| Week 4 | |
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This has been quite a week. I celebrated my birthday on Monday, and I opened the school for the children. We started the school with five kids. It went pretty well. In fact every day this week has gone just fine with the kids. The only real complaint that I have is that I don't have a copy machine. I have been spending several hours every day trying to recreate worksheets and materials when it would only take me 15 minutes if I had a copy machine. The home school curriculum that I bought for Philipinho (little Phil) is a good program. It is easy to follow, and will make my life pretty simple (as soon as I have a copy machine).
The kitchen staff made me a birthday cake and everyone came in and surprised me at the end of the evening English lesson with the fishing guides. It was very nice. Scott was not successful in catching the monkey. Speaking of my classes with the fishing guides, they are going great. I think people are genuinely excited to be there. On Tuesday during lunch, Adrianna (the Columbian goddess married to the manager of the Amazon Queen) asked me what the date was. I told her it was Tuesday the 11th. She said well today is an important day in the history of America. I was thinking back…what had I missed. The only thing that I could think of was that September 11th was my Granny's birthday. And I wasn't even completely sure about that. When she read my blank look, she told me about the attack on the World Trade Center. I was shocked, sick, disgusted, angry… I still am. I immediately thought about Cecilia and Jeremy (friends visiting my parents from London) who were to go to California. If I had my dates correct, they were to fly out that day. I was terrified that they might somehow get caught up in the mess. After I got the kids settled in with Edem, the Brazilian teacher, I went to Ruth's and watched CNN for a while. I will never forget the sight of the airplane crashing through the second tower. I went back to school, and at some point during the day the towers had both collapsed. A part of me is relieved to be in the rainforest. Another part of me feels guilty for being so glad to be so far away. It's strange. I feel un-American for not being there to share my part of the grief. I tried to call home for several days but all of the satellite links were completely congested. I finally got through, and Jeremy answered the phone. We spoke just long enough for me to know that he and Cecilia were delayed but safe. I've watched CNN for about 30 minutes each day after dinner. The video of the attacks is amazing. While the pictures are in my mind, the one thing that really stands out is Tuesday evening a reporter made mention to the kids who were left with out parents. You know it hadn't even occurred to me that thousands of kids went to school like it was any other normal day, and came home orphans. That's what made it real, that's what made me cry. Anyways enough about that! One night this week I was attacked by some blood sucking biting insect thing. I apparently I slept with my arms up over my head. When I woke up I had at least 50 bites on the undersides of both arms and on my neck and chest. I look like I have chicken pox! At breakfast I showed Ruth the aftermath of the war on my arms and within 20 minutes I had all new bed linens and a mosquito net over my bed. Scott says out bed looks like he should have a harem. Phil who was in Manaus also brought back two bottle of OFF. The two bottles was nice…but I think I need two gallons! I ought to bathe in it every day. And I am the only person here getting bit! I mean NO ONE else is having any problems with the bugs at all except me. Scott laughs and says that he's glad that I'm running interference for him. It is quite the joke around here that the best way to guarantee you won't get bit by a bug around here is to stand next to me! I'm still quite pale. I'm going to try to get a bit of sun…maybe they are attracted to the color white! I have been making friends with the monkeys. There are two adult monkeys that live as pets in a big cage here, Chica and Xico. There are also three other juvenile monkeys that hang around the cages but they are free. They are all pretty tame and the caretaker feeds them several times daily. Well two of them have taken a liking to me. They play with me, crawl on me, pick lice from my hair, you know monkey stuff. A third one who is a bit on the shy side will come down, take food from my hand and then run back to the top of the cage or back into the trees. Well today, I was playing with my monkey friends (Blondie and Rascal) and the third little monkey came down and joined in. He let me pet him, he nibbled my finger, looked in my nose (you know money stuff) then out of nowhere he ran up my arm, stole my earring and ran back down my arm again. Zip, zip, zip. He went on top of the cage and laughed at me! Yes monkeys laugh! For about fifteen minutes he examined that earring. He looked at it, smelled it, tasted it, banged it on the roof of the cage. He ran all over the place Ou-Ouing with that earring in his hand or in his mouth. He fought the other monkeys so they wouldn't get it from him. I got the caretaker and an audience of people all trying to catch or bait the monkey. When the caretaker finally got him to come close, the little shit popped it in his mouth and it was gone! They offered to catch him and put him in a cage for a few days and look through his shit to get the earring back! They were serious! I declined the offer. First of all I wouldn't dig through monkey shit to get it back. In fact, I can't really think of anything I'd dig through shit to retrieve. Secondly, if I wouldn't do it…I wouldn't ask someone else to do it on my behalf. And finally, if they did get it back…then what? I don't think I'd want to wear a monkey shit earring! I'm of the opinion that if someone wants to try to get the monkey and scour its scat for a few days…they can keep the earring. We'll consider it a handsome reward! 09/16/01 Yesterday afternoon we took a speedboat out to one of the neighboring communities. It was a scene straight out of national geographic! Little hut houses, hand made furniture, everyone barefoot. It was clean and the people were fabulous! The Brazilian government gives the communities in the interior a small generator, a TV and a satellite dish. Fuel for the generator and maintenance of all of the equipment is up to the community. Their satellite dish had broken and they had no way to get it repaired. Phil said that he could get a new part for the dish in Manaus. So they traded two chickens and Phil will get them their part this week. I took pictures of all of the children in the village. I'll print them out and have Geraldo (the head of maintenance) make a frame. We stayed for a while and visited and looked around a little bit. I didn't want to take too many pictures…I thought it a bit rude. Anyways we took the chickens and headed back to the Lodge shortly before sunset. Today we went mud-doggin' on the Gators out to the vegetable garden. It was a bumpy and muddy trip…it was great! The garden was beautiful. Everything was blooming, well maintained, lots of good stuff to eat! We also went out to the dry dock where they store the boats and boat equipment. They have an incredible amount of work to do to get all of the boats cleaned, new decals, motors installed, and such before the first group of fishermen arrive in two weeks. The Gators are cool little cars that will take you through just about anything…I've got to get me one of those! Another barge arrived today. This one had mostly equipment and fuel on it. But we did get a TV and a satellite dish. They will install it sometime during the week. I haven't really missed TV but it will be good to keep up with the news. Scott and Phil are going to Manaus in the morning for a day or two. They are going to get me a copy machine (or at least they better!). Once I can just make copies of the materials I already have instead of having to make everything from scratch, I will be able to relax a bit and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. I'm still pale and I haven't been swimming once! I hope Scott is able to get everything up and running on the computer. He's the happiest man you've ever seen because he will have Internet access in Manaus. If you are reading this then I guess all worked out just fine! Ta-Ta for now! |