May 26 - May 27, 2007 - Part II: Monkey See, Monkey Do

Who ever said that there wasn't civilization deep in the Amazon rain forest was completely wrong - there are little gems if you are able to look hard enough.

I wish I were speaking of the flowers to the left, which I think are actually fruit that are used to give meat color (yes, I said meat, as in the meat you eat), but I'm not. Interestingly, another use of these blessed fruits are natural sunscreen and ... war paint. Well, maybe I'm stretching it a little bit, as there really aren't tribal wars. At least that I know of. But when you spread the fruit on your skin, you are intantaneously a lobster man, albiet a UV-protected lobster man.

Anyway, back to the civilization part. There is a STORE at the river entrance to the Mamiraua Reserve. A STORE. The outside (shown to the right) is misleading, as I can assure you, salvation awaits you inside.

Just LOOK at the picture below - there are meticulously-made jewelry! They are probably some of the most unique jewelry I have seen in a while; most of the jewelry is made of seeds of fruits and plants indigenous to the area, and assembled by local artisans living in the villages.

Not one to pass up the opportunity to purchase baubles and baskets, er, contribute to the local economy, I felt free to purchase anything and everything. In fact, if our estimations are correct, I paid about one-third of the monthly income for a small family living in the Reserve. No wonder the shopkeepers are smiling -

Here are some sample pictures of the jewelry made by the women above - the variety was truly amazing.

I have yet to update on the the entire rest of the weekend, of which the stop to paradise, er local shop, was on the way. The pictures of the flooded forest are amazing - and I would hate to not provide my colorful commentary on the trip ...

Otherwise, we are neck-deep in trying to pull together our fundraising and financial plan to fruition for the Mamiraua Institute.

Ciao for now -

May 26 - May 27, 2007 - Part I: When the Lights Go Down in the City

Life is rough ... as part of our work for the Institute, it was required that we spend a weekend in the actual Mamiraua Reserve. When we took our little tour of the lake of Tefe, we were mesmerized by the pink dolphins, scenery, floating houses (and floating bar, by the way) right in the middle of the lake. Although quite impressive, I was still completely in awe of the Reserve, and the continued vastness of the many rivers that comprise the region.
I think I found out why either I was always meant to be a Brazilian or I was one in a prior life - no one is ever on time (except our taxi who takes us to the Institute to work every day). We were originally supposed to leave Saturday morning around 7am, but true to form, I was running late. I was actually more behind than the Brazilians ...

Cesar, the Manager of Operations, accompanied us on our three-hour boat trip (a fancy canoe with an engine hanging off the back) down to the Reserve, in part to show us the eco-tourism route and in part to try out the new fuel-efficient engine purchased for trips such as this. Well ... if you haven't thought of Gilligan yet, you should - the engine crapped out pretty early on. As I couldn't provide any sort of mechanical engineering to help our cause, I relaxed and enjoyed the scenic view of the river ... Besides, I'm sure that the boys were cursing the engine in Portuguese words I didn't understand (more on that later). Steve was our savior - he paddled the distance - just kidding, of course. The engine flooded a few times, but was fixed.
The Mamiraua Reserve is a flooded forest during certain parts of the year, in which the trees literally grow out of the water. The amount of growth is astounding - for example, we were speaking with a local woman whose father founded the tiny village (30 households) on the edge of the Reserve. About 200 meters away, a huge island in the middle of the river stands; fifty years ago, the island didn't exist. I'm not certain that this picture (or any) do the region justice; here we use a "short cut", which during the wet season, is a tributary to the larger part of the river. We got stuck here again, from some of the leaves and branches in the water.

These pictures are of the village that we visited. As poor as these individuals seem, they also seemed really excited to have us there, and were very accomodating for all of our, er, Stephan's, questions (he is our token Brazilian, remember).

As much as I would love to provide more information for your reading pleasure, we are packed with meetings all day today with the client. We are fortunate to finally meet with all of the different sectors of research and sustainability on the ground here, so better get cracking on my "Adopt a Dolphin" campaign while I attempt to rid my memory of the smell of deet.












These beautiful pictures compliments of Maiken. More on the weekend later ....

Much love and aloha - Ciao for now.

May 25, 2007: Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Last night we had our first long rain, which was beautiful covering the lake near Tefe. It cheered me up for some reason, as I love thunderstorms and rain.

Other than that, we are enjoying our favorite restaurant, Stylo, which is located by the hotel; one of two restaurants that have been recommended.

