SMC Amazon: Machetes and Pink Dolphins

[Special note: We managed to get some videos to load. Go back and check prior entries to see some shots of our lives in the Amazon.]

Today we slept in probably longer than we will on any other day for the rest of the month. We had a pretty quiet night even though the dogs started up their little routine again in the night. But little did they know that one of our most important purchases yesterday was a pump action squirt gun that allows us to step outside the door, pump the squirter, and send the barking dogs scurrying away somewhere where they are either quiet or we just can’t hear them anymore. We got a handle on the temperature thing too for the most part, but our perfected system will only work for one more day as we are heading out to Anã tomorrow morning.

Speaking of Anã, today we had a visitor from there: our friend Ingrid, whose parents – Tonico and Reginalva -- were some of our first contacts and friends in the community. Ingrid has now joined them as part of the leadership of the community association and has served as our primary liaison in making arrangements for this trip.

The fact that the community itself is managing our relationship with it is big news, as we have always worked through an intermediary non-governmental organization (NGO) called Saúde e Alegrîa (Health and Happiness) to make contact and arrange for our prior visits. Our first visit to this community was in January of 2014 and then a year after our visit, the community formed an ecotourism/arts collaborative called Turiarte, which now takes responsibility for the relationships between visitors and the community.

In fact, Anã has become a model of community self-governance in the region and its leadership is often featured in news and political stories about the promise of the area. And other communities either visit Anã to see what they can learn or invite the folks from Anã to visit their communities to advise them on how to make progress on quality of life issues of importance to them.

When we first visited this community, we learned that they had been concerned about their high infant mortality rate, their lack of adequate sources of protein, general nutritional issues, and their systems for water and sanitation. We heard about the community organizing that they did to identify the problems they perceived and strategize about how to address them. They developed staged planning models (five year, ten year, etc.) about where they hoped to get as a community and what ideas would help them to get there.

They had already secured a government grant for a water system when we arrived the first time and they had already affiliated with Saúde e Alegría to begin their ecotourism efforts (including building the guest area where we stayed then and where we will stay now). They had the first one or two fish cages that would help them to overcome the overfishing that had diminished that important part of their food supply. And they had a community organization called MUSA (the Portuguese words of which loosely translate as “women dreaming in action.”)

So when our group arrived as the first visitors at their guesthouse and took up one of their top priority projects (the community garden) as our initial collaboration, we got to participate in the important transformational history of this wonderful place. According to Ingrid, that first group in 2014 really helped to set the course of that history. And as the Turiarte collective celebrates its five year anniversary this year, they count our projects in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 as highlights of their storyline. As we always make clear, we just ask them what their aspirations already are and then work side by side with them to pursue as many of them as we have time and resources to support.

Ingrid reviewed for us what our projects are likely to be in this visit and it turns out that we are largely performing assessments, maintenance, and improvement of many of the projects that our prior groups have set into motion. (You can review some of the old blogs on this page to get lots of details about all of them.).

2014: established a community garden for reforestation work, vegetable and fruit propagation, and general community building.

2015: returned to find the garden fostering more than 8000 saplings; contributed to establishing more than 2000 more, contributed to the installation of more units in their innovative fish farm; laid the foundation for a “fish food factory” to support their fish farm; expanded their ecotourism footprint; installed a water purification system in the guest area; and painted some the buildings in their guest area.

2016: Cleared an area for a new community chicken coop, nearly completed construction of the coop; added more units to the fish farm, and contributed to English language instruction for tourism workers.

2017: rebuilt the community chicken coop after it was infiltrated by a local wild cat; documented history and transformation of the area; coordinated with community leaders to expand other residents’ participation in the community improvement projects.

Our job this year, then, is to first go project by project through our past experiences and see what the next step for each of them might be. Ingrid talked a lot about where things stand on each project and about the gains that the community has experienced because of all of them. But a few need repairs or course corrections, which we will explain to you as we assess each of the projects after we arrive. Along with these fixes, changes, or “next steps,” we think there will be one new project that we start that has been discussed over many trips but hasn’t come to fruition yet: a “living pharmacy.”

