Journals

         We leave the comfortable city setting of Belem and the softhotel beds behind with a 4 am wake up call that I don’t believe could have gone any worse.   We arrive downstairs in the lobby with our luggage to find that the bus we rented doesn’t have enough room to carry us all along with it.   We are told to wait in the lobby while another bus from the same transportation service is called to come pick us up.   Myself and some of the others in this study abroad class choose to remain outside in the dark restlessly trying to sleep on our bags.   Half an hour later, when a second bus and a second driver pull up, we begin the slow progression of filing onto the bus, fully expecting that we now can set off into the sunset on our journey.   Within five minutes Andre, the T.A. on the trip, tells us that there is still too many students and too many bags, and so a car is called to serve as a luggage carrier; using two buses is out of the question since only one bus was budgeted for.   Yet another thirty minutes later the car arrives and we are finally able to proceed.   As we all cram in, I find my way to the very back, taking my seat against the last right window, my elbows rubbing with Alda’s, one of two female students from the University of Brasilia .   She speaks broken English and much of our road adventure is passed in silence.    As we depart the major living center of northern Brazil on the Amazon River for the small gold-mining town of Tucuma just outside Kayapo Territory , we look out our windows to the sight of drastically changing scenery.   Quickly erased are the 20 story hotels and shopping malls – the paved roads with shoulders and sidewalks end – appearing are long stretches of dusty dirt roads well-traveled by logging trucks.   Many of my fellow students are trying to sleep or have already dozed off.   With our heads rapping against the window panels and our bodies suddenly lifted up from under us, this task will be increasingly difficult as the drive continues.   And we are told we are taking as direct a route as possible.   The Amazon basin is no easy place to get to.     About nine hours into what seems a never-ending expedition, we stop for lunch in the city of Maraba . Our professor, Dr. Chernela, or Janet as she instructs us to call her, directs the bus driver to the hotel (of which I can no longer remember) where she has planned for us to eat.   We enjoy a splendid buffet at this multi-star hotel (which will receive as its guest a Brazilian pop group in the near future) with a conference room, swimming pool and bar, and are told the rooms have mini-fridges and wireless internet access.   We are then routinely informed that we will be staying here on our return trip from the rainforest, as Maraba is a central location on our journey back through Brazil ; hardly the news we wanted to hear as we were preparing for the most primitive conditions of our lives.   I wondered why Janet would reserve such nice accommodations for us and came to the conclusion that, perhaps, when one gets out of the rainforest they desire to get back to the luxuries they have become so accustomed to.   We arrive in Tucuma just after 12 midnight, and after the longest bus ride of our lives, we check into the rooms where we will be staying in the days before our flights into Kayapo land.   It is a single story cement structure with signs of age; there are less rooms here than the number of floors at the softhotel.   Many of the rooms have at least room enough for four people, some with two queen size beds, some with two singles and a bunk-bed, and others still with just two bunk-beds.   I am fortunate enough to obtain a single bed, but without a pillow, as is standard for the motel.   We notice shards of glass protruding along the entire top of the cement wall which closes off the small lot and connects with a black metal gate to complete the motel’s protective measures.   Although our baggage car is still missing in action, we  celebrate our arrival by going to the only open bar in town.   We are met there by Barbara Zimmerman, the woman who through CI (Conservation International) has helped us in gaining access into Indigenous Territories, along with members of an NGO in town that work for the Kayapo.   Except for a drunken Brazilian sporting a Che shirt who continually stumbles over to our table to ramble in incoherent Portuguese, we are predictably, the only patrons at this bar, which also has a dance floor with a small CD player in the corner and disco ball hanging from the ceiling.   Much to our surprise, coming from the speakers is none other than Bono and U2, apparently put on as a good will measure towards the presence of Americans (the irony is lost on them).   Seated next to Barb, she tells me and other students listening that she doesn’t just dislike Bono, she absolutely hates him.   Apparently, his pandering on social issues around the world to political leaders doesn’t sit well with her.   In Brazil , they do not serve beer in 12 oz. bottles, but in liters, which they bring to the table with small glasses so everyone who desires can indulge.   Cerveza comes to the table with what looks like a scorecard that they use to check off each liter brought to your table.   Although there are a few exceptions, most everyone at the table, which is really 8 plastic tables pushed together in a row, passes around the numerous bottles in a celebratory manner.   By the time we leave there are nearly 30 checkmarks on our cerveza tally.   Somehow, we are not even drunk, perhaps already feeling intoxicated by the atmosphere alone.   It is something we have never seen before; it is something you could never make up. As we are collecting money (real, or reais, pronounced hey-ice) from everyone, a small boy no older than ten approaches us with plastic cone-shaped bags filled with salted nuts.   Of course the end of his night proves to be his biggest success, as we  Americans, perhaps largely out of pity, buy two and three bags apiece off him.   We now feel better about ourselves.   Barbara and the other men working for the NGO ride away in the back of a white pick-up truck.   The rest of us make the short walk back to our motel rooms thinking about what could possibly be in store for us tomorrow.   We sleep well the prospect of unknown expectations.