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Aviso: This week's email contains language that may offend and includes words such as mosquito, bastardly and substantial.
I know, since some of you have told me, that sometimes maybe you wish you were here amongst a bunch of hot, wet, colourfully exotic fun and adventure, where rush hour doesn’t exist and in the balmy tropical air you never need to wear more across your chest than a t-shirt. It’s an envy I relate to just fine because I’ve felt it in the past when my mates and/or family have been out and about in the world. So if that’s you then I apologize in advance because I’m here to tell you today that it still is mostly completely awesome living here in this particular part of the famed, legendary and exotic Amazon jungle.
However, on the plus side for the more bastardly of you, there are a few things sitting there on the negative tray of the scales to stop it being an actual piece of paradise here and the most substantial and hellish of them goes by the name of carapana. In English we call them mosquitoes and in my book they are the undisputed assholes of not just the insect kingdom, but the entire animal kingdom.
The madness of their whine is the least of their weapons against human sanity, the fact that they can bear life threatening disease the most grave. Thankfully the likes of malaria, yellow fever and dengue don’t stalk the lands close to Belém but they exist in other parts of the Amazon and I still take the anti-malarials and thank the needle that delivered me the yellow fever vaccine. Apart from that there’s the itch, the nagging, tugging devils under your skin.
I have a big heart and I have a place in it for all animals (including hyenas and lawyers) but mosquitoes and another little son-of-a-bitch called maruim (ma-roo-eem) which is like an even smaller sandfly and can get through mosquito netting. I wish every one of them would get simultaneously struck by lightning, burned by lava and eaten by piranhas. They are the devil’s own army of torment and one of the curses I bear is that they find me delicious.
Another bummer is that I will miss the weddings of three of the best of the good bastards that walk this planet. Marty Wheeler’s has passed already and those lovable beasts of men, Timothy Wood and Ian Wills will yet sob manfully as their beauties float down the aisle towards futures of sunbeams, roses and washing clothes that smell of fishermen. These are three cats I’d take a bullet for and missing the wedding of any one of them is something I don’t just shrug off lightly.
That’s pretty much it though, the other little negatives are pretty easy to shrug off when faced with the many other awesomenesses of this part of the globe. Also, when the biggest negative of all – being thousands of miles from the most beautiful woman on the planet – is only a day or so away from being remedied in the most comprehensive and sexy way possible, a man can become very forgiving of things like scorpions and the unreliability of certain aspects of the brazilian way of doing things.
I know, since some of you have told me, that sometimes maybe you wish you were here amongst a bunch of hot, wet, colourfully exotic fun and adventure, where rush hour doesn’t exist and in the balmy tropical air you never need to wear more across your chest than a t-shirt. It’s an envy I relate to just fine because I’ve felt it in the past when my mates and/or family have been out and about in the world. So if that’s you then I apologize in advance because I’m here to tell you today that it still is mostly completely awesome living here in this particular part of the famed, legendary and exotic Amazon jungle.
However, on the plus side for the more bastardly of you, there are a few things sitting there on the negative tray of the scales to stop it being an actual piece of paradise here and the most substantial and hellish of them goes by the name of carapana. In English we call them mosquitoes and in my book they are the undisputed assholes of not just the insect kingdom, but the entire animal kingdom.
The madness of their whine is the least of their weapons against human sanity, the fact that they can bear life threatening disease the most grave. Thankfully the likes of malaria, yellow fever and dengue don’t stalk the lands close to Belém but they exist in other parts of the Amazon and I still take the anti-malarials and thank the needle that delivered me the yellow fever vaccine. Apart from that there’s the itch, the nagging, tugging devils under your skin.
I have a big heart and I have a place in it for all animals (including hyenas and lawyers) but mosquitoes and another little son-of-a-bitch called maruim (ma-roo-eem) which is like an even smaller sandfly and can get through mosquito netting. I wish every one of them would get simultaneously struck by lightning, burned by lava and eaten by piranhas. They are the devil’s own army of torment and one of the curses I bear is that they find me delicious.
Another bummer is that I will miss the weddings of three of the best of the good bastards that walk this planet. Marty Wheeler’s has passed already and those lovable beasts of men, Timothy Wood and Ian Wills will yet sob manfully as their beauties float down the aisle towards futures of sunbeams, roses and washing clothes that smell of fishermen. These are three cats I’d take a bullet for and missing the wedding of any one of them is something I don’t just shrug off lightly.
That’s pretty much it though, the other little negatives are pretty easy to shrug off when faced with the many other awesomenesses of this part of the globe. Also, when the biggest negative of all – being thousands of miles from the most beautiful woman on the planet – is only a day or so away from being remedied in the most comprehensive and sexy way possible, a man can become very forgiving of things like scorpions and the unreliability of certain aspects of the brazilian way of doing things.
They call Easter “Semana Santa” here and just up the river from my island of Murutucu is the town of São Domingos Do Capim where I spent 4 days two weeks ago with some other good bastards, or what they call here more civilly “a gente boa” (good people). I went there to see Pororoca, a tidal bore famous with surfers for the potential of a half hour ride on a wave more than 2.5 metres in height.
