The first two days of my 4 days & 3 nights in the Amazon

Monday- Woke up at 6ish am so I could have breakfast (it was held from 6:30-7:30 since the earliest pre-sales began at 8 am and I was one of them).  Gotta say I felt really excited but nervous because I still wasn't too sure what this trip would hold. I said bye to my roomies and Obai but they were all snoring and whatnot. Lol. Tiptoed out and headed to the dining hall. Ate and headed to the Union, signed in with my professor. The first thing I noticed was what I wearing versus what everyone was wearing… I saw lots of khakis, tee-shirts and shorts…I was wearing long sleeves, a scarf and some sweat pants. I had so much of that 100% DEET on it was like a bug perfume….Vastly different than anyone else. I started to think I was off but somewhere in my mind I thought everyone else had to be crazy so the only thing I removed was my scarf…hahaha. Saw some familiar faces who were going on the trip too so that was cool…we all were nervous and chatted a bit. The professor read some updated changes which didn't really help as much (mostly about our transportation and commute) because the image in our heads was still outrageous. We were going to take a boat (2 hours) to a bus (4 hours) to another boat (2 hours) then a canoe (15 minutes). Nuts. This village was tucked away and we were really heading into the jungle! We were missing two girls at 8 am and we were getting anxious. Their room phones were called and then they came down… we headed off to deck 5 to exit the ship. We didn't walk out past the bridge leading into the city from the ship…instead we made a left and headed to the boats docked on the sides. We could hardly contain ourselves. We walked very carefully and got on this ferry/boatish thing with two levels. Took a seat on the upper level… On our way to this Amazon Rio Tupana village where we were going to stay, the tour guide talked about the Amazon. En route we saw the crossing of the waters: Rio Negro and the Amazon River. Can you imagine seeing two completely different types of colors coinciding but not mixing? It's like oil and water. Rio Negro is the Black river…when I say black, you have no idea. Black as in you cannot see what is down below. It looks like flowing marble. It is beautiful to look at but certainly a home to all types of creatures. Caimans (or alligators), two types of dolphins, piranhas and a ton of other things. There is some bit of sediment in it so while some parts are okay for swimming (much closer to where land was) it was still very dangerous because it was like going in blind. The Amazon river is home to a lot of other types of things but obviously not a swimming type of environment. I forget which one he said has more mosquitoes at night or which one most people use for fishing, but there are stark differences between the two. With the rivers meeting, it makes the Amazon river the longest river in the world… next up is the nile. It is also very wide and vast. The meeting of the two waters goes for miles…. I still look at the pictures and gawk. They really do not mix! That's wild. We get off the boat after 2ish hours and have our first interaction with what looks like a marketplace deeper in the Amazon but not quite where we wanted to go yet. It was blazing hot, we were walking up bright red clay roads, and we were getting stares from people like we were space aliens. We trekked for some time until we stopped where buses were parked. Began loading our luggage and sitting down. The bus driver has got to be a little crazy to drive those things. This is my final conclusion after this entire journey. He started backing up and just like in the Bahamas or in Dominica, we were praying we wouldn't lose our lives. He was backing out and didn't appear to even look and see if anyone was behind him…he almost hit a bus while doing some unnatural turn….it was all an experience. Then we went ricocheting a number of times as we sped once we got on the roads. These weren't manicured paved roads. These were roads of uneven dirt, mud, or clay. There were ditches and weird undefined crevices the bus didn't handle very well since we all felt in our stomachs as the bus flew on…   We finally get to the point where we have to get off the bus so it can get on some barge  thing with a ferry attached so that we could sail to the other side (like one street to another) and there were no other forms of connection. That was a spectacle because it took forever. We had to get off because it wasn't the safest thing to do. The bus had to back up on the barge, and it also had to be where it wouldn't move while the boat was pulling the barge. We were all paranoid because we had never seen anything like it and we also had left our stuff on the bus so we were concerned about the bus tipping over…or some other catastrophe. We pull up on the opposite side of the shore (where we needed to continue) and wait for the bus to meet us. There are locals standing around and we all felt a little uncomfortable since they weren't looking very friendly. Fortunately, the bus revs up and charges up the hill, so we get back on and the commute continues. There are 2 bathroom breaks at gas stations during the course of the bus ride (since its 4 hours) and we take the liberty of using up Reals to buy stuff at the convenience store. It was funny because we were trying to understand the labels since everything was in Portuguese. haha, I ended up buying some cookies that were similar to Oreos but not quite since the filling was coconut. It was great =) Some people weren't so lucky haha. Random: I was sitting somewhat in the back