Full Day of Work

[Special Note: It's going to be VERY slow but we think we have mastered the art of uploading videos and pics from this very community.  We are resizing everything and they are going to be low quality but they will at least be there.  Go back every once in awhile as we backfill.  Thanks!]

We had a very late night last night, with almost all of us staying up until midnight or more.  One reason is that we had a big long conversation about social norms and what we are learning about Brazil and about ourselves. We are finding ourselves questioning a lot of the practices that we have taken as normal for most of our lives, as well as a lot of our priorities.  In particular we have started to rethink the sense of "need," as we are noticing many things that we think are completely essential to our everyday lives that are not, in fact, essential at all.  We won't list them off here, because there is a high chance that we will slip back into our old patterns soon after we return, so we might as well avoid charges of hypocrisy before they start.

Another thing that kept us up late was that we restarted an old tradition: the induction of new members to the Order of the Purple Bike (OPB).  The OPB is a made up organization whose membership only includes DIRTies. Once upon a time (2009) on one of our Brazil trips, the group stayed the whole time in Santarém and used bicycles to get everywhere.  We bought out all of the bikes in two different stores and when they were delivered, there was just one shiny, sparkly, purple one in the mix.  Instead of assigning that one special bike to one person for the whole trip, we "awarded" it to someone every day as an honor for remarkable work or as consolation for some extraordinary suffering.  In many (but not all) of the years after that one, even though we rarely used bikes again we continued to induct new people into the Order of the Purple Bike (or Ordem da Bicecleta Violeta in Portuguese).

For our inaugural induction ceremony this year, we broke the norms of usual DIRT practice and awarded two purple bikes at once due to the equivalent heroic efforts of two of our teammates: Boo and Jaron.  On our rock line today, these two landed at the top of the line, which meant they had three primary hardships: 1) they were in full sun, 2) they had to conquer a sloped plank while carrying large rocks, and 3) they had to manage the pile as it accumulated at the top.  All of us were working hard, but the rest of us were just passing from person to person, perhaps taking a few steps as we connected with the next in line.  Boo and Jaron worked as hard as the rest of us, and then just a little bit more.

In case you don't recognize who "Boo" is, she is also named Jennifer, but we never call her that.  She joined our group after it had already formed, because her advisor was 100% convinced that she should be part of our undertaking.  We all agree that he was 100% correct.  She was exemplary on the rock line today and she was also incredible on the soccer field this evening, as she was floating along the sideline and kept the ball moving toward our goal even though our opponents had actual plays that they had practiced that they could use on us.

Away from the worksite and the soccer field, Boo is equally exceptional.  She's a happy, positive person that elevates the contexts she enters.  We're glad (and lucky) that she entered ours.

Jaron, too, matched his excellence on the rock line with excellence on the soccer field, where he mostly served as our goal keeper.  His 6'7" (?) wingspan and his 6'3" height meant he could cover a lot of the goal just by standing there.  But he hustled nonetheless and eventual traded out with Scott and became as fleet of foot as Boo was on the field.  He's a former track athlete and it showed.

He, too, is sweet and approachable, and would probably emerge as a primary leader of our group but everyone is such a strong participant that we don't exactly need leaders.  He does all of the jobs that need to be done, carries more than his share of the load, and always has an incredibly positive attitude.  He speaks fluent sign language and has offered to teach some primary signs to two deaf brothers here who have never learned the Brazilian form of sign (called Libras).  Odila is eager to connect Jaron with the brothers and we are ecstatic that we can offer another special contribution to this community we love so much.

Everyone will make their way into the Order of the Purple Bike and we congratulate these two fine new inductees!

This post will continue later today with updates from today's work.  We are moving rocks for most of the morning and in the afternoon we will either go into the forest to find the materials to make a new thatched roof for the garden structure or we will go to the garden itself and begin to clear the overgrowth.  More soon!

After our tiring morning moving rocks, we had a couple of hours of down time in the pousada – Exploding Kittens seems to be the group’s favorite card game! 

Half of our bucket line that helped to move rocks up from the river to the ledge above the beach. It was a perfect morning for this work, as it was cloudy and raining – which felt great! 

Area of the garden that was cleared using a hoe (Boo’s favorite), a rake (Nina’s favorite), and a machete (Rylee’s favorite).  This job took two hours, yet we are hardly done! 

Behind the scenes of team Lula’s newest video: Max needed Jesse’s interview, Jaron was on it with the lighting. 

The super cool caterpillar found outside of the Ôca this morning – couldn’t help taking a picture!

 A walking pile of leaves. (A.K.A Rylee clearing debris)

A giant anthill found at the work site. Everyone stayed far away from there.

 Landscape view of the beach off of the river near our new home

Viewpoint just behind the posada.

Our posada where we spend most of our time and make the best memories