When the full moon low tides close to the equinox turn and begin to surge against the natural flow of the river there’s sometimes enough resistance between the two to throw up these tidal bores. Every March on the day of the full moon the national river surfing championships of Brazil is held near São Domingos Do Capim, only 120km upstream from Belém, where Rio Guamá is joined by Rio Capim.
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Three hours on a surprisingly comfortable bus (I was expecting a Romancing The Stone kind of ride) and there I am in São Domingos Do Capim, and staying at the house of Edilson (Ay-deal-son) no less. Edilson is a good friend of Polaco, the foreman of Amazon Frut and thanks to a single phone call from Polaco, even though Edilson and I had never met I spent three days at his place and didn’t have to worry about spending a single centavo on food or board. Such is the hospitality of a gente boa.
Even better, Edilson’s four fifths finished house is directly above his panificadora (bakery) so his place always smells magnificent. Not only that, but three of Edilson’s brothers, Naldo, Didi and Eliel took it in turns to get me round the place on the back of their motorbikes (the pre-eminent form of transport in SDDC). Plus, because of Pororoca and Semana Santa, the Friday and Saturday nights were big festa nights, hundreds of people filling the riverside where in one part of the place a dozen identical kiosk/bars duked it out for custom with enormous stereo systems.
In another separated part of the riverfront was a full big stage set up (a 10 foot high stage no less) where bands played, dancers danced (like you imagine latin american girls to dance, super-hot) and at one point a capoeira group put on a display. In between and around the sides are stalls selling more beer and local delicacies (many involving shrimp). Away from the river front, about 3 km up the road into the little city, was one of those dance parties with the speakers so big the bass bypasses your ears and arrives as a surreal thumping/throbbing in your chest.
It was all so cool that the fact the wave didn’t eventuate for either of the two days I waited for it in the staging area barely had any effect on the amount of fun the whole deal was. Best of all, as ever, was meeting and hanging out with these people from this different culture. I’d forgotten my Portuguese/English dictionary in the rush to leave the island and this was the longest time I’d roamed without it. There were moments where it got frustrating for me trying to find ways to explain things, especially talking with Naldo who’s a carpenter too, but all in all it was fine in spite of the limits I have. I’m going back in two or three weeks to help Naldo (who’s been building aforementioned four-fifths finished house) and give back to Edilson some of the goodness he freely laid on for me.
I’ve been playing some football here, in Brazil, with Brazilians. It’s only been on improvised fields, concrete, barely dried mud, and only with my mates. It’s a million miles from the Maracana but that’s part of the perfection of it. The legend of a player like Pelé is that he started playing in the street in bare feet with a tin can. The Brazilians have a word for this type of football that translates as “naked”. No shirts, no shoes, the field is wherever there’s room to play. Just play futebol.
It’s not that I’m even the biggest football fan around. I still love the World Cup, and don’t believe there’s any other form of entertainment that can deliver the same pure joy you can see on the face of a player who’s just scored in that epic tournament. But in the last 18 years of my life I’ve only played three years for a club. Last season I didn’t catch a single game live of Manchester United, who I once dreamed of playing for and followed like a religion.
But it was football that started my curiousity with this country, the football that in 1982, at the World Cup, tore NZ apart 4-0 without seeming to even break a sweat. And it was the fans of Brazil, there in those stadiums, partying and drumming and dancing, that made me think as an 8 year old kid, “I like Brazilians”. This country has many legends, about both football and the jungle, and there’s something about playing the game here that makes me feel at once out of my depth and utterly at home.
The school itself, the reason my ass landed itself here in this part of Brazil, is progressing but very slowly. Jon, who linked me with the project and knows the ways of Belém and Pará well, advised me before I arrived here on more than one occasion to expect delays and a notion of reliability alien to our own when it comes to timekeeping or keeping one’s word.
A lot of times people say they’ll do something with all the good intention in the world, not lying at all, but then simply forgetting to do it. I need to chase up almost every request several times, something that’s often true back in NZ too, only here on an Amazon sized scale.
(Speaking of an Amazon sized scale, the whole of NZ (or England for that matter since we’re slightly bigger than them) fits within this one brazilian state of Pará five times. I love that sort of stuff, it blows my mind. Like thinking about the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way that’s 3000 times the mass of Sol, our lovely old sun, which gives life to our planet.)
But it is progressing and I still feel like one of the luckiest buggers alive to be involved in this project, on this island, in this river, in this country. At least half a dozen times a day I still stop and say to myself, only just believing it, “You’re in Brazil dude … in the frikken Amazon jungle (or city, wherever I happen to be at the time) … and you live here, at least for now, in one of the most legendary and badass places on the whole planet.” Then sometimes I can’t help laughing.
p.s. For anyone curious to know exactly which of the big islands in this big, big river Murutucu is, follow this link to a Google map …
http://www.worldmapfinder.com/Map_EarthMap.php?ID=/Pt/South_America/Brazil/Belem
You can use the icons in top left of the page to move around or zoom in and out, or you can just left click and drag the map around to where you want to look.
