Amazon 2009: Day Nine (Tuesday, January 13)

Today’s video was produced by the team Dar Um Jeito.

Today was technically a day off, but we still bounced out early to get started on our day of exploration on our way to a local beach called Alter do Chão. We walked out of our gate at 7:40 just as we planned and arrived at the docks of the Port of Santarém exactly as the clock struck 8. It might be the first time we’ve managed to make it to an appointment as scheduled in this whole trip. Maybe we can make a habit of it.

As it turned out, the place that we arrived was not where our captain was, but we managed to call him and have him bring the boat to us rather than us hiking over to where he was. Our captain, Rionaldo, owns a triple decker boat similar to the ones that SMC groups have chartered on previous trips upriver. This boat, the Marco André, has a nice kitchen area and a spacious split level deck that left plenty of room for people to be in the sun or the shade, whichever they preferred.

Some people napped and some people talked, but all of us were awed by the magnificence of the entire river basin. We were mostly on the Tapajós River today, which splits from the Amazon right by Santarém. The size and scale of the river cannot be described. We said over and over again that this thing around us just could NOT be a river, as it is too vast. All along the shore were lovely villages and small beaches, along with long stretches of undeveloped land.

We stopped at one abandoned beach that had apparently been a gathering place some years gone by. Now it has a few standing refreshment huts, but with no refreshments or customers inside. Its sand is soft and white, and it would feel great on your feet if it didn’t get so hot that it almost burns. Thus, we ran from shady spot to shady spot to cross a low hill and get to a lagoon on the other side.
We all hopped right into the water to cool off, then walked down the shore to a long sandbar that arcs far out into the shallows of the river. The tranquility of the moment ended only because we decided to move on up the river to the beach where we really meant to spend our time today.

Our chosen beach for the day was the well-known (but not crowded) Alter do Chão. It is a wonderful river beach with a cute little town nearby. There are food huts and cabana boys and umbrellas to be rented, but it is not posh in any way. In fact, we ordered our lunch of fish and chicken and waited over two hours before it arrived. Once we had eaten it, though, we had no complaints, because it was fabulous. We tasted other beach snacks, including pachoca, which consists of ground/powderized roasted peanuts and a little bit of sugar. It looks like a bag of sand on the tray but it tastes fabulous.

After lunch, a few of us went into town to walk around, while others rested on the beach. One other group took advantage of the totally-out-of-regional-character “banana boat” ride. It is really designed for children and is pulled behind a speedboat until it dumps off its 6-8 occupants. Our group took several spins on the thing and decided it was pretty fun even if it wasn’t very Amazonian.

We gathered back at the boat at 4:00 so that we could make it back to Santarém by sunset. We wanted to spend sunset at the “meeting of the waters,” where the Amazon and Tapajós run side by side in different colors. We were interested to see that phenomenon, but even more we were hoping to see some of the most unusual occupants of that particular part of the river basin: the pink dolphins.

As we understand, river dolphins sometimes turn pink depending on their diets and other factors. There are quite a few pink dolphins that are seen regularly in the area, so we will continue to seek them every time we enter the water. Unfortunately, we missed the sunset and therefore the dolphins. We still stopped at the meeting of the waters and jumped into two rivers simultaneously. Wouldn’t you?

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Today’s Rider of the Purple Bike was Cassidy Gunter, in honor of her “why not?” attitude, especially when we are working with the kids. She demonstrated this spirit in a very clear way when she agreed to be buried in the sand a couple of days ago. Though others joined her eventually, she was the first to volunteer. As usual, she was the trendsetter. Today’s Purpleness was largely symbolic, as we didn’t ride our bikes today at all. She still feels honored, we hope.




This is where the Amazon River and the Tapajos River meet, but their waters do not mix. We jumped off our boat in the exact spot where we were in both rivers at the same time!


This is the food that we had for lunch at the beach! It was delicious!

: This is the Brazilian flag waving on the back of the boat!


The scenery on the boat was truly breath taking as you can see.


At the beach we decided to try this banana boat ride. It was SOooo fun!


The welcome home view of the city from our boat.


Our very own Tara was the star sailing beauty of the day.


Marcia took a moment to sit in the water and contemplate her surroundings, or maybe she was just using the facilities.


Our lunch had obviously been visiting the dentist frequently.


Dentist or not, the fish’s teeth were no match for us.

Tara taught some of the girls yoga on the back deck.

