Louro’s niece.  That should be a fun event to add to our list of Brazilian cultural experiences.  We’ll let you know.

Josi learns a move or two from Bryan.

Gianna spent most of the morning with the cutest kid ever.  Can’t really blame her.

Jesse does work. Spraypainting the iron grates.

We didn’t know Sky knew Capoeira already.  Reach for the sky.

Seús is one of Georgete’s former students who is now a 5^th Level Capoeira pro.

It stormed last night and this is what the beach looked like when we pulled up this morning.

A local capoeira group came and busted out some moves.

After their performance the capoeira group tried to teach us some steps. Dani and Noelle are trying a flip.

Sky and Jared capoeira battling.

A bike shop on the way home from the beach.

Capoeira pose.

Learning the basics to Capoeira.

Matt S with one of our lovely locals, Lucas.

The  instruments played to keep the rhythm of the Capoeira performance.

“OTIMO!”

Day Seventeen: Saturday, January 23 – Happy Birthday, Jesse!

Special Note:  We publicized the wrong date for our public presentation night in February.  It is really on THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, at 7:00 p.m. in the Soda Center at Saint Mary’s College.   Sorry for the mix-up.

Other Special Note: Our internet connection has been somewhat unreliable due to off-and-on heavy rains.  We hope to catch up on our web postings today.  We have also had some late evenings filled with events and those shifts in our schedule have thrown us off a bit as well. 

We got going in the morning with most of us heading to the beach to connect with the kids and a few splitting off to complete more work on the storefront.  As it turned out, though, there weren’t as many kids as usual today, so we peeled off a few more people and sent them to the storefront as well. 

The beach people did a few more lesson plans and got a bit more English going for the kids.  As usual, there was a lot of playtime too, with soccer as the main way to run around the beach. 

For those at the storefront, it was a highly productive morning.  We cleared the floor of all of the lingering debris and moved the entire debris pile from our demolition work behind the house to be reused later.  Seeing the space entirely open gave us more of a sense of how the storefront will soon look, but we realize that we have very little worktime left to complete the job. 

A few of us became cement installation masters, while others helped to dismantle the short rooftop off the front of the existing space.  We are going to help rebuild it and cover it with terra cotta tiles in the next few days.  Still others began prepping the walls for painting. 

We look forward to applying a fresh coat of paint (maybe several coats) to both the inside and the outside of the space because things will look very different after that moment arrives.  Jaime wants to install the floor but we have convinced him that we are likely to make quite a mess while painting, meaning that he should install the floor after we are done.  He tried to give us more credit as painters than we deserve, but we finally convinced him that we are likely to be total slobs. 

We hurried away from all of the worksites in the afternoon so that we could get organized to go out to dinner for Jesse’s birthday!  Georgete found us a restaurant that specializes in regional cuisine so we let them know that we intended to take the place over for the entire evening.  And we did.

We took an epic bus ride to get ourselves to the restaurant and by the time we actually arrived, we were starving.  It was still quite awhile before any of the food came, but fortunately there were some dancers there that performed some traditional regional dances for us while we waited.  Things got off to a rather slow start as they waited for their cue to begin their routine (they were absolutely still for almost four minutes before their cue came).  Once they began, though, they were very impressive. 

They were so impressive that we all gathered around once they were done and learned a few of their steps.  It turned into a bit of a competition and apparently Brie and Neil won, because they were awarded handmade necklaces by our hosts. 

We ate, gave birthday presents to Jesse (local t-shirts, a handmade bowl, and a necklace with enough beads to match his age).   He gushed and went crazy over each one.  

From the restaurant, we hustled over to Dona Maria’s house.  She has been the host for our SMC groups for four trips now, but she has never invited all of us to her house before.  There is an outdoor bar across the street from her house, so we spilled over onto their patio and communed with a lot of our local friends, including Louro, his brother and sister-in-law, some of the other workers from the camp, and our doctor friend. 

It was our latest night this trip, but it was fun.  We had to hurry to get to sleep to be ready for another big day tomorrow.  We already agreed to move more quickly than usual in the morning so that we can have a few extra minutes’ sleep.  Should feel luxurious . . .

Scott hanging out during an English lesson.

Bryan and Dani teaching the days of the week in English.

The kids make an interesting discovery…writing in marker all over our shirts and bodies.

Soraia and Soliane find a new way to play volleyball with Ana and Ciara.

Neil cleaning the cement off of the metal grate.

