Three Jacarandas

January 16, 2026

We’ve gotten good at the morning thing, with no resistance to our early morning wakeup call. It’s surprising since we are all definitely experiencing sleep deprivation, partially because we keep staying up not to miss out on anything. When someone is really feeling it, we have them stay in for half a day and most often they rally from there and are fine. 

We had a sleepy one yesterday and another sleepy one today, but neither had fevers or other symptoms; they were just tired. We are also feeling some mixed anxieties: one set related to our reluctance to leave next week, another set related to wanting every project to get as far as it can possibly get. 

On the coop, we fashioned a door that was much more substantial than the prior one, made with wooden slats. We sealed every hole we could see in the chicken coop, as we intend to have chickens in residence tomorrow. I guess we will find out how well our repairs have gone. The team up there has been 100% committed to taking that project to the next level at every turn. They have great pride in what they have accomplished and rightly so. 

The people who are working the garden are feeling equally committed to their task. They get parts of it organized and cleared, but keep finding more and more to do to make it better. They felled a couple more trees at the request of the garden stewards, always preceded by long conversations about the best direction to drop the tree for the highest possible order of safety. They stripped vines and weeds out of the surviving plants in the garden, and continued to rescue transplantable trees for distribution to the community. We found rows and rows of ipe, which we recognize as a popular wood in the U.S. We found dozens of trees that are native to the area, including the precious and endangered jacaranda. Known more popularly as “Brazilian rosewood,” it is not the kind of jacaranda found in the southern parts of the U.S. Perhaps because of its beauty and strength, it was overharvested in the 20^th century and is now considered an endangered species. No one can cut down a jacaranda without special permission and no one can use the wood from a newly-felled jacaranda for any commercial purpose. The discovery of these jacaranda starts was like finding a buried treasure. Casey dug three holes in the front of the garden, and we collectively planted three jacarandas up there to serve as the entry point for all who visit. We hope they survive and thrive for many, many years. 

We broke for lunch and took an exceptionally long sesta to help everyone catch up on laundry and rest. We considered not returning to the worksite, but then most of us decided to do so. A few opted to stay home and they took care of some jobs that would help all of us. Win win. 

Tomorrow is a big day. We will do our last pushes on the garden and the chicken coop. We hope to move some chickens into their new home. We hope to deliver some sapling trees to new homes. And we will bid farewell to those two primary worksites, having already bid farewell to the Tink Tink Tink (which held a gathering today that was similar to yesterday’s meeting for children and families; this one was for “the elderly” and many of the folks we’ve been passing on the road over these weeks were there). 

As if these events are not enough, we have another big commitment tomorrow: the Brazil v. U.S. soccer match! We look forward to busting out our new uniforms and running around like maniacs on their field as they zoom past us and outscore us massively. There will be a men’s game and a women’s game, but the women’s team will be highly dependent on some of our Brazilian friends to fill our ranks. The men will need a few extra teammates as well, and we are trying to figure out if the young kids that hang out with us all the time can outrun the older adults or if we need some of those older experienced guys to outsmart those young guys. We will figure it out. 

Our reflection tonight focused on the sustainable practices that we have observed or used here that we hope to bring home with us. People talked a lot about efficient use and reuse of materials (including hammering the bends out of nails so they can still be used), about water conservation, about creative use of available items (like the canoes that became planters in the garden or the plastic bottles that become many things here once they are emptied), about accumulating less stuff in general, and about really valuing the people and things that are around you. 

We then moved to the induction of our next member of the Order of the Purple Bike: Taylor. You may never meet a person more even-keeled than Taylor is. He certainly can notice things that are worthy of complaint, but he almost always finds a way to overcome the issue. He has connected individually with everyone here, and everyone appreciates him as a listener and a conversationalist. When someone is down, he is particularly attentive to their needs and finds a way to boost them. He has been a central advisor on video planning and he gets a large portion of the credit for our best shot so far (one where they passed the camera through the kitchen window seamlessly). You have probably noticed his beaming smile in some of the selfies related to pickup soccer and the triumphs of the roofing crew. It is a thrill to watch him love his experiences here, which he clearly does. Here’s hoping these last few days bring lots more joy and more huge smiles. Congratulations, Taylor!

