Living the Jungle Life

Jan 24-27

        I think I just had one of the most memorable experiences of my life.  It is a little hard to figure out where to begin and how to explain how challenging, difficult, fun and rewarding the past few days were. This blog post will probably be a lot of rambling, not follow chronological order, and show some evidence that I haven’t slept much the past few days and want to write this down before I sleep for 10 hours tonight. 

 I guess I’ll start at the beginning since it was quite an experience just traveling to the remote Tupana Village in the middle of the Amazon jungle:
We left Monday morning and were picked up by a river boat at the pier.  The best way to describe the river boat is to compare it to a double-decker bus that you would find in the UK, except not as safe and with 6 foot ceilings that I kept hitting my head on.  We were on the river boat for about two hours, and passed the area where the Rio Amanozas and Rio Negro converge, which results in this incredibly distinct line/barrier separating the black water of the Rio Negro with the brown water of the Amazon.  After the river boat, we hiked a little ways up a muddy hill and boarded a tour bus (again, safety was not a huge concern with this vehicle).  The tour bus then took us to a ferry, which was essentially a barge that was being towed by another riverboat, and again safety was not a top priority, as evidence by the huge jagged pieces of metal we had to navigate while walking onto the barge.  The ferry took the bus and us to the other side of the river, where we had to walk along side the bus up a steep muddy hill (we made it without getting stuck, barely).  After the ferry, it was back in the tour bus and a few more hours of traversing the only road for hundreds of miles, which was of course littered with potholes.  Also, the tour bus driver decided to stop at every gas station (2 of them) and stay for 20 mins, which added a lot of time to an already three hour bus ride.  I think the bus driver was trying to prove that the area was civilized, at least slightly.  We finally made it the village and school where we would spend the next few days, but of course in order to make it the lodge we were staying in, we had to board a canoe and travel up the Rio Negro for another 20 mins.  Literally, we were in a canoe. Imagine all of these American students and faculty with their big backpacks going down a remote portion of one of the largest rivers in the world in a canoe that was handmade of wood, floated maybe two inches above the surface, had a 4hp engine that barely turned over, and was as easily tipped as any other canoe I have been in.  All told, it took us around 6 hours to make it to the lodge.  To review: we came up the Amazon river in a big ship, got in a smaller boat, rode on a tour bus, took a ferry, hiked a little, took the tour bus again and finally rode in an even smaller boat to our lodge.  The way back was a little quicker because of the currents, even though our bus did get stuck in the mud and required a Brazilian arm vehicle to tow it out.  We made it back to the dock today (Thursday) on the midst of a massive rainstorm, but most of my gear stayed dry and I made it to ship on time. 