Josi and Brian trying to put up the Volleyball net.

The kids attacked us with markers and signed all our shirts, right now they’re coloring Ana’s.

Dani and Neil helping Jaime put in a new window.

At dinner for Jesse’s birthday we were surprised by a performance from a local dance group.

After Dinner, Gary, Jared, and Jaime played a game of pool.

We learned a traditional Brazilian dance at Jesse’s 40^th Birthday. Brie was our star dancer.

And as expected, Neil was our second star dancer.

Our fellow Ninja Gianna plays with the local kids as they sign her shirt in markers.

The local boys showing Quincy a little love.

Working on the construction site.

Day Sixteen: Friday, January 22 – Tapa-JOYOUS!

Special note:  Our video camera batteries were all used up on Day One and Day Two of the boat trip and our belief that we would be able to charge them on the boat turned out to be untrue.  Thus, the teams with video responsibilities for yesterday and today have produced slideshows that are combined into one overview of these two days.  That combined slideshow appears above.

The boat got moving early in the morning to get Louro to work by 8:00 a.m.  He made it in plenty of time.  We, then, got some bait right on the edge of Santarém (we bought it right out on the water) and then headed off to fish for piranhas!

We had to find a shallow and muddy area to try to catch piranhas, so our captain took us downriver just a bit to a tributary off the Tapajós River (itself a tributary of the Amazon River, along with which it runs side by side right in Santarém.  The bait we needed was all meat: some beef, some chicken.  

We pulled our big boat up against some tall water grasses and started chasing our prey.  One method of catching piranhas is to disturb the water at the surface to emulate an animal in distress.  The piranhas might be drawn to that disturbance, then take the bait attached to the hook.  Those of us with bamboo rods practiced this method.

Some of us, though, did not use rods.  We had fishing line tied to empty plastic drink containers.  Our strategy was to drop our bait deep into the water and then pull it along to simulate natural movements.

Still others used a slightly different method, which involved keeping the bait in sight just below the surface of the water, then watching for the piranhas to come after it.  Once those people saw a fish go for their bait, they would jerk the line to get the hook to sink in.

Despite all of our great strategies, we turned out to be terrible piranha catchers.  We could see them come and take our bait, but we couldn’t catch them.  Finally, one of the boat staff caught one, which gave us renewed hope.  We moved the boat a couple of times to maximize our chances.

Finally, Gary became the first SMC student in SMC Amazon history to actually catch a piranha!  It was a pretty small one but we didn’t mind a bit.  We hooted and hollered and went nuts just to know that our hours of fishing weren’t totally fruitless.  Rionaldo (our boat captain) quickly caught another one (a bit bigger this time), so we were really ready to reel them in after that.

Sadly, those three fish were the only piranhas we would catch today.  By the time we left the area, most of us had put down our lines and started reading books or writing journal entries.  We were totally demoralized.

But then to lift our spirits, we returned to the Meeting of the Waters (Encontra Das Águas) to jump off the boat a few more times.  Shawny didn’t jump this time of course, and the rest of us used new protocols to check the depth and the general conditions before trying anything tricky.  Scott and Gary had missed our original swim at the Encontra, so it was particularly fun for them to get to jump there.

We headed home from there and spent most of the afternoon getting reorganized in camp.  A few of us loaded video and pictures from our trip, while a few others went to the storefront project and completed some cement work.  We think that we will make huge progress on the storefront over the next few days.  We hope you continue to follow us and find out if we are right . . .

Quincy, Jarred, Ana, and Ciara enjoying Piranha. (People listed in decreasing order of enjoyment)

Neil tries his luck on a bamboo rod.

Prime Piranha fishing grounds.

Jared and Quincy showing off their home made fishing rods.

Using the cows to whip the Piranha into a frenzy.

Day Fifteen: Thursday, January 21 – Communities Along the River

Special note:  Our video camera batteries were all used up on Day One and Day Two of the boat trip and our belief that we would be able to charge them on the boat turned out to be untrue.  Thus, the teams with video responsibilities for today and tomorrow have produced slideshows that are combined into one overview of these two days.  Please see Day Sixteen to view the slideshow.

We ended up staying at our piracaia point all night, moving downstream once the sun rose.  A couple of people awoke with the move, but most stayed asleep in their hammocks.  In fact, by the time we arrived at our first destination, some of us still hadn’t awakened.  Apparently we are pretty comfortable sleeping on the boat.