The three jacarandas across the front of the garden

Sofia and Oscar interview Junio 

The walk back to the pousada from the garden

Team Patos: Guido, Lilly, Oscar, Sofia

Tink Tink Tink Ceremony

 

January 15, 2026

We got to bed early last night (except for a few late night stargazers), so morning was easy. We all went to the garden and were there just after 8am. Some of us got organized on the roof project and others followed Joelma to the riverfront to claim two more damaged canoes that will be incorporated into the garden. Even though we had just gotten started, we broke from our tasks to go to the Tink Tink Tink at 9 to observe the opening ceremony for the new space. 

We were nervous about the unfinished doorframes of the storage areas, but our hosts hung some brightly colored curtains to hide the flaws of the work still in progress. They set up some of the toys and books in the new play space and invited local children between ages 0 and 7 to join in a morning introduction to the space. The kids all got gift bags with mystery presents in them and they were all eager to frolic and play in the new toy area. But first, community leaders and the nurse talked about their excitement over their expanded health facility and introduced us as some of their helpers in making it come to fruition. We all joined in a prayer for the future of the space, the community, the children, and their parents. We were asked to speak so Jesse told them what an honor it has been for us to participate in this project and we wished them good health, happiness, and joy as they use it. 

The plan going forward is for this area to be a bit of a babysitting place when parents are seeking healthcare, but they also have an ongoing contest about who comes and gets checkups regularly (monthly?). Since the DIRTies' first visit here, improving public health offerings has been a top priority for Tonico and the community. The changes that were funded by the government last summer have made a huge difference and our work this week has helped them make even more progress. It is fascinating to have seen a big open space that was underutilized a week ago turn into an important community resource. We are proud to have been a part of it. 

The Tink Tink Tink took on a series of sessions today to introduce the new children’s space to the families and their children. So we were all in the garden and/or chicken coop trying to push the projects there as far as they could go. On the coop, we ran into materials problems, as we ran out of the special roofing nails that we need to complete that job. We hate to consider it, but it might be the case that there were, in fact, the appropriate number of roofing nails, but we struggled so much in hammering them in that we wasted some. We guess this is an understandable result with a group of novice workers, but we would have loved to preserve and conserve the available materials instead of leaving some of them unusable. Oh well. A boat came today that brought more nails. In the meantime, we noticed that the small brick wall surrounding the coop had suffered some damage, so we employed our tink-tinking skills on that area and filled the broken places along the foundation of the coop. We were very proud to have some elementary skills that helped us not only fill our time but also helped us meet a need for the community. 

In the garden, we kept clearing the edges of the main garden area, using machetes and mini-scythes to clear vines and brush all along the fenceline. There was a small internal fence that had collapsed, so we revived it. As for the perimeter fence, it was highly impacted by a lot of invasive growth. Emphasis on “was.” Our strong group, with particular heroics by Guido, just tore into that underbrush and got back to the original footprint of the garden. All along the edge, vines and broken limbs were hanging out over the garden so we endeavored to remove those as well. At one point, Guido, Brendan, and Sofia were working on a particularly stubborn limb wrapped in brush and vines. Practically out of nowhere came Casey, who effected about a 32” vertical leap that allowed him to get a hold of that limb so that he could twist it out of there like it was nothing. It was awesome. And no one had a camera in hand because no one saw it coming. We will all just have to hold this superhuman act in our memories, as it is not documented in any other way. But it was memorable to be sure and whoever saw it will certainly store it for quite a while. 

We created burn piles for all of the brush we were cutting away, which seems very non-Californian but we are not in California anyway, are we? We aren’t sure when the piles will be burned but we hope not to be around for it because we don’t want to add any extra heat to our current environment. In fact, we went away from the worksite and after lunch, almost everyone made a beeline to the river, including some of the local boys who are our friends. We stayed for quite a long time, as the day was a bit cloudy (not entirely) and therefore cooler than the temperatures that we normally face. Our afternoon snack was fresh pineapple and watermelon, which we supplemented with peanut butter and Ritz crackers. 

