Our first full day in Santarem and we went to Alter do Chao, a small town on the water – North, South, East, or West of us, I dunno. I need to figure it out by map. Ronaldo has an apartment there on the third floor. It overlooks the water and the walk along it. It has a loft and an interior of beautiful wood. They got it because it has two bathrooms, not just one as their previous apartment did. It just happened to come with a great view. They used compact fluorescent bulbs there, too, with fluorescent lights seeming pretty prevalent in general. There were pictures of his kids that looked a little like HS graduation pictures. The boys looked dark and Brazilian. The daughter was lighter but could pass for a lot of nationalities. After hearing stories of “the golden steamroller,” as Ron described her, it was interesting to put a face to the name.
Garoldo showed up with his family, which is my opportunity to speak Portuguese, as Ronaldo speaks English – he’s an American who has been in Brazil for 31 years (a story worth telling). We told stories in the apartment as we waited for the rain to stop.
OK – brief intermission. At some point on a trip, you gotta make sure you have two clean jokes to tell. I have one standard and one that I haven’t used. The standard is this:
A boy is born to a really poor family. They are really poor, like splitting the beans at dinner time to make it look bigger. When the boy is born, he is born with just one eye. The doctor tells his parents that they can give him an artificial eye. The first one is really fancy. It moves like a real eye, has coloration like a real eye, and can almost hardly be noticed. But it is very expensive. So the boy’s parents ask about the next option. The next option is a glass eye. They can match the color and it can kinda move. But that, too, is more than they can afford. Finally, the doctor says that they can go with a wood eye, a round piece of wood with an eye painted on it. They can afford this and, well, it’s better than nothing. Growing up, the boy is terribly conscious of the eye, hanging his head, hiding his wood eye, staying out of social situations. In high school, he finally goes to a dance. He stands on the wall, hiding his head, looking around. In a corner, he sees a girl with a hook nose. She’s kinda cute, but has a hook nose and no one is asking her to dance. The boy slowly works up the courage, edging along the wall toward her, still hiding his wood eye by hanging his head. When he finally gets there, he kinda looks up and smiles just a little, “W-w-would you, uh, like to dance?” “Would I? Would I?” she says. “Hook nose! Hook nose!”
The other is one I got from my dad in around 2002:
The movie Gandhi portrayed the man well. He walked around in no shoes, ate little and became weak physically, but had spiritual visions to lead his country. Because he ate little, he rarely brushed or flossed, but still had a bit of bad breath. So one concept of a subtitle for the movie was, “Super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.”
Back in Alter do Chao, when the rain stopped, our walk began. Yes it is pretty hot here, consistently in the 80s, but both Santarem last night and Alter do Chao today had breezes that made it all feel great. The concrete and sand walk along the river is really small here, 100-150 m long, that’s all. There are riverside plastic tables from the restaurant across the street, tall mango trees hovering well above and providing shade. There were a few tens of people about – a happy number, not crowded and not dull. A few teenage kids were playing by the river. A couple boys climbed on the railings and jumped 10 ft down to the water. A couple girls walked gently down the stairs into the water. Now you need to know that the Tapajos River (a feeder into the Amazon that Santarem lies on) is about at its peak height. By November, the river will be another 5-10 m lower. Where the boys were landing in the water – they’d land on white sand 15 ft lower in 6 months. The stairs the girls were descending would go to a beautiful white beach, not the dark water of a river after only a few steps. And an island we saw out a couple hundred meters, it clearly was fundo aguas (underwater). You could see just thatched roofs sticking out of the water in places. Those would be shaded huts for merchants 6 months later. Life on a river with such dramatic shifts must be remarkable. Your brain and emotions probably shift with the rise and fall of the river, though in different ways for different people. Our trip is a tiny snapshot of a vibrant life.
But we do try to make our snapshots count. Victor a friend of Garoldo and Ron, probably about 29 years old, walked with us for a while telling stories – in English as he teaches it here. He wore braces on his teeth, turquoise-colored. Braces seem to be common and a fashion statement of youth here. Many women proudly wear theirs and seem to have no problem having men around. We went to a shop of girl clothes, little gifts, and big art. The art and the gifts seemed expensive. The clothes were better prices and might be good for Marcia – some good colors, but I do feel like I’m someone who can buy a sarape or something that can accent a woman’s outfit (like jewelry), but not an outfit itself. So I just looked at the hammocks – prices at $R 85. Not very colorful though, so I will keep looking.
Lunch was feijoada at the hotel. We made fun of Steve for his hesitance to eat fish. Feijoada was very good for him.
After lunch, we walked to a tree where Garoldo used his key to cut into some of the bark. Slowly some white stuff started leaking out. He called it “latex” and I assume that meant rubber! It was a rubber tree! (“Oops there goes another rubber tree plant” always goes through my head when thinking of the trees.) We felt it and it felt and looked a lot like Elmer’s Glue. I just thought it was beleza (cool).
From that tree, we improvised a ride in a boat for all of us but Ronaldo. We walked through the water and climbed in, trees growing out of the water around us. The tour took us around the inlet. People lived in little houses, most of which floated on the rising or falling river. Some used large drums to float. One used huge nets full of plastic bottles – now that is Reusing! It was mainly birds that lived back in that area. They once saw a large jacare (alligator) but it was unusual. But then the boat went across a little more open water. I was looking around until I saw what we were headed for – the higher part of that submerged island with more thatched roofs, all operating and serving food and beer to people in bathing suits at plastic tables and chairs, some half in the water. We swam and sat and drank and talked and played dominoes. We learned words like vencedor (winner), roubando (cheating), and chato (annoying). What a life.
Back at the dorms now, I’m writing, others are resting, working on the internet, and we prepared food for traveling tomorrow at 7 AM. Before then, I need to do some work to figure out why the Nuggets lost. Maybe I can do something, maybe not. But I still gotta do some player eval.
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