The first beach we visited. (Siblings Joey and Marie having alone time.)

We spent the day on the boat "Marco Andre".

Since the boat ride was a few hours long, we played games to pass the time. 

At the end of the day we jumped off the boat into the Amazon river. 

Amazon 2009: Day Eight (Monday, January 12)

Today’s video was produced by the team Bota Fogo.

Again, we are catching up on blogposts, so please look back at the last couple of days to see newly-posted videos. Today we had a surprise day off, so we slept in a bit. Still, we are used to being productive, so we took the time to clean our camp. The staff gave us all of their cleaning supplies and taught us their methods; we went to town on the floors, walls, our own stuff, everything. It really felt much better to see the place straightened up.

One group of four opted to go to work with Georgete this morning to help her package some goods that she had made. We are very impressed with her resourcefulness in everything that she does. She is constantly producing art and other goods from recycled materials and she apparently sells enough of her work to help support her family and the program in which we are participating. Our group had a great time working with her until we realized that one of the bikes that we had used to get to her house was no longer outside. That is, we had parked our bikes inside a wall around her house, but someone ventured in and stole one.

We were bummed to lose a bike, but Georgete was downright horrified that this unfortunate event had happened. She launched a full investigation among her neighborhood group, which might well lead to the return of the bike. We’ll see.

Even without all of our bikes, we decided to use this afternoon to learn a bit more about Santarém. We chose the João Fona Cultural Center as a starting point. It is a museum of natural and cultural history that focuses on Santarém and the surrounding Amazon region. We learned a range of different things there, but most of us were probably most fascinated by Lourimar Leal, the director of the museum, who was just inside the front door. The last SMC group had met him four years ago, so our leaders were able to catch up and see what has transpired in Santarém since then.

Lourimar is a descendant of Brazilian slaves, so he has spent part of his life trying to understand the practices of slavery and the premises under which the system persisted. Among other things, he has collected some items that were used to punish slaves, including a huge iron shoe and an actual stockade that were used to keep slaves in line. These items are on display in one room of the museum and -- unlike U.S. museums – the items are not covered by plexiglass or protective coverings so we could actually touch some of them.

Lourimar’s perspective on the entire subject of the Brazilian slave trade is unique, especially because he is one of few living Brazilians who learned the songs that were passed around in slave communities. He sang a couple of them for us and we were surprised to learn that they are not recorded anywhere, whether sung by him or someone else. We, then, are going back to see him soon and we will be the crew that documents this important piece of Brazilian history for the first time (as far as we know). Both Lourimar and we are thrilled.

The sad news from Lourimar is that since the last SMC visit (in 2005), he has lost his sight due to glaucoma. This news is particularly sad because Lourimar is also a respected painter in the region, who has served as Secretary of Culture under several different administrations. Lourimar, however, seems to take his relatively new blindness in stride and now hopes to do more singing (perhaps starting to sing about what he might have painted). We look forward to our next visit with him, which might actually be at his artifact-filled home.

Our Rider of the Purple Bike today was Tara Larson. Yesterday, she got herself up for church and sat out on the porch waiting for almost an hour. When Shawny finally got up, it was too late to make it to mass, but she stayed up anyway. Tara is a fabulous group member no matter what is happening, but she proved herself to be extra special on Sunday and therefore wins a seat on the Purple Bike.


The view out into the courtyard of the museum.

Felicia, Rob, Erik, and Katie sitting on the steps of the Santarem Museum.

Georgete in the process of packaging the products she makes before sending them out to the stores.

A doorway out into the courtyard of the Santarem Museum.

Ana talking to Lourimar Leal, a historian at the Santarem Museum.

As we stare outside the window, you are able to see the meeting of the Tapajos river and the Amazon.

Lourimar Leal is not only the director of the Cultural Center of Santarem, he is also a well renowned artist.

This is Joe and Joey enjoying each other's company in Brazil.

This is Georgete using her day off from working with the kids to make fruit flavored liqueur and jelly. This is how she makes her livelihood in Brazil.

Erik contemplated about life looking at the pure beauty of Brazil.

A whale skeleton of the animal that mysteriously floated throughout the Tapajos River, only unfortunately die in a boat accident.

Artifacts in the museum. Some of the earliest ceramic art was found in Santarem.

The beautiful Mercedes is documenting the beginning of our tour of the Santarem Museum.

Who needs a car when you can carry your family on your bike?

Katie enjoying the scenery and relaxing in the hammock, while diligently writing in her daily journal.