We could see the boat coming when we were enjoying our snack, so we knew that it was time to mobilize again. The nails arrived as planned, so the roof crew went nuts and finished the tiling of the chicken coop. The need for a crown/cap still remains, but we are definitely not skilled enough to be the ones to install that piece. We also finished the brick and concrete work in the coop and now just have to work on a door and a few gaps in the chicken wire to be ready for new chickens to take up residence. Shawny and Jesse hope to secure the chickens tomorrow. 

We look forward to showing the before and after images of the main garden area, because it is pretty fully transformed. We took out some trees that were not of great value to make room for lots of new desirable plants. Some have already found their way into the canoes but we haven’t planted any new ones in the ground beds yet because they seem to be waiting for the soil to settle (or something like that?). Either way, we were very efficient workers today on all jobs and have made more progress than we expected to make. 

Almost everyone dipped in the river before dinner, which consisted of lasagna and some cheesy rice dish that was quite a surprise. After dinner, we first played a game of “Heads Up, Seven Up,” where players try to guess the identities of the people who touch their hands when their eyes are closed. The team leading the reflection talked about what evidence we sometimes use to make assumptions and how that evidence can often lead us astray. They then opened up a conversation about assumptions we made coming into this trip that have figured into our learning here. People talked about how different they expected the food and culture to be from those that are familiar to us, or about their fears about functioning as a group together. We largely agreed that facing things that appear new with open hearts and minds seems to make it pretty easy to adapt to whatever we might face. 

We then turned to the next inductee into the Order of the Purple Bike: Casey. Casey has earned recognition several times this trip, including when he carried every single bucket of sand related to the concrete production at the Tink Tink Tink himself. He volunteered to do it for his team and they eagerly agreed. We can’t even estimate how many pounds of sand he toted, but each bucket was heavy and he carried lots of buckets. They became concrete/mortar to support the brick walls we helped construct in the children’s area, so his work was central to all parts of the Tink Tink Tink project. Casey is apparently a bit of a caffeine addict in his non-Brazil life, but his norms of caffeine consumption (which involve lots of ice) cannot be met here so he is experiencing withdrawal. He is managing pretty well considering his level of suffering. Casey is somewhat quiet under normal circumstances but he is really coming out of his shell/cocoon here. He is quick to offer affirmations (which we all hope to earn), he is always eager to help, and he makes meaningful contributions when he chooses to speak up. We have already mentioned that he is viewed as some sort of god by the local teenagers (perhaps due to some resemblance to characters in K-Pop Demon Hunters?), so he is getting used to getting lots of attention in that way. All of this, when combined with his superhuman leap in the garden today to bring down that dead limb, made clear that he was the obvious next inductee into the Order of the Purple Bike. Congratulations, Casey! 

    A selfie of Taylor, Gianni, James, Ava, Oscar, and Junio posing after finishing the last of the chicken coop roof tiles.

    A pretty large fire that was part of a controlled burn. Likely to clear space for more housing and farming.

A photo of Gianni, who caught and returned a stray baby chicken that managed to get stuck in one of our garden plots.

A tarantula Thomas found early this morning. The spider was very chill and let us get very close without moving

                    This is a photo of the shoes of the children from the health clinic 

 

Here is the dirt group gathered around the dining room table in the pousada 

        Here is the group’s bathroom area that we use to take care of ourselves hygienically.

Here is Lilly working hard with her hatchet at the viveiro garden work station. 

Here is the group getting some food and water, as they work tremendously hard. 

“No fake chicken news!”

 

Special Note: We are trying to backfill photos and videos. Please keep scrolling back, as our internet sketchiness makes things happen a bit inconsistently . . .

January 14, 2026

We slept hard last night. Some of us think that there was no snoring; some of us think we were so tired we didn’t notice; some of us say there was lots of snoring. Oh well, there was sleep. 

We got up and out faster than ever, especially because we are aware that our time is running short. We are suddenly committed to really seeing these projects through as far as we can possibly get them. We know going in that we have to be aware that the projects belong to the community, as do the timelines. That means that if things are half done when it’s time for us to leave, so be it. But . . . we are close enough on each of our three main projects that we believe with just a little extra cranking, we can get them to a pretty good place. 

