SMC Amazon 2014: Day 12
Sundays in the Amazon
usually involve lower amounts of manual labor and this one was no
exception. We heard that church was at
8:00pm so we spent the morning touring some of the other projects going on in
this community. One is a fish farm out
in a lake on the river that consists of cages on stilts that hold between 600
and 1000 fish. There are ten or so of
these cages in the lake and we went along with our awesome primary host, Dona
Odila (pronounced “oh-ZHEE-luh) to feed the fish in the cages.
Not only does Dona Odila
stock and feed the fish with a collective of other local women but also she
makes the fish food herself. The food
looks kind of like dog food pellets and we have no idea how she makes it. We do know, however, that she aspires to
start a fish food manufacturing plant of some sort here and that she hopes to
produce the food she is currently producing on a larger scale.
In any case, we took Dona
Odila’s homemade fish food out on boats and paddled to the cages, opened up the
tops, and watched the fish go crazy to eat the stuff as soon as it hit the
water. Dona Odila told us that this
whole project is the result of the determination of a subset of very strong and
determined women, all of whom persevered way beyond the rest of the community
to be sure that this important food supply would be stabilized. The need for the fish farm is a result of the
rather acidic water in this particular tributary of the Amazon; Dona Odila’s
fish food makes it possible for fish to live there even if they couldn’t find a
natural food source in this water.
After the fish farm we
went to get a look at another local enterprise: beekeeping. One of the community members who has worked
with us since our arrival here, Alvaier, has taken up his father’s dream of
keeping bees in the community. He has
dozens and dozens of unusual structures that hold different colonies and their
corresponding queens. The bees
themselves do not have stingers, so this particular form of beekeeping does not
involve crazy suits and headgear and smokers, etc., etc., etc. The honey that the bees create is very thin
and runny and tastes slightly sour to some of our palates. We are investigating whether it is possible
for us to bring any of it home for some of you to taste, as we think it is one
of the things that customs forms list as forbidden to import . . .
The other fascinating
thing at the same house as the bees was a set of pet turtles that the family
has collected out of the forest. We
watched the turtles and fed them and heard the family talk about their
affection for them. It was a lovely
distraction from our usual manual labor.
We went home for lunch
and sesta and then rallied for the
biggest challenge of the day: the U.S. v. Brazil women’s soccer match. The locals had invited us to play soccer on
Sunday several days ago and we took it as a casual invitation like the one we
got on our first day here to play soccer on the beach. Over the course of the week, though, we
learned that this was no casual issue. People
that we newly met would mention their excitement about the upcoming match and
some of the women who work here at our camp would make little comments (talking
smack?) about seeing us on Sunday.
When we headed out at the
appointed time, we noticed many more people on the paths than usual and we saw
quite a few of them all the way down at the end of the community near the
soccer field. When we arrived on the
field, the other team was nowhere in sight, but there were still lots of people
clearly waiting for something to happen.
Our women got organized
and started warming up and psyching themselves up for the match. A little observation tower at the field
suddenly became the focal point of everything when we learned that a radio
announcer was setting up to broadcast.
The radio guy was also the public address guy so suddenly things really
cranked up with some serious volume and that unmistakable sports announcer
cadence, even when the language is unfamiliar.
Finally, the other team
arrived. They had matching shirts! Like real soccer jerseys! The goalkeeper had cleats but most of the
rest of the women played barefoot. We
already knew we were way out of our league just because we were playing soccer
against Brazilians, but we got even more convinced of it when we learned that
this is an actual team and not just a random group like ours.
The announcer introduced
each player by name and the match began.
We knew we had a ringer in Ali, who played college soccer before she
transferred to Saint Mary’s. We also
knew we had a couple of other pretty serious athletes in Kaylia (captain of
club volleyball at SMC) and Jenny T. We
also had some seriously game folks in Kristina and Megan V., who are willing to
try anything, and then we had some reluctant participants who knew we had to
step up and meet this challenge: Samira, Victoria, Lupe, Marisol, Jenny L., and
Jaclyn.
When the game got
started, though, all of these categories fell away and we all looked like we
pretty much knew what we were doing.
Victoria in particular came out of nowhere and turned out to be a fierce
competitor and a pretty adept soccer player, having only done so before at ages
5-6. Samira brought her poise and grace
to the field and did some footwork that she didn’t even know she could do. Jaclyn made three excellent saves at goal
before switching out with substitute Ana.
Megan made an excellent armpit play that was a stunner to everyone
(including her). Once Ana got sick of
the ants in the goalkeeper’s box, Benjamin jumped in and made four or more
saves of his own. And our obvious stars
proved to be just as fabulous as we expected.
Everyone showed a ton of spirit, heart and drive. Our team did our country and our school
proud.
We lost, of course. We didn’t even score. (Though Kaylia had three heartbreaking shots
on goal that should have gone in. All
went over the top.). The final score was
a contested 3-0, as the second goal involved and off sides situation and the
third goal was scored when a Brazilian had temporarily taken over as our
goalkeeper. We think that one shouldn’t
count.
At the end of the game,
the announcer interviewed Ali and she spoke eloquently about connecting through
sports even through language barriers.
The Brazilian captain spoke graciously about her team’s familiarity with
the field and the advantage that they had because of it. A rematch had already been set for Tuesday
and she predicted that our knowledge of the field would give us the victory
next time.
Throughout the match, the
announcer used the presence of the crowd to help promote the community projects
that we are doing and to invite more community members out to join us. We learned lots of new names, got lots of
very sincere hugs and high fives, and really feel like the situation – that
could have been a totally humiliating waste of time – invigorated all of us and
the community too. Nice.
We came home and
scrambled to get ready for church, only to find that they had decided not to
hold a service tonight and that they held it this morning instead. In lieu of church, then, we sat together in a
circle and talked about the blessings that we have felt on this trip. We spoke of the people that we’ve met, the
warm welcomes we have felt everywhere we’ve gone, the insights we have gained
about our own lives and the lives of our Brazilian friends, the things we’ve
always taken for granted in our lives in the U.S. (like constantly flowing safe
clean water), and how lucky we all are to be here in this incredible place
together.
We feel truly blessed,
even though we miss all of you out there reading these words and we are
surprised to be as disconnected from all of you (technologically) as we have
turned out to be. We hope you can
forgive our jumpy correspondence and we assure you that we have many more
things to tell you than you will ever have time (or interest) to hear . . .
Jorlando, one of our community hosts, was swimming with the fish that are farmed in a lake from a community project that started by some of the women of Ana.
This picture shows the crafts that are hand made by some of the community members of Ana. The project is used to support the families that are involved financially.
No comments:
Post a Comment