Benzinho, Chapolim, Elesiu, Nelinho, Eder, Dudu, Edimar in front of the new school.
I don’t know if the first time you see half a metre of snake sticking halfway out from behind your guitar in the living room is anything like noticing a juvenile walrus rumaging through your vegie garden or coming out of PakNSave to find a pteradactyl perched on the rear wing of your hovercraft, because frankly I don’t have a vegie garden or a hovercraft.
I do have a guitar though and whatever it was that I’d at first thought was a piece of hose lying on the ground there behind that guitar, shortly afterward it tried to eat one of the sticks Edimar was using to convince it that it had a better place to be than a metre and a half from where I sleep (yep, I sleep in the living room). He and Cutia told me afterward that it was a jararaca (a type of brazilian pit viper more common in the south) but Edimar was laughing quite a bit and I still don´t know if it was because of adrenanilin or because they´d put something relatively harmless there to play a joke on the New Zealander.
Either way, it was pretty awesome to see a real live snake perform a real live strike, even if it was wasted on a bit of stick, and even if it was there in my living room. And the good news is (although maybe not from the snakes point of view), the snake didn’t get to eat me. I´d come into the house alone after lunch and had wandered around doing doing this and that for three or four minutes, talking to myself in an exagerated Texan accent, and was about to walk out again when I noticed Dudu the labourer had left my guitar facing around backwards after he´d played it before lunch.
I always leave it strings facing out into the room, because it looks better and balances better, so I started to step towards it to spin it round when I noticed something like a hose or piece of rope laying there seemingly connected to a big screwdriver I´d left nearby earlier. A second later my brain had started getting a signals from my eyes that, “Hey dude, I think that might be a cobra (portuguese for snake is cobra, it doesn’t have to have a hooded head or be swaying to a flute),” but my brain was answering back, “Come on eyes, a snake in the house? How could that be? It climed the stairs? It can’t be a snake. Keep moving legs.”
But my eyes weren’t easily swayed, and became more insistent as they adjusted to the darkness of the corner from the midday glare that had been flooding in from the open front door. “That thing really seems very snake like brain, we need to stop the legs and get a better idea of this thing before we get any closer, maybe get a machete or flame-thrower.” My brain replies, “You haven’t seen a snake in the jungle in a month, what’re the chances one just wandered on into the house while everyone was out?” And my legs kept advancing.
As the shape of the dark thing in the corner became more distinct my eyes went into full alert. “No man, that’s a snake, that’s not a length of hose – repeat, NOT a length of hose! Stop legs now!” And my brain, like Han Solo in Star Wars when Obi Wan is telling him that, “That’s no moon … that’s a space station,” replies, “Yeah, I think you’re right. Chewy turn this ship around!” And my legs stop and back up a little, but only a half a foot. I don’t want to back away yet. For one thng, the head is behind the guitar so it can’t have a go at me, and what could be just another day at the office for one of our carpenter cuzzes from across the Tasman is interesting as hell to a boy from good old safe NZ.
I’m standing there a metre and a half from what I know now is a real snake and I’m stoked. What I don’t know yet is whether it’s alive or whether one of the lads has set me up a nice freshly passed away present. I’m still thinking, “I know the snake could have got in here just fine, they can climb trees for Hasselhoff’s sake, but how convenient that it’s just lying there half out in the open in a corner where I’d have a very good chance of noticing it. Surely it’s as inanimate as Jenny Shipley in the sack.”
Good sense took hold though and when I looked out the door and saw Cutia (the dude in the canoe in that photo I sent) in the distance I called him over. He’s the epitome of happy-go-lucky, almost as if the phrase could have been invented for him, and he swaggers on up and along my varanda ready to shoot a few jokes or talk about girls, a perpetual half-smile on his face when it’s not actually fully smiling or laughing. But when he gets to the front door I’m standing just inside of, and I say, “Eh Cutia … cobra?” he turns robo-serious and stops dead in his tracks. He pokes his head round the door to look into the corner for a second, then backs out to make a wide detour to the back door where he can approach from a nice 8 or 9 metres away.
“Benjamin … cobra,” he says, still at least 2 metres behind me. He calls for Edimar who’s been swaggering the same swagger along the walkway off towards where we eat lunch. Edimar shows the same respect but less caution than Cutia, stepping over to move the guitar out of the way and expose the snake fully. That’s when it got really cool, by which I mean I’d backed off another three metres and Edimar had grabbed two long sticks and moved in to try and coax the poor bugger out of where he’d probably thought he could take a nice early afternoon sleep.
Edimar moved the sticks in to try and lift the snake and the snake struck then, short and fast and beautiful to see from a safe distance. But as Edimar started lifting the snake on the X he’d formed with the ends of the sticks it quickly slithered off and out the door and off the deck and into the undergrowth and was gone from our sight in seconds. Whether it could’ve ruined my day or not it was badass to see it, and for the last three weeks since then I’ve looked twice at many twisty shaped dark green and/or brown sticks in my path as I’ve worked or walked.
