A day in the Amazon

Although we started our adventure in a 15-seater van, we were driving through the bumpy streets of Manaus, located in the middle of the Amazon forest, in the State of Amazonas, Brasil. Much of the forest is preserved in this area, unlike in neighboring Para State or in other countries where the rainforest has suffered at the hands of loggers. We are also lucky to be located just a few kilometers from the Amazon River; closest to us is the Rio Negro, which merges with the Rio Solimões an hour down river from the Manaus Port where we boarded our big tour boat. The Rio Solimões and the Rio Amazonas is one and the same river, and one can follow the Amazon from the Atlantic Ocean as it turns into the Rio Solimões near Manaus and cruise upstream all the way to Peru in a large ship, no problem. However, the main feature of our trip was to travel down the black Rio Negro about an hour until the two rivers meet, where the two colors stand out in obvious contrast; the cloudy water of the Solimões--at a different temperature, density and speed to the Nego--running along side-by-side for miles. Our boat chugged along on this "line" for 20 minutes as everyone looked on slack-jawed at the scene for a moment before rushing to take pictures on the back deck. At one point, we were lucky to see a boto river dolphin, and although he was too quick for everyone's cameras, everyone on the boat marveled to see him jump out of the Amazon and head off into the dark waters of the Rio Negro.
As the tour continued, we stopped at a floating dock and took a 10 minute walk to see the giant Victoria waterlilies that sprout in the Amazon every March. At this time of year, the large, round lily pads--which can grow up to 3 meters in diameter--bore no flowers for us to gaze, but were impressive nonetheless. Afterwards, we boarded small 10-seater canoes and proceeded to travel down a small channel into a flooded forest area of the Amazon. Half the year the area is dry land, and from July the waters rise and flood the forest floor, turning it into a swamp where, at night, alligators roam and schools of piranha swarm; luckily, in the early afternoon, neither of these were to be found. On the way back to the floating dock, after buying a fresh coconut with two straws poking out of it, we grabbed the front seats on the canoe and sipped the coconut water as we zipped back through the flooded forest, the canoe operator dodging rubber trees with expertise.
Back at the floating dock, we walked past a pool containing two large pirarucu. They were large for freshwater fish, that is. For pirarucu, they were practically babies, only measuring a meter or so in length and weighing, we were told, about 25 kilograms, or 55 pounds. Pirarucu is one of the largest freshwater fish in the world and frequently grow up to 2 meters in length and over 100kg. We also found out, a few minutes later, that they taste delicious when breaded and fried! We were served a huge buffet lunch consisting of lots of veggies, but also massive servings of pirarucu, tucunare and tambaqui fillets--we took heaping helping of each and devoured it all.
Full from Amazonian cuisine and exploring--not to mention a couple glasses of Skol beer I had with lunch--we couldn't help but snooze for a bit on the big boat back to the port of Manaus. Our day had been truly amazing and will be one to remember.

Brazilian Rules Football

I was talking with one of the local consultants here yesterday, and he asked me how I liked Brazil. I told him I was having a good time, and I even played <s>soccer<s/> football with some guys last Saturday. He told me that a lot of times in Brazil, they make a rule that each time you get a yellow card penalty, you have to pay R$10, and for a red card they make you pay R$50. This way they can control the fouls people might be tempted to make. He said this system also works to "make things interesting" because a team will usually put R$100 into the pot for a Sunday tournament. They play against a bunch of teams, and the team at the end wins the pot. Maybe each player on the winning team can get about R$100 (about US$50) for playing football on a Sunday. The short game I played last Saturday was much more casual than this, but I could see how, in a more serious game, they would need some "incentive" to keep people from letting things get out of hand.

Grammar Point

The other day, as I went to the airport with our driver Monteiro, we were trying to converse in Portuguese and English, as usual. I had a few questions of Portuguese words I keep seeing and asked Monteiro, and then we were using the dictionary in the car to look stuff up. As we talked, he told me that Portuguese grammar is very difficult, and if he couldn't give the right answer in school when he was a kid the teacher would make him hold out his hand and then she'd smack it with a ruler until he got the answer right. He said he got his hand smacked so many times, now his Portuguese grammar is pretty good. I laughed, but was thinking, "Wow, that's terrible." Maybe Monteiro could see it in my eyes, because then he told me, "But if teacher does now. No. Call police. Teacher hold out hand," and motioned that, instead, the teacher would get punished.