By the south banks of Belém runs the Rio Guamá (River Guamá) and there directly to the south are what look like two islands. Roughly halfway along the larger island you can see that a smaller river cuts it in two. This smaller river is only 40 odd metres wide and it separates Ilha Cumbu to the west (left) from Ilha Murutucu to the east. The map blurs out right over the area where the Amazon Frut compound lies, on the northwest facing banks of Murutucu, about 700-800m (there’s a scale bottom left of the map) to the east of that separating river (passiencia).
Even better, Edilson’s four fifths finished house is directly above his panificadora (bakery) so his place always smells magnificent. Not only that, but three of Edilson’s brothers, Naldo, Didi and Eliel took it in turns to get me round the place on the back of their motorbikes (the pre-eminent form of transport in SDDC). Plus, because of Pororoca and Semana Santa, the Friday and Saturday nights were big festa nights, hundreds of people filling the riverside where in one part of the place a dozen identical kiosk/bars duked it out for custom with enormous stereo systems.
In another separated part of the riverfront was a full big stage set up (a 10 foot high stage no less) where bands played, dancers danced (like you imagine latin american girls to dance, super-hot) and at one point a capoeira group put on a display. In between and around the sides are stalls selling more beer and local delicacies (many involving shrimp). Away from the river front, about 3 km up the road into the little city, was one of those dance parties with the speakers so big the bass bypasses your ears and arrives as a surreal thumping/throbbing in your chest.
It was all so cool that the fact the wave didn’t eventuate for either of the two days I waited for it in the staging area barely had any effect on the amount of fun the whole deal was. Best of all, as ever, was meeting and hanging out with these people from this different culture. I’d forgotten my Portuguese/English dictionary in the rush to leave the island and this was the longest time I’d roamed without it. There were moments where it got frustrating for me trying to find ways to explain things, especially talking with Naldo who’s a carpenter too, but all in all it was fine in spite of the limits I have. I’m going back in two or three weeks to help Naldo (who’s been building aforementioned four-fifths finished house) and give back to Edilson some of the goodness he freely laid on for me.
I’ve been playing some football here, in Brazil, with Brazilians. It’s only been on improvised fields, concrete, barely dried mud, and only with my mates. It’s a million miles from the Maracana but that’s part of the perfection of it. The legend of a player like Pelé is that he started playing in the street in bare feet with a tin can. The Brazilians have a word for this type of football that translates as “naked”. No shirts, no shoes, the field is wherever there’s room to play. Just play futebol.
It’s not that I’m even the biggest football fan around. I still love the World Cup, and don’t believe there’s any other form of entertainment that can deliver the same pure joy you can see on the face of a player who’s just scored in that epic tournament. But in the last 18 years of my life I’ve only played three years for a club. Last season I didn’t catch a single game live of Manchester United, who I once dreamed of playing for and followed like a religion.
But it was football that started my curiousity with this country, the football that in 1982, at the World Cup, tore NZ apart 4-0 without seeming to even break a sweat. And it was the fans of Brazil, there in those stadiums, partying and drumming and dancing, that made me think as an 8 year old kid, “I like Brazilians”. This country has many legends, about both football and the jungle, and there’s something about playing the game here that makes me feel at once out of my depth and utterly at home.
The school itself, the reason my ass landed itself here in this part of Brazil, is progressing but very slowly. Jon, who linked me with the project and knows the ways of Belém and Pará well, advised me before I arrived here on more than one occasion to expect delays and a notion of reliability alien to our own when it comes to timekeeping or keeping one’s word.
A lot of times people say they’ll do something with all the good intention in the world, not lying at all, but then simply forgetting to do it. I need to chase up almost every request several times, something that’s often true back in NZ too, only here on an Amazon sized scale.
(Speaking of an Amazon sized scale, the whole of NZ (or England for that matter since we’re slightly bigger than them) fits within this one brazilian state of Pará five times. I love that sort of stuff, it blows my mind. Like thinking about the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way that’s 3000 times the mass of Sol, our lovely old sun, which gives life to our planet.)
But it is progressing and I still feel like one of the luckiest buggers alive to be involved in this project, on this island, in this river, in this country. At least half a dozen times a day I still stop and say to myself, only just believing it, “You’re in Brazil dude … in the frikken Amazon jungle (or city, wherever I happen to be at the time) … and you live here, at least for now, in one of the most legendary and badass places on the whole planet.” Then sometimes I can’t help laughing.
p.s. For anyone curious to know exactly which of the big islands in this big, big river Murutucu is, follow this link to a Google map …
http://www.worldmapfinder.com/Map_EarthMap.php?ID=/Pt/South_America/Brazil/Belem
You can use the icons in top left of the page to move around or zoom in and out, or you can just left click and drag the map around to where you want to look.
By the south banks of Belém runs the Rio Guamá (River Guamá) and there directly to the south are what look like two islands. Roughly halfway along the larger island you can see that a smaller river cuts it in two. This smaller river is only 40 odd metres wide and it separates Ilha Cumbu to the west (left) from Ilha Murutucu to the east. The map blurs out right over the area where the Amazon Frut compound lies, on the northwest facing banks of Murutucu, about 700-800m (there’s a scale bottom left of the map) to the east of that separating river (passiencia).