next to Elizabeth during the bus rides…these two guys were sitting behind us with speakers and an ipod blasting RAP. It was hilarious… they knew more than I could ever know about it which was pretty funny. Anyhow, the bus had no stereo so the entire bus  was listening to what they were playing… it was a happy day when at some point their ipods died. I don't have anything against Rap…. just saying. Finally we got to the next area where we needed to get our stuff and wait for the boat that would take us directly to the village. It was another long trip and I dozed off and on during the ride. Something fascinating about Brazil is the difference in land mass. Honestly, you would be surprised if you paid attention to the landscape and the wildlife we encountered just driving through different parts. It is a huge country. We finally get to a few isolated houses and then my professor tells us we are getting off. We looked around like what??? Hahaha. So we get off and we are all confused because the other group rode on and we have no idea what's happening. One of the people came out of the houses and walked towards us and introduced herself. She was one of the very few English speakers and she was one of the owners of the lodge we would be staying, but she introduced us to the people of the school. The Headmistress was introduced and she did a bit of smiling, the cooks were as well. There was this sorta awkwardness because we had language barriers and didn't have a clue how to communicate anything. We had two guides for the entire trip- Simon and Nigel. Simon was from Guyana but had grew up in Brazil so his English was okay, but still limited. Nigel had a European parent but also lived in Brazil for some time so his English was cool or better than the other locals, but not perfect. He also understood some Spanish. Shortly after the introductions and learning that we were limited to 2 or 3 (I can't remember what she said) water bottles per person during the course of our time there, we got to work. Mind you we had had a long exhausting commute in the hot Brazilian sun and had no idea we would begin our community service that very day. We piled our luggage into the first classroom on the floor and got to working. We had to scrape or remove existing papers or staples off of the walls because we were going to paint them…white. They were already white but we figured okay cool we'll be painting over some of this stuff. Turns out the white was a watery paint or as we found out Francisco was diluting the paints and was putting too much water in them (at that). But I'm guessing he did it so that they could spread it out and make sure there was enough for all the walls. It kinda defeated the original purpose though because when we started painting the insides of the classroom walls white, you could see the writing on the walls and stuff underneath it. It also made us confused about which parts were already painted since there was a ton of us and we all needed something to do. Not being able to see direct results wasn't very gratifying either. We all complained about that paint hahaha. They didn't have as many supplies as there were students so we had to do a bunch of rotation. We were using huge knives to scrape little bits of paper that was glued to the wall…and a swiss army knife to remove staples. Some people were using pliers, and a few had staple removers… there were brooms to sweep off the cobwebs and other interesting signs of bug life. There was a gecko lodged in the wall we were trying to paint and we didn't know how to tackle it lol. At first we kept poking it with one of the nails we removed out of the wall, but Simon came along and just took his knife and poked it. It jumped out and disappeared up the wall and out the door hahaha. He told us that the poison is in it's tail and it could sting. Go Figure. Anyhow, Richardo removed the white board they had and about 6 slimy frogs went hopping…shooting in different directions. It was the weirdest thing to see. None of us knew what was happening since they went wild so fast… but that was interesting. Otherwise there was a lot of sitting around, staring and exchanges of awkward smiles…We tried singing while working a bit…didn't last very long hahaha. That was one of the things we missed especially while working basic power to plug up a radio….The school had gotten electricity just 2 weeks before we had arrived…made us wonder if that was just because we were there. The headmistress was apparently a well known woman around town and was an advocate for the school and the needs of the children. So that was cool to know she was the one who got things done around there. There was a public telephone outside of the school that she had fought for some time…and even though it didn't work, that was one obstacle she had overcame. It was also the only phone in the village so that was interesting. While we were painting, we noticed the types of material piled on the table the students were learning. They were completely outdated work and text books. The physical quality of the books was terrible and that just made us sad since there are plenty of folks up north or in the states who have access to books and just don't use 'em.  