Hey friends and family!
I survived Brazil and had possibly some of the best times of my life thus far! The people I met, cultures I experienced, emotions I felt were nothing I could possibly express in this blog, but I’ll try my best. Coming from Dominca (and US) to Brazil was definitely a culture shock. Visiting a country in the midst of development is difficult because I feel the locals want the tourism for income but they don’t do well with foreigners. Outrageous, inconsistent taxi fares was one of my most frustrating parts of Brazil. Don’t get me wrong, they have meters but refuse to use them even if we asked. We often compared taxi rides and found people paying double to the same place as the next person. Yes negotiating and bargaining is always a great idea but then comes the language barrier. Ugh. My Spanish knowledge was a GREAT plus but still hard. At the end of the day I was physically tired just from trying to speak Spanish, use hand signals and understand Portuguese. When we found an English speaking local it was like a God send – they were sparse and we kept them handy!! The next top frustrating aspect of Brazil was stealing. The instant we stepped into port and got into the streets people had multiple belongings robbed. I couldn’t tell you how many people had cameras stolen. If you wore your camera on your wrist by the string, they will just come up behind you, cut the string with a box cutter and take off. People learned REAL quick not to carry stuff like that (which they should have known from the git go but there are always those who don’t listen!). Now everyone knows my weakness for animals and I think Brazil weakened it even more. The homeless dog population was awful. It was SO hard to resist all those puppy eyes looking at you and not being able to do anything, not even pet them. At night when people put out their trash it was like a feast for them, rummaging and scrounging with the rats. I just wanted to give them all a bath and bring them home. And trust me, if I could I would. WELL now that I have those frustrations out of the way.. we’ll get to the good stuff..
The morning we got to port in Brazil I was so excited I just wanted to go, go, go. My first field experience in Manaus was to an orphanage named Monte Salem. It is a court-appointed place kind of what we would call a foster home. For the most part, children do have parents but are just taken away until the families are deemed fit. If never allowed to return to the home, adoption takes place. We took about a half hour ride to the country side and got a tour of the city at the same time. We saw a lot of historical buildings (that I can’t remember the names of), rich parts, poor parts and everything in between. We went through what we would call “the projects” in a big city; government funded housing which I found interesting because it looked just like it would in the US. Our tour guide gave us a brief overview of ‘teen pregnancy’ of Manaus and it blew my mind. It is nothing uncommon for girls starting to get pregnant anywhere from 9-14. If you hit 18 and don’t have a child, you’re bio clock is counting down!!! It is part of their culture to believe once you have your first child you are a woman and have reached maturity. I definitely have respect for the young girls that are actually able to care for their kids at such a young age on their own. (dads do what they want. If they want to be around they are if not, see ya later!). They have set some laws as far as child support but it’s a newer process and the government is still working out the flaws. We finally got to the orphanage around 10:00am and interacted with the kids for about two hours. The ages ranged all the way from 1yr to 16 years old currently with about 20 kids in total. It was really awkward at first because they younger ones were pretty confused as to why we were talking so funny (English). But we were supplied with toys, coloring books, stickers and face paint. Yes, face painting was a popular one that got PRETTY messy! It was worth it to see the kids so happy though. Blonde hair was popular with the middle aged girls and they just kept touching and running their fingers through it. We toured the orphanage and the local school, sang songs with the kids and learned popular hand games. The living quarters were very clean, orderly and they all had flat screen TV’s in the rooms!! After we were done playing with the kids we got back onto the bus and headed back to port. My friend Anna and I hung around the local port area for awhile, talked to other SASers, had a few beers then walked around Manaus. It was pretty overwhelming because it was our first day in a huge port and we didn’t speak the language. We stayed close to the ship and came across this place called Splash which was a pizza parlor. It was kind of funny because half way through our pizza we finally realized they don’t put on pizza sauce. Weird but it was still good. They also had this dessert pizza we’d been hearing about and of course we had to try it. And once again, language was an issue when ordering it. Somehow there was a mix up and we got TWO dessert pizzas, at least 5,000 calories a slice, between just us two girls. There was nothing we could do but just laugh – it could be worse right? We eventually wandered back to the ship around 8 pm where I had to meet my next tour for alligator spotting!!
First things first. South America has neither alligators nor crocodiles – they have caymen. In my opinion they look like the same damn thing but a huge difference is the way they walk; alligators/crocs walk on their bellies while caymen walk up off the ground. Anyways, we all boarded a rickety old boat and headed off into the pitch black jungle scared shitless. None of has had any idea what we were getting into. Riding to the location where we would get into smaller canoes was surprisingly peaceful since the only sounds were from nature – frogs, crickets, water. I thought the stars back home were beautiful on a clear night but in the middle of the Amazon its entire new scenery; I have never seen so many bright, clear stars in my life – breathtaking!! Once I finally got comfortable we got to a building on the river and climbed into a tiny little 8 seater motorized canoe. When everyone was seated the canoe was literally only 5 or 6 inches above the water; when a person leaned one way or another I truly thought we would tip over. The minute we took off a girl started screaming and realized a fish had jumped in the boat with us. It was pretty funny. We cruised around for a little awhile looking for the caymens’ red eyes with a spot light. I learned different animals reflect different colors. For example snakes reflect white, cats are yellow, panthers are blueish and spiders are white. My first thought was “if spiders eyes are big enough to reflect light visible to human eyes then the spider must be HUGE – get me the hell out of here.” After a little while the guide saw some eyes and within 2 or 3 seconds the next thing we know he had the caymen in his hands on the boat with us. It was unbelievable how skillful the natives are at catching these things. We named our caymen Steven. We all touched it, held it and took a bunch of pictures then headed back to the ship! Definitely a relief when we can see our ship – we’re home!
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