The Botu Man

This weekend we plan to take the Amazon River tour to see where the Rio Negro and the Rio Solimoes come together to form the Amazon. The two rivers are different colors--black and yellow--different temperatures and different densities, so the contrast is apparent before they mix for some 6 kilometers.
Today I was speaking with one of our tech support staff, Monica, and she told me that you can see the river dolphins, botu, jumping back and forth from the black side to the yellow side. But she said she is scared of botu dolphins, because they are "wild animals" they are unpredictable and she would be scared to swim with them because they could drag you off down the river. I asked Monica if there were any incidents like that and she said she didn't know if the stories were true or not.
Then she told me there was one story about botu though. When a woman in Brazil is pregnant and doesn't want to say who the father is, she will sometimes say, "The father is Botu." Apparently, as lore would have it, on full moon nights a botu can appear as a very handsome man, dress up, come onto land, and then romance women. They are supposedly very good dancers, and they will lure women to the river, and then take them away. The women will come back pregnant with the Botu man's baby. So Monica said when she was younger, she would check the top of any good looking man's head to make sure he didn't have a "hole for resperation". "I don't go dance with man who has hole in top of his head," she declared.

Saturday Night Football

Last night I was lucky enough to be taken out to the local soccer football club with Monteiro, our driver, to play futsol. We arrived a little before 8pm and there was a game just winding down. The field was full size, outdoors, but completely enclosed in netting. We sat down and put on a natural bug repellent cream that had Monteiro brought, which left my skin feeling cool and a bit tingly, but I didn't get a single mosquito bite, so I suppose it worked like a charm. Eventually, the game came to an end and we ran out to the field. They turn the lights off between games, but the club lights flooded enough light onto the field to see, so we practiced shooting goals. In no time, other guys arrived one by one until there were about six of us taking turns shooting goals. The guy playing goalie was extraordinarily agile and was diving, rolling and blocking most of the shots. Monteiro, who everyone called "Teiro", introduced me to everyone by name, but also added that I am American, so for the rest of the evening I was known as "American", but it worked for me. Teiro introduced me to one guy who spoke pretty good English, and I was told his name was Portugal.
As more guys arrived, I noticed a few guys weren't wearing any shoes. In particular, the guys who didn't wear shoes, as I found out as we began to play, were some of the best players. I suppose it gave them better control over the ball, but it didn't seem to slow them down at all, nor did it hinder the power in their goal shots. Even with bare feet, these guys could thwack the ball with great speed and accuracy toward the goal, although most of the time the goalies would fly through the air almost perpendicular to the ground and block the shot. So it soon became obvious to me that most of these guys were absolute football fanatics, even if they just played it for, quote-unquote, recreation. I later asked Armando, one of our tech staff at the office who arrived partway through the game, and he said most of these guys play every day, although not always at the club, but probably in the street, anywhere.
There was also a good dose of sportsmanship in the air, so there were no fights. A good balance was struck, as well, because each game ended as soon as one team scored two goals, and then people from the losing team would switch out with guys on the sidelines. So, as it turned out, you were constantly switching teams and playing with the guys you had been playing against before. Nevertheless, a few guys were adamant about fouls and fought for every chance for their team to get control over that ball, and I saw it as part of being a good player--the ref would occasionally have to give in.
I played offense most of the time, so I got quite a bit of exercise running up and down the field either with my team or to guard the other team. I didn't get any shots at the goal, but I passed alright and blocked a few passes by the other team. Not too bad for not having played since I was about 10 years old, but really, at the end of the day, these guys were playing to have a good time and, most of all, for their love of the sport.
After an hour or so, our time was up and most of the guys went home, while a few others hung around and had a beer and played at the billiard table in the clubhouse. Monteiro, Armando and I went back out on the field and I got some pointers on how to shoot and pass, how to make a high goal kick and how to keep it low and in the corner. But as it neared 10pm, we decided to call it an evening and head home. On the way out, I guzzled some water, collected my things and then, remembering I had brought my camera, we took a picture together. As you can see, I was looking pretty exhausted, but feeling good. But, Monteiro invited me back to play again next week if I wanted, and, well, I just might give it another shot.