Amazon 2009: Day Seven (Sunday, January 11)

Today’s video was produced by the team As Onças.

We got behind on blog entries for a day or so there, so go back to Day 6 to see a newly-posted video for that day. We are having a few problems with our late-night internet connection here on the university campus so we haven’t quite gotten everything done that we are trying to do. We have also had an awful time working out a cell phone situation here. In prior trips the groups managed to outfit a U.S. phone with a Brazilian chip and stay in contact in that way. This time that option seems impossible. International phone cards on pay phones have turned out to be our best way to talk to people back at home.

Anyway, on with our Sunday. We intended to go to mass today, even though we knew it started at 7:00 a.m. That meant we needed to get up at 6:00 and start walking into the city by 6:30. We were all game to do it, as the last group who visited got a very different view of the town on Sunday (not to mention a trip to the church’s bell tower, which comes with a 360 degree view of the river and the city). Unfortunately, our alarm clock (Shawny) set her alarm clock but forgot to turn it on. Maybe we were meant to get a little extra sleep today.

Instead, then, we headed on over to our worksite to connect with the kids, Georgete and Jaime again. Today we started out inside the building on-site teaching lessons in English. We decided to start with songs today, so we used “Happy Birthday” as our opening, followed by “Old McDonald.” The kids thought that the word “oink” was one of the funniest they had ever heard. They were laughing and clapping and very much NOT self-conscious; suddenly we noticed that all of those things were true about us too.

Georgete then took the students outside and they began to run around madly. A new volleyball net caught their attention, along with some of ours. Some of the students took interest in the kayaks and new paddles, lining up to wait their turn for lessons from Jaime, an expert kayaker. Some of the students teamed up with one or more of us to practice speaking English.

Everyone was pretty well occupied, when suddenly we heard a noise like a train in the far off distance. We looked that direction and saw a wall of rain heading our way like an invading army. Though we didn’t really fear getting wet, the sense that it was chasing us convinced us all to run madly for cover, screaming and laughing along with the kids. We huddled under the tents and for the first time since we landed and got the slightest recollection of what it feels like to be chilly. The kids thought it was “freezing,” but to us it was a pleasant reminder that there are times when one’s body does not perspire.

The sun broke through pretty quickly and we all resumed our activities. Some of us even took spins in the kayaks. We knocked off just after noon and helped clean up the area. As we left the worksite by walking our bikes up the rutted dirt road that leads away from the river, we were surrounded by kids screaming, cheering, and yelling: “How are you?,” “Fine, thank you,” “And you?,” and “Oink!”
We headed home for lunch and siesta, then biked right back to the worksite, but not for work this time. Instead, some of our hosts took us in boats across the delta to a beautiful river beach called Maracaná. We actually picked a shady spot on the beach and just relaxed for the first time since we arrived. (By the way, our 50 spf sunscreen is still doing an amazing job of keeping us from getting burned! Though we should easily expect to have a couple of bad burns among us by now, we have not experienced any such pain. AND our insect repellants seem to be working too. Our only problem is heat rash, which comes and goes on most of us.) We could only stay on the beach for about two hours, as we had to catch the last boats back at 6:00.

We were so happy and relaxed that we decided to go into town to hear some live music at night at what used to be Santarém’s prime ice cream spot. As it turned out, they didn’t have live music or a proper selection of ice cream, but they DID have pizza (including a sardine one, which we ordered!) and burgers. Though we love the food at our camp and our cook, Dona Maria, we liked cheating just a little bit for some familiar comfort foods.

Georgete let us know that she is not working with the kids on Monday or Tuesday, so we are planning other adventures for those two days.

By the way, our Rider of the Purple Bike today was Erik Coloma. Yesterday, when the chain broke on Marcia's bike and Chris offered to walk the broken bike home, Erik towed Chris and the broken bike up the longest hill we have to ride. For that, and his great co-operative and collaborative attitude, he deserves the special honor today.





While we were playing beach Volleyball, a wall of rain came at us and we all ran for cover.

Team Paz teaches the kids how to sing happy birthday.

Selini is one of our youngest students. We all love her curly hair.

While we're making friends with the kids, it looks like they were making friends with each other too.

After an exhausting morning working with the kids, we took a break on Maracana beach.

A moth the size of the palm of a hand.

On a sunday afternoon the beach was hoppin'.

People of all ages enjoy kayaing on the Tapajos River.