There weren't many kids around since this was their summer vacation so that was that… and we couldn't get started on taking apart and rebuilding the bridge just yet because we had to wait until they could get us the materials so that project was held off…Lunch came fast and you could see the fear on every one of our faces. We knew that we were taking a lot from them by there being so many of us and the number of water bottles we each devoured. They do not have clean, fresh water so they have to boil the water and then refrigerate it somehow… the bottled water was again, for our convenience. =( Knowing this, we wondered about the safety of the food and it's preparation in that water. John and Jeffrey (my professor) kinda gave this gesture as in what else can we do but to eat since it would be impolite.. We had been working and traveling for some time and we were all hungry. Plus, we wouldn't eat until dinner time at the lodge. They didn't have to tell us twice…we immediately filed into line. The food wasn't bad…and clearly I am alive =) We piled our bowls in a sink in the kitchen leftover food and all. I'm not too sure what they did with the leftovers on our plates…maybe fed it to the animals because the only garbage we saw was for our water bottles. We also noticed this gigantic barrel-like bucket filled with water to the right of the bathrooms which was where they washed the dishes…  finished what we could because the boat was coming to bring us back to the lodge soon. We walked with Nigel to the neighboring houses to ask them to send their children the following day…we wanted to teach them English and get to know them…we also checked out the "store" that up the road that was owned by a family. They were also doing "well off" according to Nigel because they had a tv and no one else in the area did. Shortly after, we left.  The lodge staff workers were diligent at night putting up 22 hammocks for us. The other SAS group who was staying at the same lodge (and relied on the same transportation coming and leaving the ship) had an entirely different itinerary. We did make fun of them (they weren't experiencing an authentic stay in the Amazon) by sleeping in beds. Nevertheless, we had designated breakfast and dinner times. We had the earliest breakfast times of the two groups, but the latest dinner time. Our lunch was prepared by the village whose school we would be fixing. During the course of the evening we socialized a bit. Had to get used to the whole community shower thing… the other weird factor was how it wasn't a solo activity. The monkey liked to perch on the ledge above your head and watch you shower….how weird is that? Mind you, she didn't do it for the guys so I don't know what that was all about….you wouldn't think that something like that would be a big deal…but trust me it gets weird really quick especially when you try to shoo her away and she stays…or she flinches and then comes back… mm mm mm. Anyhow, Nigel brought in a giant grasshopper that they had found outside. It was pitch black outside so you could find all types of things. It was disgusting to look at and I didn't even think to consider holding it. But there I was, one of the many crazy SAS'ers, lining up for photos with this monstrous looking thing. It was the size of a crawfish…maybe bigger. Seriously, you look at it and you almost couldn't believe that it was harmless because it seemed big for no reason. Nigel also came back in with a toad but he let it go really quick since he wanted it to live. Makes sense. The funniest pictures were of Abby and my professor who were terrified of the bugs to begin with…Moving on, going to sleep was difficult since we were all excited. But we would meet some of the children the next day at "work" so we tried to go to sleep as soon as we could. I personally knocked out after spraying some deet…. I had enough on the hammock… and had my hoody covering my face (didn't know of another option of not leaving my face uncovered). It worked for me!


Tuesday
Waking up to the Amazon was amazing. It was breathtaking. The colors, clouds and the water was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was like watching the sunrise from a 360 degree angle. Better than any postcard pictures taken by photographers.. it was nice to see it for myself. The fact that we were somewhat suspended in this treehouse like environment, and could fall over the ledge if we weren't too careful wasn't an issue. It was an interesting night of sleep to say the least. We were so excited on The other cute surprise was the spider monkey, Conchetta who liked to curl up in random spots on the body and with unsuspecting people. hahaha. She was very cute and even though we were constantly warned about staying away from animals since  the ship doesn't carry too many rabies vaccinations, she made the experience what it was. She had been with the lodge for three years and was fairly young in monkey years. They told us stories about her and her dislike for bathing. They said she disappeared for four days at a time when they hold her down and clean her hahaha. Anyhow, she was a riot. During our stay there she devoured some medications like Ambien, ate toothpaste, shampoo and some other things. She was your friend just as long as you had something to give her or she helped herself and figured out whether she could eat something of yours…. she was almost like a baby or adolescent. We had to keep chasing her or telling people to "stop the monkey" hahaha. The other interesting thing is I am getting used to being "rocked to sleep." As I mentioned in previous posts, sleep on the ship has been the best I have ever gotten. The whole rocking to sleep is no myth… it essentially felt like that with the hammocks. With the help of the wind, we were all "rocked" and that was wonderful since it put me out like a lamp. I didn't have to worry about the physical hammock itself as being my means for sleeping or trying to get to that sleepy point. I just did it. Breakfast was great… and then we were off!