In the children’s area (which we call “the Tink Tink Tink” because of the sound made when you set a brick for real), the walls for the various subareas are nearly complete. The actual mason will have to cut in some little filler bricks that are well beyond our skill level. There will be a layer of plaster that covers all of the bricks and mortar and then it will all be painted. We might not be able to get all the way to that final step, but we seem to be on the verge of laying out the toys in the children’s area to see how that space might look when it is all done. 

While at the Tink Tink Tink, Jesse got tapped to DJ again, so he started playing classic American music, including Willie Nelson, the Eagles, Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlile, and more. Wherever we were in the community, we could hear his song choices ringing out through the (slightly tinny?) loudspeakers attached to the radio feed. We realized that we were getting a taste of life from days gone by, as we were all hearing the same thing, rather than individuating in headphones as is our normal practice now. We doubt that this experience will become a new practice for us, but we certainly recognized that in certain ways, we’ve been missing out. 

In the garden, we laid out some new garden beds using scrap wood from other projects that have now been dismantled. Joelma found some viable plants inside the garden area and then went and dug up some others in the surrounding forest, including strong variations of basil, mint, and cumin, among others. Some of these plants are used medicinally, and once re-established can be part of the “living pharmacy” that the DIRT group of 2020 helped build. The pharmacy and the rest of the garden can also be part of the community tours that include the fish farm, the fish food factory, the beekeeping operation, and the ecotourism camp in which we stay. 

While collecting the scrap wood, we realized that some of the saplings that DIRT groups had bagged in years gone by are now huge starts that could still be transplanted into other areas. We might be able to identify them, free them from the plot they are in, organize them, and distribute them for transplanting. We hope so. 

At the chicken coop, we made huge progress. A small but mighty team joined with Junio to re-roof the structure. We made sure that some women got involved, to help us meet our agreement that says “Jobs have no gender.” We want to make sure that all roles are shared by everyone who is willing and able, particularly those jobs that have big impacts, like those that include use of power tools often do. The roof didn’t involve power tools, but it involved ladders and hammering skills that we wanted all of us to learn. We “nailed” it. (Har de har har.) By lunch, we had about half of the roof up. It will probably take into tomorrow to finish that job. 

At lunch, Junio and others joined us and we started to review the completion plans for the projects. When we got to the chicken coop, Junio said that they thought it would be a good idea to bring in chickens belonging to one of our friend Audair’s sisters so that we could take pictures of the chicken coop as if it were in action. Shawny was having none of it. Though neither Jesse nor Sofia was in range, she started arguing (while smiling and laughing) in Portuguese that we want the real chickens to be in the real coop, assuming that there were people willing to care for them. They assured us that people would care for them. So Shawny said that we would not go for some pretend arrangement if we could have the real thing. Then, out of nowhere, Junio yelled out – in English – “No Fake News!” We cracked up and Shawny yelled back, “No Fake Chicken News!” Junio picked up the word “chicken” right away and kept calling out “No fake chicken news! No fake chicken news!” It’s our slogan for the day. 

Junio and Joelma said that someone would have to go to a different community, Maparí, to get them. Shawny and Jesse used to routinely go to Maparí to post the blog in past years, as there is a cell signal that reaches across the river there that made it possible. They just sat out in chairs in the sand uploading things, but that’s what it took before the sometimes-on/sometimes-off signals came to Anã itself. One or both of them will go to Maparí in the coming days to secure some chickens to restart the community coop here in Anã. “No fake chicken news” indeed. More on this soon. 

After lunch we headed toward the garden but went just past it to learn about the beekeeping operation in the community. Years ago, one of the families found a way to lure stingless bees from the rainforest into some homemade hives in their yard. Their operation grew and even though the original beekeeper has moved away from the community, they continue to cultivate the bees, especially to use the honey medicinally. They rub it on insect bites and scrapes/cuts of all kinds. The honey itself is a little thinner and more sour than what we are used to seeing in California grocery stores, so we are unlikely to find ourselves using it in the ways that we normally would use it there. Still, several of us have purchased some so maybe you will get a chance to taste it soon!