 

(Armando, me, Monteiro)

Notes from the Mall

Yesterday afternoon I headed out to Manauara Shopping Center to get some lunch, browse around, and maybe do some shopping. I spent about four hours there and realized that "the mall" is a nice little microcosm of any city. There you can see a subset of so many demographics, i.e. the herds of teenage boys in the game center, the gaggles of teenage girls in the food court, the couples holding hands as they browse, the families, the elderly couple, and of course the tourists.
After walking through most of the first floor and surveying what was on offer, I headed up to the second floor and walked into a small botique clothing shop that sold some very cool looking jeans and shirts. The shop guy who was helping me couldn't speak English, but did his best to show me around. Eventually, an older woman (the manager, maybe) who spoke some English helped me decipher a few things. Mostly, by finding out where there was a tailor in the mall to hem the length on the jeans, which were much too long. I bought a very nice Brazilian brand of stonewashed jeans called Iodice, walked down to the first level and found the tailors. There, after they measured the hem, I was told to come back in 40 minutes. To confirm this, I ended up tapping the time into a calculator they had near the register, and the girl nodded her head, so I gave her a thumbs up, took the receipt and headed to the food court.
Again bypassing the hamburgers, I ended up going to a taco stand for their carne burrito, and another shop where I got a baked potato covered in a brown sauce, sprinkled with cheese and dabbed with sour cream. The 40 minutes passed by quickly and I could only eat half of my food, but then I headed to the tailor and my jeans were ready.
After a couple more stops--to a music shop, where I picked up a few CDs by Brazilian musicians, and a homewares store, where I picked up a little cup to use when brushing my teeth--I strolled back to the exit and the taxi stand. I showed a driver the card for my hotel that I have in my wallet, and ten minutes and $10 reais later I was back in the lobby.
I found the mall a pretty fun place to hang out, and although it's a little scary at first to try and shop without knowing Portuguese, it's the best way to get your feet wet and try and converse with people, using thumbs up, broken sentences, written notes and even calculators. And the best part is, when I got home, I slipped on my new jeans, and I must say, they are by far the softest, most comfortable pair of jeans I have ever bought. I will likely be lounging in these for the better part of the remainder of my time here.

When in Rome Manaus...

When Manaus bid to be the host city for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, most of its residents were probably aware that holding the games in the middle of the Amazon jungle, in a city with few roads connecting it to the rest of the country, was a stretch of the imagination. However, soccer, or football as it's known outside of the U.S., is so popular in Brazil (think Pelé) that the residents, given the chance to host the World Cup, probably didn't give a hoot about road connectivity.

People tend to dress fairly casual, even in business situations, in Brazil. So it may come to no surprise that I often see people at the local government office where we're working wearing football jerseys of their favorite team to work. Die-hard fans have plenty of car regalia, mobile ringtones, and even tattoos in some cases of their favorite team. FIFA football is a way of life in Brazil, and Manaus is as proud as could be about their involvement in the 2014 games. People mention it daily. Children likely imagine themselves playing in the World Cup when they play matches in the parks on the weekend.

Our driver, Monteiro, is no exception in his love for football. Well, his love of the sport is exceptional in the sense that probably 10 minutes don't pass without Monteiro thinking of the game. When walking from the car to the office, he'll often give a practice kick with his foot in the air, daydreaming right along with the kids in the park.

So I was rather honored when Monteiro invited me to play soccer football with him on Sábado (Saturday). He knows that as an American I know next to nothing about FIFA, but I do like the game itself.

Actually, what we'll be playing isn't football, but an abbreviated style of the game, with a smaller field, five people to a side, and a smaller ball. Monteiro said this style of the game is called futebol de salão, or futsal. We'll be playing in the evening since it's too hot in Manaus to play while the sun is out.

I'm expecting the other people there will be fairly serious about the game, even a casual, weekend futsal match amongst friends. So it's a good thing that Monteiro is rather protective of me (note: I'm in charge of payroll); he said he would bring me some shin guards. But, actually, I think Monteiro mentioned that our translator, Ary, and tech staff, Armando, will be joining us, so it should be a fun evening.

(The picture is of Charles Miller, revered "Father of Brazilian football" and inventor of futsal)