I’ve been home 30 minutes. 10 minutes ago, I was told it was time to go again. Fortunately, it was a false alarm.
You see, I live on the edge of town. A bus comes and picks the Rotarians up and drops us off at our predetermined destination. I am the last one off and the first one on. I get the least time at home, probably 2 hours less than Steve who is the first dropped off and the last picked up – a good hour each way different than I. In distance, we’re not too far, but traffic, narrow streets, pedestrians, and a non-linear route from him to me causes an hour to lapse with me on the onibus. This morning, we got lost on our way to Steve’s in Alto de Flores, so it was an hour and a half. I’m working on something to maybe pass the time. But usually I just like looking around and talking to Francisco, the motorista who must also be sick of the driving.
He was driving today when we went to INPA, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Amazonas. It was a big botanical garden. We got dropped off then got ourselves a guide named Diego. He didn’t speak English, so I was translator again. I’m getting a better hang of it, but some scientific terms were well outside my vocabulary. Peixe-boi is a manatee – how would I know that? Well, now I do. Sapo is a frog – we saw the smallest one I’ve ever seen today, smaller than your pinky’s fingernail. How could a polly wog become such a small frog? After I asked that, I realized that it could be a very different frog – like a poison dart frog. This was after it lost itself in some rocks, so I couldn’t check it out and I didn’t mention it to the others. Jacare is an alligator. Jacare-acu is a big one – six meters. Jacare-tinga is a white one, a bit smaller. Macaco is a monkey. We saw a spider monkey, called that for its articulated legs. When it walks, it walks a little like a spider. Um peixe electrica is an eel that puts out 500 volts when big fish worth eating get nearby. It paralyzes them and the eel eats. I didn’t ask what happens to the small ones that aren’t threatened by the eel. O Abrazo da Morte is the hug of death, a label given to the action of a vine, called apui, that wraps itself around its neighbor tree and robs it of its nutrients. Raiz means root. Caule is the trunk. Arara is a type of parrot, the ones we saw being bright red.
With all this education, we were already late when we went to go find Francisco and the bus. We arrived at the entrance and no one was there. Teresa called her companheiros in Rotary and tried to figure out what was happening.
All of a sudden, the rain crashed upon us. We heard and felt it before really seeing it. It was a deluge. The street filled with little rivers of water, some carrying floating boxes. The wind blew hard, causing a metal sign hanging above us to flap back and forth, eventually falling to the ground not even one second after we had been standing underneath. I imagined the potential involuntary visit to the hospital, then blocked it out.
After a few more minutes of waiting, Teresa decided to just eat at the restaurant of the park. We borrowed an umbrella and Steve, Mary, and I walked first, but the umbrella wasn’t big enough. I decided to get wet and ran to a shelter. In the process of getting to the restaurant, Mary and Mike were left by a shelter, Steve, Teresa, and I found the restaurant, and Francisco appeared, having been at another exit for 2 hours. As I went back with Francisco to find Mary and Mike, a power transformer blew up, sparks flying, the sound as loud as thunder hitting 100 m away. When we returned to the restaurant, the power was out. We ate anyway, not seeing what we were getting.
We had 2 short stops next, one at UFAM, where Kathya runs a program of physical fitness for the disabled. It’s not meant to train them as athletes, nor just to be recreation. I think we’d call it a wellness program in the States.
The next was at a hospital, seeing tomography, MRI equipment, and nuclear medicine. This was a public hospital and Mirza told me that they were good for some of these specialties. Trying to translate here was HARD. Steve did better because he knows medical terms and I run from medical stuff even in English. It was cool to see him so excited and able to interpret everything.
Oh yeah, I learned that beleza and show di bola also mean “cool.” And we taught Luciana, the second guide at INPA to say “wicked cool” in English. Useful stuff.
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