A “living pharmacy” is a specialized garden area that includes teaching and training about how to propagate and use natural remedies to effect social, personal, and medical improvements. Many of the locals know quite a bit about how to use plants, seeds, nuts, teas, poultices, salves, and other natural products and some of them are particularly skilled at growing and cultivating the elements that go into the remedies. At the same time, there are locals who are interested in but mystified by these possibilities and who would appreciate some education and training. This idea came up among project options over several different years in the past, but other projects outweighed it when the decisions actually got made. This year might be the year to establish the living pharmacy. Or not.

We recognized during our conversation with Ingrid that there are a few other things we can bring into the community that will be of help, so once she moved on to her next meeting, we headed downtown once again to find some more items, including a washer for the kitchen workers to use to manage the linens of the ecotourism collective. They are also aware that it is a bit stuffy and still in the hammock area where visitors sleep (including us), so we purchased some fans that might improve the situation for all.

We also bought some machetes! Everyone here uses them practically as extensions of their bodies. So we bought some for us to use in Anã and we predict that we will buy many more as souvenirs when we return to this city later this month. Our search for machetes took us near a fishing pier and fish market on the other end of the riverfront and we got another important item checked off of our bucket lists: we saw pink dolphins! There is a unique species of fresh water dolphin that lives around the area where the Amazon and Tapajós rivers come together and the vendors at the fish market know just what to dangle on a line to get those dolphins to jump up right by the pier. Each of us got a chance to “fish for dolphins” (with no intention of actually catching them). It was a blast. We got other last minute items and then headed home for a lunch of feijoada, the Brazilian national dish.

We had plans to go to the city’s museum and cultural center, but thought better of it when we saw how volcanically our luggage had exploded during our short stay here in the city. If we were supposed to load all of this stuff into a boat tomorrow, it was going to take some attention this afternoon. We made a partial packing push, but also decided to test out the new soccer ball and volleyball that we bought today when we bought our soccer uniforms. Our women are the defending champs (after numerous humiliations over the years) so the community is eager for us to arrive so they can avenge their defeat. We did a little prep work in our courtyard so we can begin to be ready to meet the challenge.

As we finished our practice, Jesse ran out to the airport to successfully claim all of our missing luggage. Finally! (And perfect timing, because as of tomorrow, “running to the airport” is a much bigger deal.) We decided to treat ourselves to bowls of local açaí, which are completely different from the things called açaí bowls in California. They are unsweetened, which changes everything. Açaí is actually very bitter! But if you add sugar, it’s wonderful. We added lots of sugar. Once all of our teeth and tongues were fully dyed purple, we loaded up and went home for our actual dinner and personal packing pushes.

We also had long talks during our reflection time tonight about two things: 1) what is each of our personal status about how things are going so far? and 2) what commitments do we want to be particularly conscious of as we venture into the next stage of our journey? We are amazed by how close we are and how unified we feel about all that we are doing. We recognize that this state of perfection is unlikely to last but we are going to continue to acknowledge it until the bubble bursts. We also want to be sure not to be a dominating force when we get to Anã. One way we unintentionally veer toward domination is our overall volume, which we struggle to contain. Brazilians are quiet. We are not. So we vowed to pay even more attention to this issue so that we can be a force of good rather than a force of annoyance.

We also got some well wishes from vets from past trips, who commented on our blog posts. (YOU can comment too! We love it when you do!). They helped us get some perspective about our status as descendants of all of those who have come here (or gone to other DIRT destinations) before us. They talked about how special these experiences truly are and we can feel it already even though we are only on our second full day in this part of the country.

We are eager and excited and ready to load our gear onto a boat and ride for four hours to land at our home for the next two and a half weeks. We will likely have trouble posting for a few days and will probably not have cell or internet connection where we will be living. We will send out messengers who will post our blog entries and, if possible, add pictures and videos. Thanks for your patience as we establish ourselves in our next destination. We’ll be back to report in soon!

Two birds spotted at the pier moments before seeing many dolphins in the water. In this moment the DIRTies were waiting while Shawny and Jesse were running errands, but beauty can be found even in moments of pause.

Lauren Smith takes a turn swinging a fish carcass on a rope to attract the pinkish/grey dolphins closer to the pier.

The industrial part of the riverfront of Santarém.

A photo capturing just a glimpse of a few hours of down time the DIRTies had. This time was precious as it was recreational and less task driven just before the DIRTies prepare to travel to Aña.

The strong flavor of the amazon’s açaí was too much to handle; we soon learned you had to add heaps of sugar and top it off with small white balls of tapioca (not pictured) to enjoy the treat.