The fab 4 (Dar Um Jeito) having a great day at the beach.
Cops patrol the beaches of the Tapajos River.

This is Botafogo teaching the kids "Old Macdonald had a farm". 

Some of the kids thought it would be fun to bury some of us.

Some of the youngest kids of the group.

In the afternoon we took 3 canoes to a beach across from our worksite.

A picture of the beach at which we spent part of the afternoon.

Amazon 2009: Day Six (Saturday, January 10)

Today’s video was produced by the team Paz.

Wow. A day that we may remember for the rest of our lives. We worked today with the kids from the neighborhood around our construction worksite. About thirty (maybe 40?) of them showed up for art and recreation activities, along with some English lessons from us. There was a bit of hesitation when we first got started, but once things clicked in, they clicked in fully.

We got to the beach with the supplies that we bought during the week and started setting up. Georgete was interested in teaching painting today, but the wind was a bit daunting. We set up a big tarp for her anyway, along with a couple of canopies under which the kids (and we) could find some shade. We weren’t quite sure how things would unfold, and we especially weren’t sure what the specific agenda was. None of that mattered, though.

When the last of us walked onto the beach, the kids swarmed around us like we were celebrities. They showed us a “low-five, then fist-bump” handshake that they said they use with their friends. We asked if that meant we all are friends now and they said that it did. They were right.

We played games. We taught them some English (“Hello. How are you? I am fine.” “I like ice cream.” “Head, shoulders, knees and toes . . .”). They taught us some Portuguese. They kicked our butts in soccer (fútbol). We took their pictures. They took pictures of themselves with us (on our cameras). They dragged us in the water and splashed us. They held our hands and hugged us. A few of them asked for kisses (but didn’t get them).

Throughout the day we became more and more aware of the language barriers between the kids and us, but our awareness of those barriers only helped us to find ways around them. We’ve gotten very good at charades here, and we have all taken up a much more physical way of talking through the use of exaggerated gestures and overly performative facial expressions. (We think that we are really going to annoy people at home with these new practices, especially the dramatic overuse of the double “thumbs up.”) The incredible warmth and openness of the kids, though, helped us to overcome all barriers and to find a way into their world.

Their world might look pretty bleak from the outside, but even in this single day we got a real sense of the joy that their lives embody. We ran through examples of young kids we know in the U.S. whose lives revolve around video games and other forms of technological interaction. For these kids, though, their lives are about their friendships, kite-flying, soccer, the river, and the possibility that they might make new friends who have come from far away. It was a pleasure and a privilege for us to be the newest friends in their lives today.

When we left at lunchtime, a few of us stayed behind to complete the deck we started yesterday. We installed a railing and fixed some of the places where the whole thing just wasn’t square. It took a while, but we got it done. For the rest of us, we found out that a morning in the sun doesn’t prove how exhausting it is until after lunch. During siesta time, we crashed. We needed to crash. When we awoke, we learned that our otherwise very effective SPF 50 sunscreen had let a little bit of pinkness through on some of us. We also realized that we were sore and tired, but there was no doubt whatsoever that it was worth it.

A bunch of us went into town in the afternoon to get beach towels, as tomorrow afternoon we are going to visit a river beach after another morning with the kids. Tonight we are going to bed early so that we can get up and attend an early morning mass at the church in the center of the city.

The one downside to today was that our Rider of the Purple Bike, Margeaux, needed to sleep in all day because of a minor illness. She is better tonight, but she missed her day of purpleness. We’ll find a way to make it up to her.



Soccer game organized by the kids themselves.

We all worked together to set up tents for kids to do their artwork.

A little boy was eager to learn how to use a camera....

...and this was the successful picture (of the entire group) he took.

The kids thought it'd be funny to drag their new American friends into the water to play.


The girls who came to the camp taking some pictures all together.

Everyone joining in on the circle game and having a great time.

Ana making a sand castle with two very cute little girls.

Felicia and Mercedes posing with all the girls after having some fun in Lake Papaco.

Joey and Joe giving a local boy the time of his life in the water.

Shawny and Mercedes learning Brazilian hand games. These are the last contenders in the game that began with over 40.

The kids learned to kayak today. These girls were a little nervous.

Two iguanas walked across the sidewalk outside our living quarters. They are both larger and quicker than we expected.

Tara and our jungle cat Zily taking a siesta.

Georgete taught art lessons on the beach today. They use recycled objects as brushes and natural products as stencils.