We got home yesterday close to lunchtime, so we just stayed in camp and put most of our stuff away (but, as we found out when trying to move around in the night, not everything got put where it belonged, meaning we were stumbling around much more than usual). We decided to do a bit of work in the afternoon, mostly because we are DIRTies and that’s what we do.
Some of us went to the garden and completed one of two jobs: filling more bags for seedlings (with Lauren Smith as our chief bag prepper of the day) or finishing the clearing of the area that will soon (starting tomorrow) take shape as the Living Pharmacy. Rylee, Boo, and Jaron were the leads on this part of the project. An expert wood cutter is gathering materials for us, from already fallen trees and other lumber available here in the community. He – like many folks here – is a master at using a chainsaw and can practically mill lumber with a chainsaw from a tree that is resting on the ground. We will begin building raised beds on Monday, after our friend from the garden, Madalena, determines what the layout will be, hopefully this afternoon.
The rest of us returned to the beach to continue breaking palhas and we found that a couple more people have become experts, including Mylan. She and Maya can do the palha work without looking directly at them and can do as many as five pieces at a time like the locals can. Scott and Megan are pretty good at it too, while Shawny, Max, Malia, and Nina are still stuck on one leaf at a time mode.
Our old friend Junio rejoined us out on the beach. He was our primary partner in rebuilding the chicken coop in 2017 and he asked about a lot of the students from that trip individually by name. He has a job to do in Santarém this week, but he is pushing it back so he can be with us instead. He’s a contractor here in the community and his wife now works in the kitchen. Junio is a wonderful, happy person no matter what, be he is especially great for us because he strives to communicate in every way possible, including trying out broken English, spelling things in the sand, and acting things out if necessary. He also has a big hearty laugh that makes things fun even if maybe they aren’t fun.
We managed a dip in the river after work, then ate dinner and did a big long reflection about our boat trip to make up for the fact that we couldn’t manage our usual nightly reflections due to the layout and loudness of the boat. We talked about the differences in the communities we visited and the difference of being more like tourists in those places than we every intend to be when we are in Anã.
We also inducted three new members into the Order of the Purple Bike. First was Lauren Smith, especially in honor of the incredible speech she gave on behalf of all of us as we were leaving Atodí after the hike on Thursday. We often do a bit of speechifying with the various community groups we meet and Lauren picked up that one, delivering an eloquent representation of our gratitude, awe, and wonder at all that we had experienced in the rainforest that day.
Additionally, Lauren had a bit of a rough adjustment . . .um . . . intestinally here, but she has largely conquered the demons that were tormenting her. She is very animated, very curious, very insightful, and very vivacious. Different ones of us talked about how she is in other classes at Saint Mary’s and how we have seen her in this class so far here. She expresses more amazement than all of the rest of us put together, though all of us are amazed all day every day. She is a force of energy wherever she is and whatever she does, but here, her energy is amplified for all of us to feed off of.
Our second inductee was Mylan. She too had some belly issues and her joy and glee at overcoming them was a treat for all of us. As mentioned above, she has also become an expert palha artist, coaching and helping all of us do better than we might have done on our own. She is particularly motivated to improve our standards to spare the locals from having to undo/redo/fix our work. Mylan is careful and meticulous in all that she does, which we learned at our first retreat when we built a table and benches in the garden at SMC. Mylan’s measurements and drawings were precise enough to please an architect (the fact that one of her parents is an architect probably has nothing to do with this fact).
As if her work ethic and excellent craftwork weren’t enough, Mylan is also an excellent singer. She sat by Gui on the boat and sang him to sleep when he got a bit of motion sickness. She also innovated a reflexology band for him to prevent him from having to take nausea meds when he didn’t feel like swallowing anything at all. We’ve all benefited greatly from the talents that Mylan brings to our group.
Our final inductee was Malia. Her freestyle rap on the beach the night of our piracaia (outdoor fish barbecue thing) sealed the deal. On the whole boat trip, we noted that she was particularly at home on the water and appeared to be the incarnation of some kind of river spirit, especially when we were covered with gray clay in the igarape. She is kind of goofy, always smiling, and full of zingers that capture the moment in ways that most of us can’t.
But perhaps more than anything else, she has been a rock in this moment of sadness that we have been working our way through. She is, in fact, one of the two people affected by the death of a dear friend. The other is her roommate, Nina. Their friend’s name is Todd Odnamar and he died in a tragic accident in San Francisco last Sunday.
It took a while for the news to reach us, as we were off the grid and out of signal range for the days when people were trying to let Nina and Malia know what had happened. Nina and Todd have been very close friends since high school and Malia joined into their circle due to her proximity to Nina.
Both of Nina and Malia were shocked and devastated to hear the news. But Nina took it hardest of all and Malia sat with her, comforted her, advised us, thought of the next moves that we should take individually and collectively, and guided us all through the rough period we shared. A fake purple bike is hardly enough to thank her for all that she did for all of us, but most of all for Nina. Many, many thanks, Malia!
We went to bed right after our purple bike ceremonies (which always take quite some time, as nearly every person weighs in on the merits of the honoree). But before retiring, we agreed that because we would wake up on Sunday morning, instead of heading to church, we would create our own service in honor of Todd. Nina and Malia made all of the important decisions, with support for whatever they decided coming from all of us.
So this morning, we had breakfast then changed from our casual clothes into some of our finest. Nina and Malia gathered flowers and blooms from all of the plants around the camp and had each of us put one in our hair. They found a piece of flat wood that would float and got ample blooms to cover the top of it as a small raft.
The plan was to have each of us add a flower to the blooms on the raft and then send it downriver as a symbol of moving to another place. Because of the prevailing winds and waves today, we realized we couldn’t do the ceremony from the bank of our river, as our raft would just float right back to the beach. So we all got in a boat and went out to a spot where the currents were more clearly going downstream.
Nina had a long playlist of music that she and Todd loved, so we played it as we walked, as we rode on the boat, and as we performed our ceremony. Nina and Malia put the raft onto the water and the rest of us sent our blooms after it, one by one. Perhaps characteristic of the person we were honoring, Todd, the raft and blooms defied the current and started to move upstream. A perfect representation of this dynamic and unpredictable person.
We acknowledged that some spirits are just too big for this world and that maybe Todd’s was one of them. We said prayers, wished him well, and expressed our love for him, for Nina, and for Malia. When we got back to our shore, Jesse sang an Irish tune called “The Parting Glass” and we all stood in the shade of a beautiful tree and had a moment of silence together.
We then vowed to go to the garden and bring it new life, in honor of Todd and many of the things that he held dear. And so this week, we will continue to contemplate, continue to mourn, and continue to try to find our way forward together. Thanks for all of the warm wishes you’ve expressed to us publicly and privately. We’re going to be okay.
This morning we dressed up and gathered flowers to release into the river in memory of Todd.
These chickens were roaming around plotting to interrupt our soccer game once again.
Children of Anã enjoy playing soccer for fun.
Dona Odila made a special medicinal team to help cleanse the digestive tract.
After working in the garden and preparing palms for roofing our DIRT team geared up for a soccer scrimmage against the local community.
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