Shambalaiê! Adventures continue!

OLÁ GENTE!

Well, I figured it was time to update everyone on how things are going over here in the Amazon basin. Many things have changed since the last time I updated, so sorry if this ends up being long and rambly, I also just downed a nice cup of steaming coffee so thoughts and fingers might be a little jittery, haha…oops!
Where to start?!?! I guess I will start with my trip to Manaus, because things before then were kind of the daily drill of routine routine, prayer, Portuguese classes (sporadic, but existent), and CLEANING! So let’s move onto Manaus. On February 8th-ish, I don’t remember the exact date I flew, but it was somewhere around there, I hopped on a plane at 3AM from Porto Velho and landed in Manaus, Amazonas less than two hours later, albeit exhausted I was unable to sleep because of excitement. The reason was because my friend and fellow salesian missionary Joe Czupinski had finally arrived in Brazil after patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for SIX MONTHS for his volunteer visa after completing mission training in New York. I was ESTATIC to get out of Porto Velho for the week, not because I don’t like PV (I love PV) but because I would be able to see Joe, and also Sabrina an Italian volunteer in Manicoré would be there and I was ready to pick brains on how her volunteer experience had been and to reunite with Joe and give him what tips I could. Little did I know that we would have a NON-STOP action packed adventure-full agenda waiting for us.
The first day was beautiful, everyone was just super happy to be reunited. We just talked in the morning, and in the afternoon we had a reunion (small retreat style meeting/talk) where we discussed the Salesian volunteers and our missions here in Brazil. It was like a breath of fresh air to sit down and really talk about things I am passionate about, like really loving the poorest of the poor, reaching out to those most distant (emotionally), how to serve selflessly, and leaving the first talk I felt like I was ready to head back to Porto Velho and really give to the kids I work with, with a reinvigorated sense of love and devotion. (I realize there are a lot of cliché words used in the past couple sentences, but I don’t really know how else to explain what we talked about.) However, this was just the first day in Manaus, I still had 4 more full days of retreat and adventures! The following day, we had a mass in the morning with just Padre Chicão, Padre Benjamim and the volunteers which was a great way to start the day and then we headed out to the markets to show Joe a little bit of the city (and really me too, the last time I was in Manaus I was only there a few days and didn’t get to see much!) We headed to the port to see all the boats, for those who don’t know… the Amazon is a region where there are no roads to connect cities… here we use the natural highway system, the rivers. That’s right, if I want to travel to Manaus, or to Manicoré or where Joe will be stationed, Iauarete, there are only two ways to get there, plane, or boat. There is no road system here, which is actually really cool! (ps. Iauarete is ONLY accessible by boat, no roads, and not accessible by air… kind of jealous). So we checked out the port, and hit up the markets, which were full of all sorts of smells, fruits of all sorts, spices, and tons and tons of FISH! It was a lot of fun to walk around the market and point out all the different Brazilian fruits and spices that you only find in Brazil and often only in the Amazon. It was overwhelming, but beautiful. It was a really cool experience to share with Joe, his first Açaí, Guaraná, maracujá do mato, tucumã, papunha, farinha e farofa, caiparinha, pirarucu, tapioca (not what you think), etc (not all of this was experienced in the market, but it was great!). We went to an indigenous market and just roamed the streets before heading back to the inspetoria for the afternoons session on Salesian Spirituality and the Preventive System. Topics I have covered intensely before, but it was good to review for sure.
The following day we headed out to Presidente Figuerido, which may be the most beautiful place I have been to. We drove about 2 hours out of Manaus into the meio do mato (middle of the jungle) and came across a river with waterfalls and jumped on in! The water was RED, it was sooo strange, but oddly enticing, it was all very clean water, just very red. On the path down to the falls, we came across and snake slithering along the way, luckily it was rather small, but it was my first Amazonian snake experience. We hopped on over to some other falls later in the afternoon and just enjoyed the beauty for awhile. The cool thing was, we were the ONLY ones there. It was a nice day, and we had the river and falls all to ourselves. Soooo cool! I posted pics in Fbook, and will add some at the end of this blog! We spent basically the whole day out on that adventure and ended it by stopping at a little food place on the way back where we ate tapioca with tucumã, and juice of cupuaçu and graviola with fried bananas. It was wonderful.
The next day we spent taking a tour out to the Encontro das Águas where the river Solimões meets the River Negro. It is a weird effect where the rivers don’t mix, and the Solimões is a light brown color, while the Negro is… well… you guessed it… black (color of coca-cola). We saw a giant tree, got eaten up by mosquitoes (correction: I got eaten up by mosquitoes, Joe managed to escape them), got to hold a snake and sloth, and eat really good FISH! It was a good adventure.
