I received a short call from my daughter, Tara @ 6:pm pst. Only 2 payphones at port, with long lines waiting to make calls - so very rushed! Then we were cut off, which she mentioned was happening to others. So...phonecalls may be sparse in Salvador.
I only got a quick thumbnail, not many details. This morning was spent visiting a "Favela", must be the "Service visit: Calabar Favela" listed in the field program section . Next, She attended the "Welcome Reception". Really enjoyed the "capoeira" , since she is a martial arts student. She was very excited about her 5 am call time for the Amazon trip. It was midnight and she needed to get "home" to pack... yes, she referred to the Ship as home!
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Brazil
Tara called @ 3:00pst. (sun.). Just returning from the Amazon Explorer trip. She also said the hammocks were GREAT! She even purchased her hammock for $10. The trip was "AWESOME", she was very excited. The saw pink dolphins, alligators, piranha and more. Not many mosquitos :) due to the high acidity of the Rio Negro. She explored the jungle and took a "shower in the rain". Because of the smaller more intimate nature of the trip she was able to connect with some others. I'm relieved, since normally she is more reserved in a new situation and (particularly in such a large community) and has felt a bit isolated and homesick. She now has "25 new friends". She wasn't ready to get back on the Ship. So much to see in Brazil! They had to return to the Ship by 9:30 p.m.(brazil time) to set sail.
Again , long lines at the phone, poor connection
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Brazil
Hi again everyone,
So I�m on my way to South Africa right now and this is probably the best time for me to write everything about Brazil, it's going to be a lot this time...Favelas, The Amazon and Salvador to summarize. Once again, you don�t have to read everything, I�m sorry it�s so long, it turned out VERY long (that�s a disclaimer). My email wasn�t working right, but I did write an email to everyone before we got to Brazil, so here it is too:
So we crossed the equator today, February 2nd...they woke us up this morning with drums and whistles in honor of Neptune Day. The tradition when crossing the equator is to have fish guts poured on you, kiss a fish and get your head shaved...so that�s what I did (except the head shaving part). There were about 20 girls and at least 50 guys who shaved their hair completely and some just cut it really short to donate their hair to "Locks of Love". We get classes and work off all day, so we have the rest of today to catch up on school work and relax a little.
It�s been pretty cold and very foggy here, so it�s not a great day to lie out. Yesterday we were called into the Union as soon as our Dean got word about the space shuttle. It was pretty scary since we had no idea what this "immediate and important" meeting was for that we had to leave class and work right away. It�s weird to be out of the news circle, we have to rely on news that comes every once in a while and wait for more details. When I was flying into Miami on the 16th, I saw the shuttle take off...the only live one I have seen, and everyone was amazed on the plane as to how close we were to it. On a lighter note, we are almost to Brazil and everyone is getting real excited about getting off the ship...I hope everything at home is going well. Talk to you soon.
We arrived in Salvador earlier than expected so everyone was still asleep when we came into the port, but soon woke up because we weren't moving anymore. When at sea that long (10 days), a stop of motion is very noticeable. Everyone was so excited to get off the ship and embark on a new adventure, but we had to wait for the Salvador government to see each one of us holding our passport before anyone was allowed to get off. This delayed our disembarkment, so when we did get off I went straight to the "favelas", one of my field trips for my classes. The favelas, or the slums, were very interesting and we were able to see the culture of poverty in Brazil. In Brazil, during the day a lot of people just sit outside in front of stores enjoying the sun. It seems like this is good because it promotes community, even though they are probably doing it because it�s extremely hot and humid there. There was a large shopping mall called "shopping baha" where everyone seemed to be heading towards even though it was 1:30pm, when everyone should be at work. The beach was beautiful! It had a lot of tide pool areas; everyone was swimming in between these areas.
