BRAZIL- DAY 4

Our last morning in Brazil we all woke up early from the
bumping of the boat hitting the rough waters. After waking up we had a
very nice breakfast prepared by Ananji's wife as per usual. After
breakfast we got to a small village called Desana. As we were walking
up the stairs to the village I asked Ananji how he knew of all these
villages and had connections. He told me that he has lived on the
river his whole life and has simply explored and stumbled on different
places and made different connections throughout his life. It was
funny to me because I was assigned to write a paper for my writing
class and the only guidelines were "write your own interpretation of
considering Columbus." One thing that I considered writing about was
how there are no more explorers like Columbus and those times, but
Ananji made me think otherwise.

Ananji told us that these people have many rituals and
that we were going to observe some. As we got there we saw a large hut-
style looking awning. There was a man standing outside, dressed very
tribal-like. This man told us that he was he town's "healer", or as we
know it "the elder". He talked to us for a bit about their traditions
and informed us that we should come inside. As we entered there were
many more men dressed the same. Then, we saw the women. The women were
not wearing any tops and had lots of intricate drawings all over them.
They were only covered with skirts and jewelry. Their openness was a
bit overwhelming at first, they were so comfortable with their bodies…
one was even breast-feeding right there in front of us…it's so crazy
how something can be so taboo for us and so casual for them. Then,
they did a bunch of ritual dances involving lots of music and both the
men and women, and all ages. The last dance they invited us all up.

It was all a cool experience and I really enjoyed it, but
all I could think was that it was a show for us. I approached Ananji
and respectfully asked him these questions. He told me that yes, they
were putting on a show for us, but, during their real ritual
ceremonies they would be doing the same things, for over 24 hours.
After they were done we walked around and talked to the people,
naturally I made my way over to the children and started playing
games. At one point my friend and I were playing catch with a little
boy as he cackled and smiled my friend joked he's probably thinking
"why are these crazy white girls chasing me!?"

As we finished up with the indigenous people we got back
on our riverboat for one last time. We had an hour until we got to
Manaus. As we got on the boat, Ananji spoke a few words to us, telling
us how he had a great time, and would miss us, and he even gave me all
of his information…so if you're ever thinking about going to the
Amazon I have just the guy! We called out his wife and the crew and
gave them an overwhelming round of applause and tried our hardest to
show them how much we appreciated everything they did…though nothing
could ever show how much we really did appreciate it. Seeing the MV
Explorer (our ship) was bitter-sweet as we pulled into Manaus. A part
of me was SO happy to see it…it meant that I had a bed to sleep in,
and, after 4 days of not showering the shower was seeming pretty darn
nice. I looked forward to all the little things I usually take for
granted on a daily basis. The bitter part was when I thought about all
of the places we had been, Ananji and his boys Avinesh and Karish, and
his wife Carolina, Manuel, and all the other amazing people we had
met. I realized that while for us it was a 4 day experience of
"roughing it" and after 4 days we returned "home". They had been home
the whole time.

We had a few hours until we needed to be back on the ship
so a few of us set out to see a bit of Manaus. We walked around the
street markets and bought some local food. I went to a super-market
and bought 4 big bags of candies and lolli-pops to bring to the kids
in Ghana…then we said good-bye to Brazil and got back onto our
floating University.

Brazil Day 3 Pics

Blog follows after pictures!

BRAZIL- DAY 3

After a night of sleeping in the Amazon, I woke up with only about
10232901 bug bites. We hiked back to the boat and had a nice
breakfast. Then, we all got dressed to go swimming with the Amazonian
pink dolphins. Pink dolphins are really funny, they aren't like normal
dolphins…to be perfectly honest they are a lot less "pretty" than
normal dolphins. We got into the water and a few of the locals swam
around with little fish (treats for the dolphins). These dolphins were
not trained and were completely wild, they just come up to get fed! I
got to touch a few…if you've ever felt a dolphin before then you can
relate, they are the smoothest things in the world (PICTURES 1 and 2).
Also, if you know me well you know that I'm terrified of fish and sea-
life…I know it's weird. So, in the beginning I was pretty nervous and
stayed away from the dolphins that surfaced and just observed. Then,
one of the locals grabbed my hand and didn't take no for an answer, he
yanked me towards the dolphin and put my hand all over that dolphin…I
probably should have bought it dinner first or something. It was a
pretty exciting feat for the girl that's afraid of marine life. After
the dolphins we went to go see some of the most vicious fish in the
Amazon. These fish had a name I couldn't pronounce and couldn't
remember when it came time to write it down…these things were huge,
scaly, and looked like they were out of some mid-evil fictitious land.
We dangled fish from a sting and they came up and viciously ripped the
fish apart (PICTURE 3).