The night before, we actually had (Brazilian) pizza; Brazilians love hearts of palms on their pizza, which sort of taste like artichokes. It was quite cheesy (not good for us lactose intolerants), but still was a pleasant change from fried chicken, fried manoc, fried beef. The treat of the day, however, was the sundae bar that they had - complete with magic shell and coconut ice cream. Yum.

This morning I was super excited, as fried manoc was served for breakfast this morning - they look sort of like french fries, but taste like a grainy potato. Or like a potato smashed with cauliflower. I LOVE it. We also sprinkle manoc on our rice and beans, but this is more of a "salt" type consistency.

Tomorrow morning we leave for the reserve, in which we will be about two hours outside of Tefe. We plan to stay at one of the Institute's reserve stations, with no idea of the "amenities." We also plan on visiting the eco-lodge as well, to get an idea of how it is run by the local population. I'm sure on Monday, there will be lots of updates and pictures.

Here's the website to the Institute (they have not updated the English site, however):
http://www.mamiraua.org.br/

As well as a link to the Eco-Lodge (it's actually a floating house) -

http://www.uakarilodge.com.br/ing_index.htm

Ciao for now -

May 24, 2007: Our A/C Unit is a Punta

Soooo ... looks like all of my smack talk about our air conditioning unit's indigestion has come back to bite me in the ass ... quite literally. It figures.

We are knee deep in fundraining (I meant to write fundraising - weird Freudian slip, as we are in the middle of a thunderstorm) analysis and evaluation, which has left us all wanting to bang our heads on our rattan table. Well, there's always cocktail hour to look forward to.

The IT brought up the fact that the internet was slow due to some of our activity; I didn't want to mention it was because I was in dire need of downloading the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. That being said, if I hear from anyone what the outcome or cliffhangers are, you are in deep doo-doo. And that's not hard to find in these here parts.

Ciao -

May 23: X-Rated Video

Brazil is filled with vibrant, colorful people - we were even fortunate enough to spot Michael Jackson dancing in the streets of Manaus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a69twn3FCDk

Watching the dolphins play in the Amazon was really quite amazing - blows me away that the dolphins are "fresh water" dolphins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIP4tHE1W_o

Ciao for now -

After Meat, Don't Count on Me

I have attached a few pictures of Tefe, this one being one of the typical houses in a poorer part of the city. Kids are often playing soccer in the middle of the road, as, of course, soccer is the most important sport in Brazil. Stephan was telling us that usally the poorer kids take to playing soccer at an early age, and learn to be able to play in many different conditions, which makes them extremely good players as they grow older. Incidentally, Stephan's favorite team, the Flamengos, just lost and he's not feeling like talking about soccer much today. Anyway, while this picture is quite picturesque from an artish standpoint, it also makes me appreciate my cold showers, Brazilian morning coffee, mosquito net and belching air conditioner.

That being said, I feel obligated to show you my mosquito net ... I feel like a pretty pretty princess underneath my sheath of protection. Funny how every little girl wishes for this sort of decoration, and now that I have it, I feel like my life is complete.

I have become an expert at setting up my princess protection - I pull and tuck the head region first, then the far corner, then the close corner, leaving a little teensy tiny place to slink inside. It's a bit like that movie, Entrapment, with Katherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery, in which she navigates under the laser beams; although, I am far from replicating her elegance.

Of course, when the air conditioning starts belching in the middle of the night, my pretty pretty princess feeling is replaced by obscenities directed towards the A/C unit and a mad display of extreme lack of grace as I yank myself out from under my netting to fiddle with the Brazilian controls to figure out exactly at what temperature and flow would serve as Milk of Magnesia for the A/C's extreme indigestion. Still cursing, I crawl back under my pretty pretty princess net and pray to not have to go through the ongoing fight with the A/C unit.

Here is a picture of the "main drag" or the square in the middle of town, which is often populated with people hanging out, eating, drinking beer (Brazilians in Tefe drink more beer than a fraternity) and ... dogs. Motos are everywhere. You can see the river in the distance, if you look closely enough. And of course, the team - a picture taken from outside of the Institute which we are working. Stephan, Me, Maiken and Steve. Nice view, no?

May 22: Do You Know What We Are Up Against?

Complements of my future sister-in-law ... Click on the link if you don't know what it is!

http://www2.oprah.com/health/oz/oz_20070521_350_109.jhtml

May 21, 2007: Drop the Chicken

I wanted to post a few pictures that fully describes the breadth and depth of the Amazon; these two from the plane should give you a good idea of its vastness (note the “tin” airplane wings).