The Lodge:
        The lodge we stayed at was by far the coolest place I have ever paid to sleep at before.  To get up to the lodge we had to hop onto a floating dock that was partially sunken, cross over the water on a 4 ft beam that was about 6 inches wide, and then climb up a long series of stair cases and platforms to reach the lodge, which was essentially a collection of around 6 different buildings scattered through out the trees overlooking the river.  Half of our group of about 40 stayed at the main lodge (they didn’t do the service project and instead did day excursions) and the 22 of us that did the service project slept in the “tree fort.”  The tree fort was essentially a big platform about 30 ft above the ground that radiated in a circle around this big tree.  The roof was made of trash bags that had lots of holes (great for seeing the stars at night, not so great for the tons of rain we got the last night) and the floor was made of this really great smelling wood, a redwood of some sort.  Arranged in a complete circle around the tree trunk were our 22 hammocks.  Sleeping in hammocks for three nights was honestly better than I expected, most likely due to putting in tons of physical work during the day and being exhausted each night and waking up before six each day.  I got a good 4-5hrs of sleep every night, and didn’t wake up with any additional aches or cramps, at least not due to carrying wood and swinging a hammer for hours. The few times I woke up in the night were mostly due to swinging into the hammock next to me (we were only a couple of inches apart) or the lodge’s monkey climbing around.  Yes, the lodge had a resident monkey, who was very friendly and liked to climb around us and even on top of us.  The monkey also had a habit of getting into our pill cases, and one morning we were awoken to the screams of “the monkey is eating my Ambien” at around 4 in the morning.  The lodge also had a resident taper named Romeo, and some of the largest insects I have ever seen.  One night we found a grasshopper that was bigger than my palm.  We also saw some giant beetles and I almost stepped on a tarantula the size of a grapefruit one morning.  The lodge had a generator, which ran a few lights only during the night.  The only running water was just river water stored in giant vats, although all the drinking water came from bottles.  There was one communal bathroom with one sink, shower and toilet for guys and girls and then a big meshed tent where our meals were served.  We woke around 5:30 or 6 each morning and then would leave around 7:45 for our canoe commute (by far the best work commute I can imagine) to the village where we worked.  We arrived back at the lodge around 5:30 in the evening.  After realizing that the shower water was actually river water, we figured we might as well just go swimming, so each night after arriving from work we jumped out of the canoes into the river and essentially took a bath.  One night, we took some kayaks out and paddled up the river into the forest.  On the way back we were kinda tired, so we decided to flipped the canoe and swim along side while the strong current pulled us downstream.  I guess swimming in part of the Amazon River doesn’t sound like the best idea, especially considering we spotted some caiman and piranha off the dock, but everyone survived and hopefully I didn’t get any bladder catfish or parasites.  Tuesday night at around 2230, one of the guides took some of us caiman spotting which was one of coolest things I have ever down, even though we didn’t spot any crocs.
Brief interjection on caiman spotting: Basically caiman spotting involves silently paddling into the jungle forest in the pitch black while the guide occasional shines a spot light in random directions.  What this results in is having absolutely zero sense of where you are, and being surprised and a little freaked out when you brush pass a tree you didn’t think was there or have the spotlight shine in a spot that illuminates the fact that you are in the middle of a jungle forest, in a crappy canoe with a guide who barely speaks English, having no idea of where you are or which direction you came from, and having to worry about snakes dropping into the boat.  It was a fantastically eerie and awesome experience.  Unfortunately we didn’t spot any big animals, but we certainly heard enough sound to know that they were there.
Service Project:
        So the whole purpose of this trip, and by extension this blog post, was to help a remote village with repairing their school.  We were the first group of Westerners that had ever visited their village, and the village had had electricity for the first time just two weeks prior to our arrival.  The school was about a quarter mile from the river along the side of road we came in on.  If I understood the translation correctly, the school had been built 7 years ago, although it seemed a lot older, and was basically a crudely put together wooden structure with about 7 different classes, a 40 ft wooden bridge over a deep ditch/swamp, and a tiny kitchen and bathroom. Throughout the four days we worked at the school, there were probably about 25 different villagers who stopped by and helped, with about 8-10 villagers staying the whole time and essentially directing the process.  Even though our guides spoke English and Portuguese, I feel as though there was a lot lost in translation and considering the fact that our professor overseeing the project was a little misinformed about the tasks we were expected to do.  For the first three days there weren’t enough supplies for all of us to work and since the majority of the SAS kids were girls, I found myself doing some of the more manual labor such as hammering and carrying wood, while the girls handled the painting in shifts, since there were not enough brushes.  We also had some cool opportunities to play soccer and volleyball with the local kids, on their dirt field with tree branch goal posts.  It wasn’t until the third day that enough supplies had arrived to allow us to all work at the same time.  The main task that the six guys were assigned to was to take down and rebuild the bridge that was spanning the ditch.  To do this we had to carry the 60lbs wooden boards up a muddy slope and down the quarter mile road to the school.  It was pretty rough work, with two of us carrying about 140lbs of heavy wood on our shoulders.  Once the wood was transported, we knocked out the floor planks and wood supports (everything but the posts) of the old bridge and had to carry the old wood to another pile up another hill.  I managed to step on an old nail, which went all the way through the thickest part of my shoes and into the bottom of the foot.  Fortunately the cut wasn’t that deep and so far it doesn’t seem to be infected, but they are still making me go to the doctor tomorrow.  At this point it was around mid day and all we had done so far was destroy the old bridge.  I was slightly worried that we wouldn’t be able to build the new one because of time, which would have made us look like idiots for going into a remote village, destroying their bridge and leaving.  Fortunately, we all found a rhythm and got into a smooth pattern of measuring, cutting, transporting, nailing and then hydrating to avoid heat exhaustion.  Although it had been hot the first several days, the heat on Wednesday afternoon was very intense and I felt the power of an equatorial sun for the first time.  It wasn’t hot in a “ one oven on high temp” kind of way, but powerful in a “50 ovens close by on medium heat” manner, if that makes any sense.  Regardless, we made great progress in the afternoon, and were almost finished until the power cut out and the saw wouldn’t work.  However, on our way back this morning (Thursday) we stopped by, put the last few planks down and had the honor of walking across the school’s new bridge. 

        One of my favorite parts about working at the school was getting the opportunity to experience how the people there live their lives.  Through interacting with them, I never once felt pity for their lack of modern resources or poor living conditions but instead felt the joy and happiness they had for the few meager things they owned.  My satisfaction and sense of accomplishment was directly related to how much I sweat and how dirty I got.  Even though none of the villagers had shoes or clean clothes, they definitely worked harder than any of the students and were incredibly patient, kind and thankful for our efforts, which motivated me to work even harder. I spent probably around 8 hours nailing wooden planks and slats with one older village named Francisco, and even though neither of us could understand each other, we spent almost the whole time singing and conversing together.  I still have no idea what he said to me, but at the end I was very honored to have helped his community and feel like we truly developed a friendship despite the vast differences between us.  Hopefully, SAS can develop a lasting relationship with the school, since there is so much more that can be done to help.  We managed to collect enough money among ourselves to buy all the students school supplies for the next year or two, but I think it would be fantastic if SAS visited 2-3 times a year for similar service projects, and who knows, maybe I will find myself back there one day.  

        I apologize for the length of this post, but this was clearly a great experience for me that I want to be able to remember and share with others.  Tomorrow we have classes again, which means I need to do some homework, and I still really need to sleep.

Enjoy the snow in CP and Cambridge!
-Ben