Once we reached the favelas, we went to their school, which accepts anyone from ages 3-14 even if they do not own a pair of shoes. This is rare in Brazil because most schools cost money, about $300/month and require a uniform or at least shoes. The woman who was in charge of this school gave us a background and invited us to play with the kids for a while. We gave them a box of donations including toothbrushes, clothes, toys, crayons and candy...they were very grateful. The children gave us a performance of Capoiara on their cement gym floors and took many pictures with us. Most of the SAS students have digital cameras which the children loved because they could see themselves. We spent about 30min taking pictures of each on of them doing different gymnastic moves. After exploring the school, we went out to see where these children lived. The streets were made of dirt and they had a radio broadcast for everyone playing Garth Brooks and Lenny Kravitz for "us". It was really hard not to be able to give them anything, but I did let them write their names in my journal, which they really enjoyed. To see where these children lived was a shocking reality and became extremely appreciative of what I have, supposedly part of the journey. That night we went to the welcome reception given by the city with dinner and entertainment. The dinner was much better than the one Fidel provided us, with a lot more food. After dinner, a little cart (its hard to explain) that looked like it was a part of a circus that served us VERY strong coffee. I guess that is the tradition in Brazil, in the evening a cart goes around that serves coffee to people on the street. The entertainment we received was an all girls band called Dida. They played for about an hour and then the DJ started playing American songs for us for another hour. My first day in Brazil was wonderful, but long, so I went to bed as soon as I hit the pillow.
The Amazon trip in one word was AMAZING! It was not just the beautiful sights and sounds but also the inner self we all got to know by the adventures we had there. We left for the Amazon the next morning at 4:30am because we had to catch a flight at 7am. Sitting in the airport I got a Brazilian coffee drink that was so good, but I don�t know what it was called but it had cinnamon in it. We were all warned about the ice and water in Brazil, not to drink it, but everyone got ice in their drinks by accident. Fortunately, no one got sick on the way there, but the way back is another story.
Our guides names were Joe (who was born and raised in an Amazon village) and Enny (who loved the Amazon) were also amazing and very funny. They really made us feel comfortable and taught us a great deal of interesting things. As soon as we got to our boat we came up with a name--the "Tambague" tribe--, we found our hammock (the picture I sent is of me and my friend Shana on the last day) and changed into something cooler. Tambague is a type of fish in the Amazon that is very reliable and honorable, that�s what our boat (tribe) was the rest of the exploration.
The first thing we saw of the river was almost supernatural. This was called the "meeting" of the River Negro and the Amazon, yet they did not mix. I attached a photo of the spot where the two rivers met; it looks like black coffee meeting coffee with creamer in it. Because of the difference in the acidity and the way each river flows they meet, but do not mix together which I found hard to believe, that�s why I sent the picture. We then got off the boats and walked on a wooden bridge that leads to a pond with giant lily pads of Victoria Regia. It was really interesting because right next to two lily pads there were crocodiles just floating in the water without movement. I got a beautiful picture of the ill pad flower and the crocodile right next to it (but not on my digital camera). We then went piranha fishing on motorized canoes with covering, which is good because it poured while we were out there. I didn�t catch anything because I was on the deep end of the boat and all the fish were being caught closest to land. One girl, her name is Friday, caught 6 fish out of the 9 we caught as a boat...she had a lucky fishing day. Before going fishing we actually stopped at a little cove where we were shown a huge tree that is used for communicated throughout the jungle. This particular tree has very large and tall roots that stick out so that you can hit the root with a stick and make a very loud sound in case you are lost. There were also little kids who came up to us with a variety of animals that we took pictures of. Unfortunately, these children were trying to make money off of us by putting their hand out after taking a picture of them. I think they were all part of a very small village that made money off of selling pictures and souvenirs of their pets, which included a three toed sloth, snakes, a monkey, crocodiles, and a parrot. The sloth was the funniest thing because they look like a stuffed animal...they don�t move fast at all, very slow (its hard to explain), but they were the weirdest things.
I was a little confused because after we left, our guides discouraged giving the children money because they believed that if we encouraged it, it would continue to happen and would be there when our grandchildren came to visit. It was controversial in our canoe.
After piranha fishing our guide took us crocodile hunting! That was very intense...and I was excited the whole time. Our canoe caught 3 different types of crocs, they call them jacares, and then passed them throughout the canoe to hold and look at. That was weird, because what we did was grab the neck and tail right in our hands. The way you find a jacares at night is by using a flashlight for finding the reflection of the eyes. It was kind of scary because once we found a set of eyes we went into the weeds with the canoe and you were able to see little eyes all around you, right next to the boat. Luckily, those were babies so they would not hurt us, they were just scared of us. For entertainment after dinner that night, we made a fool of ourselves by trying to dance like our Brazilian guide...its funny what you will do for entertainment when there is no TV.