The picture below is of our team, Steve O (aka Stevie Ray), Maiken, Stephan (our token Brazilian) and me, right as we got off the plane in Tefe. Since this picture, we have instituted mandatory cocktail hour in which we all take turns making some sort of sophisticated beverage before heading out to dinner, which consists of - as you should be able to recite along with me – fried fish, fried chicken, fried manoc, and rice and beans. “For every bean,” as I have learned from a translation of a Danish phrase from Maiken, “there is a tiny sound.” Not to cause any alarm, but here is a picture of the “pier” that we crossed to get to our boat for our tour of the Amazon –
And here is a picture of me on the boat, with the Amazon in the background, followed by a scenic shot of the Amazon:

This picture is the quintessential house that sits much further away from the town of Tefe; although, I am quite jealous of the bathing children in the river (far right corner), as I’m sure the waters are much warmer than my morning showers. Nonetheless, obviously I cannot live without the internet, so living without electricity may not suit my lifestyle.
One of my favorite pictures – part of our boat trip consisted of a little side trip to a tiny village across the lake (part of the Amazon, but too large to call it part of the river), where our driver taxied some others back (um, yeah, don’t ask, just see the picture). We enjoyed the hot mugginess with a cold beer at one of the shack stands on the beach.
This picture of Maiken is one of my favorites – you can see the houses in the background, which sharply contrasts with our Indiana Jones attire.

Well, that’s it for today – we met with our clients for the first time in person, and toured the Institute’s facilities. It’s definitely a diamond in the rough, as government funding has been kind to the quest for scientific and ecological knowledge. But, more on that later. Time to set up the mosquito net and take malaria pills (crazy-ass dreams from this stuff).

May 17 - May 20: Plastic Chairs and Beer ...

... is all you need to be happy in the Amazon.

It has been an adventure getting here, with two six hour plane rides and a five hour layover, and a three hour tour of Brazilian customs. We stopped in Manaus for a day and a half, which was a good introduction to Brazil and the extreme heat, mugginess and refreshing cold showers (except in the morning).

I have to laugh - our air conditioner in our room (we were lucky to have one) was on a timer, so we would wake up in the middle of the night sweating our asses off to restart the timer on the air conditioner. We discovered this little fun detail after sweating our asses off for the first night we were there, thinking that our air conditioning was broken (a fun little window unit). We did see the ``fast`` boat that we were going to ride if the airport remained closed; needless to say, I am glad we took the plane. By the way, the airport was closed due to birds circling trash dumps near the Tefe airport.

My first view of the Amazon River was on our plane ride to Tefe, where we are now. It is amazingly VAST - it looks like an ocean. I had no idea the magnitude of the river. Tefe is quite an interesting place, with about 50K inhabitants. There is little industry here, outside of small hotels (2-3), a few restaurants, and of course, the markets. I thought I would lose weight here, but given that the staple foods are fried fish, fried chicken, fried manoc, fried bananas and rice and beans, with beer being cheaper than water, it looks like I may have to forgo dietary restrictions for the time being.

The nightlife in Tefe is quite funny, with just a lot of drinking beer, and one dance club that looked like it was more appropriate for 14 year olds than us old farts. There was some sort of street party yesterday, that was semi-sponsored by the church, which uses a foghorn to blast the sounds of the bells. You could purchase local fried Brazilian food for fifty cents, which was good. Being foreigners, we are often stared at, especially by the younger folk. We do think that our presence here has quickly spread through the community.

Yesterday, we hired a `boat taxi` to take us around the lake/river right outside of our door, where we went were the two rivers in the Amazon converge - one is blackish, the other is brownish/murky, and you can actually see the colors mixing - like miso soup or coffee and milk. Here is where you can see the legendary river dolphins, as well as the Amazon pink dolphins. I will of course post pictures when I am able. We also visited a local village in which it´s possible to swim, and only Stephan (our Brazilian team member) braved the waters. Maiken, Steve and I watched from a beer shack on plastic chairs.

In general, I am pretty amazed by the vibrancy, the laid back attitude, and the casualness of the Amazon region.

Otherwise, my new official perfume is DEET, and my attire is consistently Indiana Jones, and my hair is pulled back due to the frizz that often sneaks out. I´m definitely enjoying myself, and look forward to the next three weeks!

Thursday, May 17, 2007

A friend of mine inspired me to create a blog, especially with all of the craziness going on! Hopefully, I'll become much more efficient and creative as time goes on.

I'll be posting pictures/stories of my trip to Brazil which starts today ... as I sit in the Miami International Airport. Here's a picture to whet your interest on where I'll be going!

Chat soon!