I missed a day somewhere in there where we went and hung out with the seminarians in Zumbi (I talked about Zumbi in my first or second blog post… it is an interesting part of town) and visited the Colégio Dom Bosco there. It was wonderful to go there, because three of my good friends from Porto Velho are Seminarians in Manaus and I got to visit them, despite the fact it was brief it was full of excitement and love, and presents! They are the best guys! Jerrold, Jairo, and Wellington, sinto falta de vocês, e estou rezando por vocês! (It would be strange if they read this far, considering none know English, but wtv.) Wait, another day, we went out to the Dom Bosco site and played volleyball and swam with the post-novitiates, ahh it’s all blurring together, but it was all great. Joe and I just kind of laughed at the fact that we hung out with a bunch of seminarians who were blasting Lady Gaga and playing Volleyball, Brazilians are really cool! *laughed in the sense that we were having fun too, and it was just kind of ridiculous and not something you would see in the USA.
Anyways, I took a plane at midnight back to Porto Velho 5 days after arriving in Manaus, and my plane was delayed so I didn’t get in to PV until around 2:30am. (Fun story, for some reason, the airport in Porto Velho showed that the flight was cancelled from Manaus, so my ride home…left before I arrived. I don’t have a cellphone here and no way to communicate with the priests I live with. Haha, but it wasn’t really a problem, I just took a taxi, I’m just thankful I live in a city where taxis exist and not in the boonies) I arrived home just 3 hours before the first day of school began! Haha, I didn’t sleep at all, for the second day in the week (I didn’t sleep on my way to Manaus either). Luckily I got out of teaching the first day, and classes really started Tuesday for me.
School has been so great for me. It takes up a lot of my time! Haha. I teach eight sections of English and assist with Recreation and Religion classes when I’m not teaching English. The kids don’t know ANY English, I was really astonished because in all my previous travels the people have known at least the basics…nope. I started with Hello, and Hi. This presents the challenge of: although I am teaching an English class, I am teaching fully in Portuguese. It’s really boosted my confidence in Portuguese though, I am at the point where I am comfortably conversing with everyone and have been able to fool a few people into believing that I am Brazilian. Haha. I have two teaching moments that I am going to share with you all. The first is the first day snowball fight. None of the kids have seen before snow before, much less know the sensation, so I figured it would be a fun activity and cultural lesson to explain what a snowball fight is. So I had the kids write their names on a piece of paper and three things about themselves. I then continued with the first lesson, greetings and the verb to be. After the lesson the kids had forgotten about the paper, and I asked them to take it out again, and explained to them what snow was like and what a snowball fight was. I asked them to crumple the paper with the names on it into a ball, and then we started a war!!! It was soo much fun, one of the kids was like “Teacher, can we throw them at you too?!” I was like… “heck yeah,” and we just chucked paper around the class for awhile pretending to have a snowball fight. And at the end everyone had to pick up a snowball, unfold it and introduce themselves and the person on the paper they ended up with, using a greeting we had learned and the verb to be “i.e. Hello, I am Jon, She is Maria.” It was a fun activity to say the least.
The second day however, the lil angels decided they wanted to have another snowball fight. When I told them “no” one of the students pulled out a phrase I can only assume he learned from watching some movie. “F- YOU, teacher” but he said the whole word. I was about to get really frustrated with him, but I realized he was just sitting in the back with the biggest grin on his face, so proud of himself for using English. It was soo hard not to laugh, and to let him know that that word was strictly forbidden in the classroom. He seemed to not realize the gravity of the word, and the rest of the class was confused as to what was going on… so I just kind of let him know it was not okay and continued with the lesson. The kids are quite the rowdy bunch, but I’m really enjoying have students. Basically, I love what I’m doing, I love the kids, when I’m not teaching I spend time in the Oratory with them, playing sports or chatting, and it is just the most amazing experience to sit and talk with them. A challenge of teaching here as well is that the kids are poor, and when I say poor, I mean, many of the kids that come to the school receive their one meal a day at the school which consists of bread and juice, they come to school without pens, pencils, backpack, nothing…because they simply can’t afford it…not even paper. So, how are they supposed to take notes in English class without paper??? I’ve been supplying paper and pens every day, and will continue to, but it is just a reality check for how blessed I have been.
Okay, I’ve written too much already. Sorry for how long this is. I will try to be more consistent and less wordy, but can’t promise anything. Haha. Life is very busy here, which is a great thing.
But I send you all my love from Brasil to wherever you are! Know there is much more going on here than I can explain in words here, and it is all challenging, and beautiful and crazy! Just the way I like it!

Abraço e Beijão,

Jon