The next day, we woke up to one of the most beautiful sunrises (one of the only ones) I have ever seen. This was about 6am, when we all got up, took pictures and went back to bed until 7am. The first night on the hammocks, no one slept well; they were a little hard to get used to. Shortly after breakfast we had another downpour (it�s the rainforest :)), and once it let up we headed out for our "jungle trek". I actually really liked the rain because it was so beautiful how it came so quick and left the same way. So, the "jungle" is just another name for a "forest", with a more "wild" meaning to it. One of the theories is that the "white-man" named the forest with villagers and tribes jungles to associate their lifestyles with the idea of wild...it�s under discussion though. A side note---we have learned about many words that can be said in each country that may be offensive in another. For instance, coloured (Brazil) and Negro (Cuba) are used without any second thoughts, while tribe in Brazil is ok, but is very demeaning in South Africa. Thus, I must be careful with my word choice--
In the jungle we learned about many different uses of the trees and other life around, the same guide that teaches the military and pilots to survive in the jungle taught us. The one that I found very interesting was the weapon used against an Anaconda. Before this trip, I really didn�t know much about these types of snakes, but supposedly they have very tough skin that can not be broken by a knife or sometimes (depending on their age) a gun. So, they use a certain type of palm tree with huge spikes on it to make a weapon to hit off the Anaconda with so that it won�t crush your bones and leave you as a blob of meat to die. We found a tree that aides in protection from Malaria, relieves back pain and a sap that lights on fire since it�s impossible otherwise in the "rain� forest to start a fire. In addition, there is a tree known as the "jungle cow" that has sap used for milk to feed babies and fight against tuberculosis. Unfortunately, I can�t remember what all these trees are called, but I do remember what they looked like just in case.
We trekked through the jungle for about three hours while we sweated until we were drenched, it was disgusting. We stopped at a small waterfall where people who had bathing suits with them refreshed themselves in the water. After the trek, we went to a small village, called caboclo, where we played a game of soccer and learned how they made their cornmeal. To get there we climbed up about 200 old stairs on the side of a very steep cliff where the villagers were waiting to great us. There were huge ants that bit everyone with sandals and shorts on, it was so funny, but supposedly they stung a lot. It was pouring when we were there, but we still played the soccer game and got completely soaked. No girls played from the village, it seemed to be a predominately male sport there. It was amazing how strong and fit the people of that community and some of the others we saw were...without working out or anything. From the work they did and the way they ate, they were more fit than expected. We then went to a luau on a white sanded beach. Sitting around talking on the beach before dinner reminded me of being at home with a bonfire going, just hanging out. It was nice to on dry land for a few hours just relaxing. The food was really good, and they had music playing for us from the boats all night.
In the morning, we were awaken by a loud screeching bird that was going back and forth right next to our boat at 6am.Then it rained again, so we waited for it to stop (for a little while) to start another, shorter jungle trek where we would end up at another small village. On this hike we were lucky enough to taste a real Brazilian Nut, that fell right from the tree there. Also, a few people in the group ate a maggot...they said it kind of tasted like a nut except it was "juicier". Afterwards, our shoes were CAKED with mud and clay so we had to stick them in the river to clean them, thus, I had wet feet the rest of the day (which included the plane ride home). We headed off to the "lodge" where another group stayed instead of the hammocks and ate lunch there. It was pretty rustic but they had showers and nice clean, sterile sheets unlike us.
Before going to the airport we saw a musical performance of a traditional dance called Boi Bumba, very interesting. The group performed in traditional Indian clothes and then got most of us out on the dance floor, attempting to teach us how to move. I find it very interesting how everywhere we have been so far, we have been taught how to dance. And if someone was to come to America I highly doubt we would teach them a dance...let alone dance ourselves. I guess its really not part of our culture. We got ice cream, which was really good and very popular there, then sat and watched the skateboarders at the skate park until 12:30am. Our flight left at 1:30am and we traveled through the night and returned to Salvador around 1pm, when I went shopping there.
I bought some Capiora pants which happen to be about the most comfortable pants I own now and a few other small things. While we were in the city we had pizza for dinner and got more ice cream...it started raining again and the "attack of the flying ants" happened. There was literally thousands of what looked to be flying ants around the city. We bought milk for some guy who was basically skin and bones and then found out that milk is used in making drugs. So hopefully he wasn�t going to use it for that, but instead drink it for nutrition. We then went back to the ship, sad about leaving Brazil and compared our stories with one another. Unfortunately, the next morning I woke up sick from the Amazon with a fever a nausea...which most everyone who went did. And, I just found out that Survivor is in the Amazon (we are a little slow here), so that will be really exciting to see when I get back.
Ok, so I will let everyone go, and just to let you know I will be sending this the first day in South Africa because