We went back to two of our worksites (not the Tink Tink Tink) and kept making quick progress on the coop roof. The ridge cap is going to be a special project in itself but apart from it, we think we are about 60% done with tiling the roof. That’s not bad for one day’s work, and we’ve learned a few tricks that will hopefully help tomorrow go even more smoothly. 

In the garden, we created ten new beds that we think we will start planting tomorrow. There weren’t enough nails to connect them, so we fashioned stakes out of the scrap wood and drove them into the ground to hold up the walls of the boxes. Hopefully, Joelma will be able to secure donations from community members to help generate more starts for the new beds. We also learned that some of the saplings among the trees are ipe, which is a highly desirable wood that is somewhat fast-growing. Junio thinks that several community members would welcome new trees, so we hope to be involved in distributing them. 

At the end of the long workday, we had promised some of the local kids that we would swim with them, so we went right down to the river and did just that. We think that it is going to rain tonight, so we have gathered up all of the laundry that covered the lines and we hope that whatever wasn’t dry will get that way somehow under the cover of the laundry area’s thatched roof. 

We had three world premieres tonight (that’s what we call our videos when we are watching them for the first time) because we got backed up in viewing them over the last couple of days. We don’t post them for you until we have watched them together. For our reflection, we talked about gains that we have made here that we are sure we will take back to our lives at home. We talked about practicing patience, embracing chaos, trusting ourselves in unexpected social situations, choosing simplicity, finding beauty in the mundane, and focusing on happiness. 

We then turned to the Order of the Purple Bike and its next inductee: Lilly. Lilly is one of the happiest, sunniest people any of us will ever meet. She exudes joy, mostly because she lives in a state of joy. She offers affirmations to all of us that make us feel better about ourselves and all that we are doing. She got assigned to a less-than-thrilling work assignment over the last few days (cleaning around the masonry work in the Tink Tink Tink) and found a way to love every minute of it. She developed special affection for chisels and started wielding them in both hands to clear dropped concrete from the tile floors on which we were working. She was a bit under the weather a few days ago, but even then she kept a positive attitude as we tried different interventions to get her up to speed again. We have also learned that she is a slave to her schedule when at home, booking every minute of the day for maximum productivity. Here, there is no way to be that organized. She has succeeded at finding a way to embrace the chaos, which is a fundamental quality that comes from being a DIRTy. We are grateful to have Lilly among us, especially as she is completing her college career with this course. Lucky us!

Taylor passing a roof tile up to Gianni and Isabelle on the roof of the chicken coop.

Our friend Luciano posing on top of the roof.

Audair showed us one of the bee boxes they keep in the community, we even got to taste the honey!

Gianni and James on the roof towards the end of our work day.

Team selfie after completing 80% of the roof!

Our hosts bring us snacks at the worksite every day. Today it was farofa with ham, fish, and banana and some manioc breads plus coffee

Back to Work

 

January 13, 2026

Marlina’s birthday dinner went longer than usual, especially because so many of our local partners were at the pousada with us. We whispered around the table that we would skip our reflection conversation for the night and do the Order of the Purple Bike induction over breakfast. There was no way to gather as a group and “meet,” so many of us decided to make our way to the river beach below our camp and stargaze. We saw lots of shooting stars and made lots of (secret) wishes, but we also realized that for many of us, our wishes are already coming true right here right now. 

Breakfast included leftover cake and as we finished, we began the induction ceremony of the newest entrant into the Order of the Purple Bike: Guido. Guido is a wild card like no other, but who wouldn’t welcome a truly valuable wild card in their hand? He has unique energy, unique perspectives, a 100% unique laugh, and a unique way of being in the world. He forms his own personal reflection circle, as he is constantly evaluating his behaviors, adjusting them when needed, celebrating them when they are admirable, and exploring what alternatives might be available. He is in a hurry all the time but is working to slow things down and absorb things in the moment. He takes a few risks (nothing dangerous) and is willing to make necessary adjustments if they don’t work out. He has the highest levels of curiosity of all of us and uses his curiosity as a key to connecting with our hosts, particularly by running right out onto the soccer field or into the free kick competition and smiling his way through it all. Guido is creative, receptive, adaptive, and reaching for a form of transcendence that is probably not too far from his grasp. We welcome Guido into the Order of the Purple Bike!