Our first stop was a community called São Miguel.  It counts as somewhat developed in the area, as it has a health clinic and some electricity.  No one but the clinic has electricity full time, but still, there are communities and homes along the river that don’t have electricity at all.  We saw some of the homes in which people live and we saw that things that constitute “community” for them: their church, their school, their recreation room designed for soccer.

We also got to see the place in which community members grind mandioca using a millstone.  Mandioca and the related food macaxera are staples around here and we have eaten them many times in many ways.  We had no idea what level of effort it took to produce the flour and other forms of each that are ubiquitous here.

Some of the members of the community also focus on arts and crafts, using items from the rain forest in the design of their work.  We saw people making necklaces, bracelets, baskets and other woven items out of seeds, reeds, grasses and leaves from the rain forest floor.  Selling these goods to people like us who come through on boats is one means of income for the community.

We also had an unusual special treat in that one family took in a baby monkey after a tropical storm several years ago.  The monkey lives in a tree behind their house and is friendly enough to be held by strangers (like us!).  We were probably a bit too fascinated by the monkey but the family didn’t seem to mind.

From there we set off to Ponta Grande, our original destination for our piracaia last night.  We stopped earlier than planned to capitalize on the last moments of daylight to dig our hole for our fire.  Thus, we used Ponta Grande as a swimming, bathing, and lunch spot today instead.  We walked way out onto the sandbar that stretched deep into the river to get some perspective on the beach and on the immensity of the river system that we are traveling.  From many points along our route, it is almost impossible to believe that these waterways are rivers because they are so wide that they dwarf the rivers we know in the U.S.

Once we left the beachfront, we headed to our next Amazon community: Urucureá.  This community is even more widely known for the fine baskets and other goods that they produce from items in the rain forest.  We walked around to get a feel for life in these remote areas and talked to a few of the residents (through Jesse and/or Ana, of course).

We watched as a group of men felled a huge tree with only an axe and a rope and we all realized that few of us would have the strength to chop down a tree in that way.  We are constantly reminded how much our daily lives are removed from strenuous forms of manual labor and we sometimes laugh at what we usually mean when we say the word “work.”  For most of the people we know here, “work” almost never involves sitting at a desk and typing on a computer.

We walked through a thick patch of rain forest to the next community upriver and we got to see how thick and lush the vegetation is throughout the area.  We also got to see a group of monkeys frolicking in the wild as they followed us down the path from their treetop viewpoint and kept an eye on us.  We thought we would see lots of huge spiders and other gargantuan bugs, but no such luck.

We got back on the boat just as night fell and headed to a spot just short of our eventual final destination: Santarém.  Our cook on the boat, Louro, had to be at a different job by 8:00 a.m. so our plan was to get within range of dropping him off at that hour, then continue on a bit to take care of our mission to catch some piranhas.

We didn’t know it at the time, but we were following a storm that we never experienced directly.  Still, the high winds that accompanied the storm were whipping across the river, causing huge waves that reminded us of the ocean.  The boat was really pitching and rolling, making a few of us somewhat seasick.  Our chairs were sliding around on the deck with the force of the movement, sometimes being blown by the wind.  We all stayed low, put on our jackets to break the wind, and rode out the waves with only a small amount of fear.  Just as our seasick companions began to lose it, we started to sing to distract them.   We were still singing when we reached dry ground and we managed to avoid any vomiting; we count that result as a pretty grand achievement.

We sat up in the boat and talked for quite awhile to shake off the memory of those waves, then headed for our hammocks to rest up for our piranha-fishing expedition.  We hope to have piles of piranhas to show for our efforts tomorrow!

A pet monkey that we got to hold at Såo Miguel.

Through the jungle we trekked to meet the boat on the other side of the river.

The sun said good morning as we awoke from our hammocks and started the day.

The sunset off of Såo Miguel as we departed and continued our journey along the river.

The intricate and handmade woven baskets that involved a long, patient process.

Locals felled a huge tree.

A Brazillian waiting for the perfect catch.

Heave Ho!

We saw lots of beautiful scenery walking through the Amazonian Rainforest.

We were captivated the flora and fauna in the Rainforest.

Jesse, Jared, and Neil set off on an adventure through the Amazon. 

Local kids watching us tour the town of São Miguel.

Hand-crafted baskets by the local artisans.

The inside of a church in São Miguel.

While relaxing in his hammock, Neil captures a shot of  Ponta Grande.

Our sleeping quarters on the boat.