When we got to the village we worked on painting green. The headmistress had her mind set about a lot of things. She was adamant about how she wanted things painted and when she wanted it done. I think she kinda rubbed some of the SAS'ers the wrong way. It almost seemed like she was regarding us as though we weren't doing it out of the kindness of our hearts, but rather because she just thought we were extremely well off. It was interesting because someone else mentioned how she seemed a bit rude and had at some point grabbed a paintbrush from them so that wasn't surprising. The kids started trickling in. At first we were all shy and didn't know what to do… but then Jeffrey suggested we get in a circle and teach them the "head and shoulder's, knees and toes" song… You would be surprise at how that went. Hahaha. Not as simply as we thought, that's for sure. Richardo was translating what we were saying to the kids in Portuguese, so naturally they were repeating it in Portuguese. We kept trying to tell Richardo that while he was giving them the right body part in Portuguese, the song was meant to be in English. But he kept nodding at us saying yes Portuguese? You, English? And we were like yes, wait no! Hahaha. We went back and forth for a minute trying to convey that we wanted him to get the kids to repeat after us. That was the funniest moment of all… language barriers obliterate any awkward moments. We were all laughing hysterically afterwards. Seriously. Finally we gave in and Richardo ended up winning slightly. He would point to stuff and say it in Portuguese, and we repeated after him which was cool, but not what we planned for the day with the kids hahaha.  But anyhow we followed his lead and would give him the English translation. Finally he got the point and we sung the "heads, shoulders, knees and toes" song. Once he got the hang of what we were trying to do, we played "Duck, duck goose…" That game was easier to demonstrate and the little kids loved it. Richardo was funny because he is 33 years (as we all found out later), but he was so inquisitive that he was like another student. He kept asking us what a goose/duck was and it was hard to explain since he didn't understand much English to begin with. Brittany (the photograph for SAS) was flapping her arms trying to imitate a bird and make the simple distinction that one was bigger than the other. Hahaha. Anyhow, that game was a hoot because the kids liked running around… and while we let some of them win (jogging extremely slow), majority of us got tagged because these kids were genuinely fast. We moved on to Red Rover. We divided into two teams and stood opposite of each other. This one required another demonstration and Richardo also translated… soon we knew that they got it because they started getting competitive among each other and that was funny to watch. But the real game where we saw more of their personalities show was when we went ahead and played "futbol" or soccer. We divided into girls versus boys… talk about intense! The Brazilian girls playing were young but they were so skilled! Then we had the guts to do Brazil versus America…. lol… totally a joke. We got our butts kickkkkkked faster than we could open our eyes. Luckily no one was really keeping score. The hilarious part is that there were more of us than them… They also either took off their flip flops to play or were already without shoes. I noticed that about all the kids… We (Americans) had shoes and even our best players were still struggling. Go Figure. Anyhow, the ball kept getting kicked everywhere including mud… so many people got mud splattered on them it was a picture in itself. Then we had to get back to painting since there were a bunch of folks who painted through this incredible time we were having…

That night we had horse and a bunch of other creatures for dinner…It wouldn't be the Amazon if it wasn't any interesting food included…Plus the way it was prepared didn't make it seem weird...Somehow I felt comforted to know that it was common meal for them... Made the experience much different than let's say going somewhere it wasn't cooked all the time. Besides, it tasted and looked great. Sorry folks if that grosses you out.. I love food, and I enjoy trying new things... Everything I ate in the Amazon will stay in the Amazon =) I am 99% sure I won't find it in any American restaurants so I guess that should be fairly comforting. Moving on... Nigel and Simon also found a poisonous spider which he captured in a soda bottle. He put a fly in it and we heard the fly stop buzzing… kinda sad since we were all in on this poor thing's fate. He told us how it created fevers, hot/cold sweating flashes and some other things… we kept looking at this not so big creature in amazement. It didn't reassure us that one of those things wouldn't crawl into the hammock with any of us since we were sleeping in the open. I went to bed early though. Actually shortly after dinner… folks were swimming and I opted out. I started off sitting in my hammock reflecting and thinking about the strangest combination of people. What's odd is the timing of when people cross your mind. These were folks I hadn't even thought about yet…or while even on the ship. Well, they made their grand entrance and lingered in my thoughts for a bit… then I somehow fell asleep? For some weird reason, I didn't think to really load up on Deet so I slept without it. (I can think of one good reason: laziness). Plus I worried about spraying it and it seeping and inhaling too much of it while sleeping…