Our jobs today might not seem like they involve much new information, as we returned to the garden, the chicken coop, the children’s area of the health clinic, and the fish food factory. We made good progress in each, while also learning how slowly some of these projects progress (especially brick laying!). We have big fantasies about getting chickens for the coop before we leave, so a LOT needs to happen to make that possible. We would also like to plant some of the new starts that will help the garden thrive again, but we need for the materials (and the experts who know what to do) to all be in the right place at the right time to make that happen. 

At the fish food factory, our crew cleaned the machine to perfection, though they were thwarted in making forward progress by the fact that there seems to be an electrical disconnect somewhere in the system.  We will need some help with that issue. 

We are leaving for our boat trip (an excursion to other neighboring communities to see the similarities with and differences from Anã) on Sunday, so our workdays are already dwindling if we are going to finish any (or all) of these projects. And we have our big USA v. Brasil soccer matches on Saturday, which will largely wipe us out on that day. Still, we have big dreams of seeing chickens in the coop and sprouts in the garden and doors on the playroom before we leave. We think it all seems possible. 

Our second round of work helped us crank things even farther and also gave us another chance to talk on the community radio station. We, of course, used the opportunity to express our apologies about how badly we are going to beat them in soccer this weekend. (Um, just for the record, we know that this result is highly unlikely. In all of our years of visiting Anã, usually playing at least four games per visit, DIRT USA has won exactly one game.) They asked us to play some music and sing a song on the airwaves and we obliged. 

We also saw a woman struggling with some high branches in a tree in her yard and asked if we could help. It turned out that she wanted to cut out the top branches (it’s a tree that will regrow quickly), so some of us got involved and Jesse used a machete to cut out the top of it while the rest of us dragged the branches around the back of the house to be cut up. 

Some of us ran over to the soccer field after work and played some 5-on-5 games where we actually scored a few goals. A few of us even took on Guido on an otherwise all-Brazilian team. When we got home, we ate dinner kind of quickly and then went down onto the beach, turned off our lights, and did our reflection in the sand under the light of the stars. 

We talked about things that we knew would be hard for us here that we’ve learned to overcome, and things that we thought would be hard that turned out to be easier than we guessed. People talked about their struggles with “embracing the chaos” and “pivoting” on a regular basis, though everyone is pretty used to those ideas now. Some talked about the heat and humidity; others about the sand that is constantly underfoot. We all acknowledged that people are doing really well at holding things together here, especially in this non-negotiable intense group setting. 

We then did affirmations and heard about a lot of the impressive actions of recent days and the ways that different people held each other up. We had a lot of praise for “everyone,” as we remain pretty impressed that we have found a way to be healthy and happy and cohesive even when there is every reason to find such a state impossible to achieve. 

The affirmation session included a lot of references to our latest Purple Biker: Gianni. Gianni is a leader and was so before he ever joined this group. But he has really become one of the prime navigators of the workspaces we join, the personalities within our group, and the group of friends with whom he registered for this class. He wishes he could be more connected to his family at home and we are all aware of it. But he continues to find strength and provide support for all of us, especially on our jobs. Though he doesn’t speak Portuguese, he is one of our primary translators, as he and Junio have found a way to connect across Junio’s Portuguese and Gianni’s Spanish. Gianni is a motivator and maintains high spirits at all times. He is also open to suggestions and really takes them to heart as he considers how to make use of the advice he hears. Everyone has felt uplifted by Gianni at one time or another. Thanks, Gianni, and welcome to the Order of the Purple Bike!

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We caught some audio of the howler monkeys (guaribas) today just with a cellphone. We have some more serious mics that would help but we don't have them at the ready when we are getting up in the morning. You'll at least get a sense of the sound, but we assure you that it is much louder here on the spot. It's that hum/growl/roar/machine noise in the background. You might think it's wind; it's not. Thomas says "it's like the sound they use in a movie when they want you to think it's really tempestuous outside." We'll keep trying on the zoguezogues.

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  Bonding with the local kiddos. Tag and spinning games.

                                                            Coraçao means heart! Here's a little work site bonding!

