My Semester at Sea Voyage: Brazil

On Sunday, January 23, the Explorer docked in Manaus, a city of about 2 million in the state of Amazonus. Sunday was pretty great. I spent the day walking around the city with a friend. Everything was closed because it was Sunday so we visited the Opera House, went to the marketplace, and went out to lunch. We tried to go to the fish market near the water, but we couldn't find it; I think it was closed for the day when we got there in the afternoon. I'm not too bummed about that though; I heard mixed things on the market and going to Pike's Place in Seattle should be close enough, just less exotic. Brazil in January is pretty horrible in terms of weather so I bought a drink from a street vendor called a guarana (I don't know how it is actually spelled) made of the guarana berry, which is really popular in Brazil, mixed with nuts. It kind of tasted like a peanut butter smoothie. We were walking back to the pier to by some post cards when we found a whole lot of SASers in an open air bar so we hung out with hem before returning back to the ship for the afternoon.

My friend Nick bought me a birthday cake for my birthday which we had during dinner. It was sort of an odd mix of some people he knew and invited combined with people I knew. I told a bunch of people about it, but it's kind of hard to make plans on the ship so I was worried people would forget and to show, but a good number of people came for ice cream cake. That night, one of the interport lecturers from Manaus took at least a hundred and fifty SASers downtown to samba demonstration. Apparently they rehearse this dance every Sunday for weeks in preparation for Carnival. SAS had a whole bar to itself and an entire block was shut down for the show. Everyone hung out for an hour and then the show started. The MC announced to the crowd that we were here and everyone was really excited that we took the time to not only go to Brazil, but also to go to Manaus, which is way harder to get to than Salvador or Rio. The dancers were incredible, doing crazy moves nonstop for an hour, and the drummers were just as good. Everyone danced in the streets and I got a chance to talk to some Brazilians who spoke a little English. They were really friendly and when someone said it was my birthday, they all sang me happy birthday in English and Portuguese. I had never seen a giant dance party in the streets before. It was pretty surreal and so much fun.

On Monday, I went on a service FDP (and the first ever multi day FDP) for one of my classes to the Tupana village, located 400 miles further inland than Manaus. Apparently it's supposed to be one of the most remote places in the world, but I don't know how true that is. There were 22 of us in total going with another group who were just doing jungle exploration. After leaving the ship, we took a two hour boat ride, where we saw The Meeting of the Rivers, and a four hour bus ride to get to the village. The roads in Amazonus aren't so great. Not only are a lot of them unpaved, but the government seems to start projects and never finish them, so there are a whole lot of bridges that aren't finished so we had to get out of the bus while the bus went up a hill, so we didn't all slide off, and we would also have to get out and get on a barge with eh bus whenever we crossed a river. After finally arriving in the village, we were greeted with lunch and we immediately got to work (although we first played a little futbol with some kids. They were really good, and playing in the Brazilian sun in the height of the afternoon didn't make us any better.).

Our work entailed painting, putting up wood planks on the sides of the porch, and helping to restore a bridge for the only school in the village. Painting took up most of our time. It was hard because we didn't have a lot of supplies. For example, there were 22 of us, but we probably only had ten paint brushes and rollers so a lot of us couldn't work, making us less efficient than we could have been. The supplies we did have weren't that great either. To paint the inside walls of the school, we used some water based white paint so it didn't coat very well and you could still see pretty much everything that was on the walls before we arrived. Even with multiple coats, the walls didn't look much better. We also didn't have any drop cloths so the floors don't look very great right now, and we didn't have time to fix them. Minus the floors, the outside looks pretty nice though. We painted the outside a nice yellow color, the doors, windows, and railings green, and the outside rails around the porch a bright yellow. It sounds like a weird cool combination, and the school does kind of remind me of a playhouse now, but those colors are in the Brazilian flag, and on the kids' uniforms. Some people also got up on the roof and redid the sign for the school, repainting all the letters.

I helped carry a whole lot of wood for the bridge when we started the bridge on the last day and helped disassemble the old bridge. This was way different from other construction projects I've helped out with in the States. The wood was stacked by the water, so we had a five minute walk to get it and even though all the nails were worn out and rusted through, we still kept them because the school would use them later. Redoing the school was fun because it is nice and fulfilling to see progress being made on a project, but to be honest, the service wasn't as great as I was hoping it would be. The faculty at the school took so much time to host us, and the construction workers who were there also took time to work with us and get us involved. The government doesn't really take care of the Tupana village, but they don't have a shortage of skilled workers who are more than capable of building a school. We came in and tried to help, but we weren't the greatest of workers. No one is a construction or painting pro so we just did the best we could. Where we could have helped was in getting the funds for projects the government couldn't help with. I couldn't help but think that the money we spent to get the village could have been better used by donating good supplies and hiring a group of good and reputable construction workers. That way the school would probably have been done better and Brazilian workers would have gotten paid. Also, they could have done so much more for the village. They initially asked us to build them a hospital or dig them a well, which would have been impossible for group, especially in only four days. A professional team would not have had that problem. On the other hand, this village had never met any foreigners before so it is nice to build those bonds and let people know that other countries and people really do care about them.

We bought an indestructible soccer ball for the kids, which they really loved. We also played with the kids and many of the girls bonded with their own special kid. For some reason, our teacher was dead set on trying to teach English and didn't really want the kids to teach us Portuguese. I didn't really like that so I'm glad the English lessons didn't really take off. We also did a bunch of fun things in the river. We walked around the village and climbed up to this really rickety old bridge to swim in the River Negro (part of the River Tupana, which is part of the Amazon...so we swam in the Amazon). Our guide also took us on a boat ride around the river near our lodge and caymen (like a crocodile) spotting in the dead of night. It was really cool to be out there even if we didn't catch any caymen. I also saw an acai tree and learned that the berry I love so much in my smoothies is actually hard as a rock and would break my teeth if I tried to eat it. Apparently it's cooked and pureed before we eat it. I also tried a whitey (spelling) fruit and a Brazilian plumb. The food wasn't my favorite; I did try cassava root and apparently I ate horse meat. Our lodge was a fifteen minute boat ride away from the village and once we were done for the day, we swam in the river, went kayaking (I saw a dolphin) and hung out in the lodge. The lodge had a monkey who lived there and was really destructive. He got into everyone's stuff. We all slept in hammocks around a tree in a giant tree house. Everyone in the village was really excited we were here and went out of their way to be friendly. Our tour guides, Nigel and Simon, were really cool and Ricardo, one of the teachers was really eager to learn English, be friends with us, and play guitar and sing with us. Today (1/27), when we went back to say goodbye, the school looked great, and the principal was genuinely pleased with our work. We're getting so much attention in the ports we visit, it's kind of like being a rock star.

All in all it was a good service trip even if I now have to wash all my clothes in the sink.

Final note: Britney, the videographer came with us and now she and I are tight. She takes pictures and records interviews and other sounds for the trip to make slideshows for the SAS website. It's on the homepage under the SAS blog link. I should be in it so check that out in the next few days.