The only other snake I’ve seen so far was a weird little fella, only as thick as a very thick earthworm but almost two feet long. It was Dudu the little labourer who found him in the dirt and started pulling him out by the tail and I was convinced it was some kind of uber-worm until Dudu pried open its tiny jaws with a small stick. One of the other guys who lives on the island, Nelinho (Nel-een-yo), had come by and said it’s a type of water snake, so Edimar chucked it into a tide pool in the mud and there it went, wriggling its Dr Seuss looking way after whatever it could find to eat there.
I don’t really know why I’ve written more about the wildlife here than the people, I guess because there’s a lot of things crawling and swimming around here that, for me are new to have living around, and I’ve always been a bit or a geek for wildlife documentaries. But it’s the people that’re my reason for wanting to live here for a while and it’s the people that’re my favourite thing about this place. The guys I work with are a bunch of hard cases in general, all ready for a laugh at a moment’s notice.
But Soldalice (Sol-da-lee-see) the cook is one of my favourite people here. She’s as hard case as most of the lads and has helped me a lot by being a kind of constant presence if I need anything on the island. She lives in the first house you get to from the dock with her husband Ceara and two girls Thais and Tainara and I eat dinner at her table every night. I also go to her house to use her washing machine and/or washboard (if the power is down) and she’s helped me out teaching me how to get my clothes bright and new again after the jungle and my hot body have done their worst. God I love and miss modern washing machines. Soldalice loves to have a laugh though and is almost always in a good mood. She also loves try and give me a fright or make ghost noises and has a sweet relationship with her girls, who are also hard case.
Edimar is often the centre of attention wherever he is, he has charisma to burn and holds court effortlessly, animatedly expressing his views and/or jokes with his hands and in full flight, whether lying, sitting or standing (sometimes all three interchanging), changes his body position every few seconds. I rarely understand more than 10% of what he says when he’s at full throttle, partly because it’s not proper or well pronounced portuguese he’s speaking much of the time, partly just because it’s too fast for my brain to translate, but the way he modulates his voice and with his physicality he’s utterly entertaining and the laughter of the audience barely subsides before the next burst hits home. Like many of the people I’ve met here he’s not a tall guy, only about 5’9” but he’s a force of nature I feel fortumate to have been put in the path of.
Ceara is similar to Edimar but in a less animated way, in that he often holds court or is the guy people stop to listen to. He talks more loudly and slowly, which is great for my portuguese, but has terrible pronunciation. He works on the island in a general role, supervising loading, unloading and transport of the açai to and from the factory and dock, and some nights walks guard patrol with his shotgun. He’s also very friendly and likes a good yak, and also likes a good drink on the weekends. In the evening, between finishing working the dock and starting walking the patrol he’ll wear only his Bermudas (boardshorts) and for some reason the mosquitoes barely bother him, the bastard. Hearing he and Edimar argue is hilarious, Edimar the machine gun, Ceara the cannon, both adamant they know better but at the end of the day still good mates
Cutia is Edimar’s partner in crime a lot of the time, less energetic but equally forward. He’s a good deal older than most of the guys working here, early 40s I think and as the adjutant to Polaco the foreman he holds a certain level authority and respect. He still gets his fair share of the ribbing though and is as good natured as they come, never throwing his weight about and never shirking a share of the heavy load when it’s required. He’s like a not so big friendly bear, like Baloo from the jungle book maybe, but talks more about sex. He doesn’t do anything too fast, but when he does it, it stays done.
Two other guys I’ve talked with a lot are Elesiu (El-e-see-oo) and Nelinho, both close to my age and both keen to have a yarn about a range of subjects. Nelinho is about the same height as Edimar but more round. He’s a kind of odd jobs tradesman and has an almost fey air about him when he talks, almost like he’s putting on a show. It’s not that he’s quite at the level of being classified camp but he’s got an unmasculine way for a dude that lives in the jungle and works manually. He’s about 26 and lives not far up the creek on the island with his wife and five kids and he’s been one of the most helpful with learning a bunch of new words. Elesiu is a powerfully built ex-army dude who’s one of the operators of the big beautiful boiler we have on the island and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without a smile on his face. Similar to Nelinho he’s always super keen to talk to the foreigner and very patient when trying to explain new words to my slow brain.
Anyway y’all, that’s a bunch of reading right there, I guess once I get the momentum up I bash out a fair volume of words. This place is still awesome apart from missing my babycakes, and several times a day I catch my breath for a second and think to myself, “Shit dude, look at you … you’re in Brasil … in the frikken jungle … you lucky bastard.” And sorry about the lack of photos at this stage, I’ll try and get my stuff together better for next time. But yous all take care and hopefully the next time will be real soon.
Big, Amazon sized love,
Benjamin in Belem X