                                                                Indoor Futsal with the locals. (They beat us)

                                            Lily and Casey fill buckets with sand to be mixed with water and cement.

                                                    Thomas is hard at work as he mixes up some cement with a hoe.

Lily Sofia and Ava heading back to the pousada after a workday.

Casey and James making cement with Tonico.

Mar taking an after lunch sesta at the pousada.

Isabelle and Ava on the way to the job site.

Casey spinning Luis.

Marlina’s Birthday!!!

Special Note: We were excited to manage to talk to family members last night but we were BUMMED when the entire internet connection went out regionwide. Not everyone had gotten a call off at that point and some were in the middle of sentences when everything went down. We will try again from a different connection point today, but the timing might be inconvenient, as that other point is available only between about 10:00am and 1:00pm California time. On a positive note, it is likely that we will be able to make actual cell calls from there, but we might need to rely on WhatsApp, as we did last night. If you can download the app, it might help us connect. We have some daytime internet access right now so we are adding some content from long before we are ready to report on our tasks for today . . .

January 12, 2026

We get to celebrate with Marlina on her birthday today! Marlina is a veteran of two DIRT trips in years gone by: this one (Brazilian Amazon) in 2016 and SMC Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) in 2018). After graduation, she took up a career in emergency management and has served in disaster zones all over the world, putting the principles and training of her DIRT days into practice almost constantly. Shawny convinced her to use some vacation time from her current gig to return to the Amazon and we are thrilled that she agreed. 

We sang to Mar as she came down to the pousada this morning and we enjoyed a lovely breakfast as the overnight rain began to break. The sound of the rain on our thatched roof seemed to contribute to some deep sleep for most of us but the calls of the zoguezogues and howler monkeys helped convince us to stop. Yesterday some of the zoguezogues came right up to our oca to help us get a good look at them, so there will be some pictures of them here. We also tried to catch some audio of their sounds from inside our sleeping space today, but you can't get the feel of how loud they are from these recordings; unfortunately, we missed the howlers entirely so we will try to record them both on a different day. Whenever you hear the zoguezogues, it might seem like the sound you hear is either a mating call or actual mating, but we hear that these are just the sounds they make as they frolic in the trees. The ones right by us yesterday were not making their sounds, so we couldn’t quite test this theory. 

We are starting into a new work week with freshly-washed laundry (note that we did not say “clean” laundry; there is an important distinction there). Some of us timed our washing poorly relative to the arrival of the rain, but we added some lines under a covered area that should help things air dry until we get some sun to bake them all the way to crispness. Hopefully we will beat the mildew, but if not, rewashing may be in our future. 

Yesterday we ran into another group that came through the pousada for lunch, this one a “return to the forest” group from São Paulo that has done some projects similar to ours in this community and others along this particular part of the Amazon basin. Many of them spoke English so we had some enthusiastic conversations and made quick connections over shared perspectives.

The DIRT group was the first to visit the ecotourism camp in which we are staying when it was built. We have collectively been working with the tourism group here to develop and promote the ecotourism footprint without impinging upon the lives and lifestyles of our hosts, so we are thrilled to see the volume of flow that has returned after the slow days of COVID. 

There are some glitches in the system to be sure (like the “nudist Buddhists” who consistently swam naked in the river as part of a rebirth ritual of some kind), but our partners here find that for the most part, visitors are full of awe about the community here and they are grateful for the invitation to visit it. Most are respectful and easy to get along with, and some – like us – make meaningful contributions that our hosts really appreciate. As they tell us stories about the glitchy visits (see above), we talk with them about ways to instruct their guests without seeming inhospitable. This entire enterprise was controversial at the start, but has become much less so as long as visitors don’t cause offense. The proceeds from the tourism enterprise pay the federal (and state?) taxes for all inhabitants of Anã, so the benefit of it is truly felt by every family. And as we have discussed in previous blogs, the resources that are generated by this operation and through government and non-profit grants continues to help in improving the quality (and length!) of the lives of those who live here. 

Our work morning was very productive, as we returned to the garden area for two primary jobs: re-roofing the chicken coop with the fancy new tiles we secured yesterday, and setting the beds to be ready for planting with new seedlings and saplings donated from community members. We also salvaged an old canoe that was supposed to be demolished to reuse its intact wood. Along with Joelma, we decided it was not damaged enough to destroy, so instead of tearing it apart with wrecking bars, we reinforced it. It certainly would not be seaworthy (or riverworthy, as the case may be), but it is a lovely addition to the space and seems to be destined to be some sort of planter. 

As for the roof, we worked with local professionals to secure the trusses over the coop, and we found that our battery-powered circular saw and drills came in handy after all. We try not to use any tools that will prevent them from being able to do maintenance without our power tools once we are gone, but we could clearly see that some pilot holes and some straight cuts weren’t going to compromise things going forward. 

It was really hot and sticky out there today, maybe because of the long overnight rain? We needed lots of breaks. Because we were close to a potential source of wifi signal, those of us who didn’t manage calls last night made new attempts and mostly succeeded (sorry for the early hour for some of you!). 

We had more stingray for lunch, this time grilled instead of fried. Amazing. And after a sesta of a couple of hours (that involved swimming, walking, and more laundry), we got to enjoy locally-harvested açai (we actually had it yesterday, too; we just forgot to mention it, even though it was a total thrill). 

In the afternoon, we joined the local community groups in a litter pickup campaign around the area. People are a bit casual about dealing with trash and there is no municipal system that manages things. The main community leaders routinely tote cans that they find on the beach or the roadway and occasionally they organize larger groups to do a more comprehensive job. Today was one of those days so we jumped right in. We were separated into different groups that joined with the locals and wiped out virtually all of the litter along the paths and the beaches. 

Some of the local boys came to play a pickup soccer game on our beach. Everyone went down to either play, watch, or swim. The sun started to drop below the horizon and we took in the beautiful sky over the river. There were several community members at the camp hustling around and preparing handicrafts. The kitchen was especially frenzied and there were more foods than ever in progress in there. Jesse finally summoned our kitchen crew and let them know that all of this madness was secret prep for Marlina’s birthday dinner. 

Dona Odila showed up and said that she wanted to talk to the birthday girl. Marlina, Jesse, and Odila started walking toward Odila’s house having a conversation about the contributions that women make in the world. As they walked away, we all mobilized and brought out dish after dish after dish, including a beautiful roast chicken and a pretty complex version of pizza. There were also two cakes. 

Some of the women who had been around the camp for the last few hours had created a wall sign from palm fronds wishing Mar a happy birthday. They all gathered around with us and we turned off all of the lights in the camp. It got very dark. We waited quietly (sort of) for a few minutes and finally saw the light of Odila’s headlamp coming down the dark path. When Marlina, Jesse, and Odila got to the edge of the pousada, we flicked on the lights and started clapping frantically. Marlina started bawling. We all sang Happy Birthday in Portuguese (sort of) and tried to get Mar to serve herself dinner. She was overwhelmed and not acting particularly rationally. She got out her camera and started taking pictures of the sign and the cake and the table and the group, including twenty or more of our local friends. She acknowledged that she had celebrated her birthday in this exact same place ten years ago and it was meant to be that she is here with us again today. 

Marlina has been a wonderful addition to our DIRT group and has folded in effortlessly while also helping organize things and keeping our systems running as smoothly as they possibly can. We are honored to be in her presence, we admire her free spirit mixed with deep responsibility, we appreciate her smile, and we are indescribably happy to get to share this time (and birthday!) with her. Happy day to all of us!

In the first photo, there are three zoguezogues, good luck finding them!

If you can't find all three in the first photo, we got one close up in the second.

 

Playing soccer with the local children on the beach with a gorgeous sunset.

Sophia had an adventurous spirit and climbed a tree!

Oscar caught another lizard as we worked on fixing up the chicken coop

Marlina and Joelma at Mar's birthday dinner

The whole group at Mar's birthday dinner

The dinner table

Mar's cake



    Gianni makes a pizza in the kitchen helping to prepare for Mar's surprise birthday celebration dinne

Most of the student group playing soccer by the river with a few local kids

    Isabelle had a beautiful moth land on her hand.

    Taylor, Lily, Gianni, Flavio, Mar, and Thomas all pose for a selfie on the roof of the chicken coop they are building.