After a while we went back to the boat to have lunch and
a little bit of siesta (rest time). I used this time to really hang
out with our guide, Ananji and annoy him with questions. I asked him
about the school in Brazil. He told me that primary and secondary
school are free, but also optional. He told me that the problem comes
with university. In Brazil, they do not have loans like we have in the
US, so if you don't have the money to pay for University at the time,
you cannot go. Ananji explained to me that while he did very well in
high school (and I can vouch…this guy was veryyyy smart), he could not
go to University because he didn't have the money. I also asked him
about the health care where he told me that there are many people who
get sick but because they don't have the money to pay for treatment
and operations up-front, they end up slowly dying while waiting for
the money. He told me that his mother is desperately in need of an
operation and they are all working now to try and save up the money. I
also asked him about the Malaria threat in the Amazon. Everyone on our
ship is currently taking Malaria medications a we are in a threat-
zone. He told me that Brazilians do not take preventative measures
like this, and most of the time it's really not needed. He also
informed me that the threat of Malaria is higher during the dryer
season (from July to December/January). This is because during this
time, the water level is going now and the same water is sitting for
longer amounts of time, so there end up being pools where mosquitos
can "make-camp". Whereas, in the rainy season the water is constantly
rising and being replaced, so it is harder for the "pools" to form.
Ananji told me how not only has he never left Brazil before, but he
has never even been out of the Amazon, to the bigger cities of Brazil.
He told me that he is happy and proud of his home and has little to no
reason to leave. This really intrigued me since he works with
foreigners constantly you'd think he'd get curious. Basically, he is
very well informed about other cultures, knows a lot, always continues
learning, but is very content in his home. I asked him if he enjoyed
showing us foreigners around, and he said that it is the best thing he
could ever do and that he loves sharing his unique land and culture.
The sense of pride in the people in all of these countries is so
special and admirable…living in such a large country with such a mix
of people, we don't get that as much in the US.

After lunch and siesta we went piranha fishing. We got
into smaller power boats and grabbed our sticks with fishing string
and a hook attached (PICTURE 4). One person asked Ananji,
"hypothetically what happens if a person falls in". He responded by
saying something that I'm very happy I hadn't known earlier…he said
"you know where you swam with dolphins earlier? That area was infested
with piranha, piranha are EVERYWHERE in the Amazon!" He then told us
that they do not typically approach or attack humans and that is why
there's no reason to be afraid. I threw my hook with the bait attached
into the water, feeling so excited to catch a piranha…well, I've never
been fishing before and quickly learned that it's not as exciting as
you may thing. We did a lot of waiting. Then, after a scorching hot
day with clear skies and therefore no rain-jackets, we saw the storm
clouds moving in. We took the boat under some trees into a more
surrounded area…then the rains came. This was definitely one of those
moments where I at first thought to myself "Wow, this will be a cool
story one day, but right now, I want it to be over." The rain came
down harder and harder and we were all completely drenched and the
little boat was filling up with water. Again, this turned out to be
one of those times where I was wrong and actually ended up enjoying
myself. We all looked to the skies and just embraced the nature and
laughed. Afterwards our boat caught two piranhas and a catfish! I
didn't catch anything myself, which I was kind of bummed about, but
realized that it's probably better that way because had I caught
something, the second I pulled it out of the water I probably would
have gotten scared and freaked out.

We returned to the river-boat to change into warmer and
dryer clothes and then got back on the little canoe-boats. We were
sitting on our smaller canoe boat looking up at Ananji's wife and sons
and started cheering for his sons, asking them to come along. At first
they completely dismissed us, but after some good old American peer
pressure they were stepping down into the canoe-boat. I got to sit
next to Ananji's seven year old son, named Karish. I tried my hardest
to communicate with Karish, smile and make him feel comfortable by
moving him from the outside of the canoe to the middle seat between
myself and my friend Shelley. It was evening time by now so we rode
around in the dark with just Ananji's flashlight and the moon as our
light sources. Ananji looked around and eventually took us into a bit
of marsh. He leaned out of the front and we all sat quietly, nervously
waiting. Then, he stood up with a live Cayman in hand. I guess Emanuel
was not the only Bas-A#*, here Ananji had just caught one with his
bare hands also. He told us all about the Cayman, how people in the
Amazon eat them sometimes. He also told us that the Cayman's skin is
used a lot, but only a small part of their body contains the type of
desirable skin. He also showed us something that I have deemed
insanely "Darwin-like"- the Cayman have two eyelids that open
horizontally, one for seeing under water, and one for seeing above
water. How COOL is that!? Ananji said that we could hold the Cayman if
we wished, at first I was of-course nervous but like a true Brazilian
he grabbed my hand and forced me to hold the thing. It was really cool
feeling and I suddenly felt a LOT of pressure to not drop it. My
friend took a picture of me holding it on her camera and as soon as
she sends it to me I will post it.

On the way back to the river-boat I looked down at
Karish (Anan's 7 year old) and pointed at his necklace and smiled and
told him I liked it…just trying to be nice and interact. Then, after a
few more minutes I felt a small tap on my shoulder, I looked down and
there was Karish holding his necklace in his hand and extending his
hand towards me smiling. I just laughed and smiled, and couldn't
believe that a cute little 7 year old who in theory is supposed to be
selfish was trying to give me his precious necklace…just to be nice. I
told Ananji that his son was clearly his son, so giving and generous.
I put on the necklace and took off my bracelet to give to Karish in
return. He looked at me with a disgusted face and told me he didn't
like the bracelet…woops! I laughed more and say okay. I wore the
necklace for the rest of the night and then made him take it back,
telling him that it was his but I was touched.

We returned to our river-boat and had a great dinner with
chicken, rice, and lots of good flavor. Then, Ananji and the crew made
us some authentic Brazilian drinks called Kapirinahs. These are made
by placing a lot of chopped pieces of lime in a glass, then squashing
the limes, placing a spoon full or so of sugar and then filling the
rest of the cup with rum. Ananji said that after one Kapirinah you
feel good, 2- great, 3- excellent, and 4 suddenly you speak fluent
portugeuse. I only had two so I guess I'll never know how good my
portugeuse really is. We all hung out and talked and then went to
sleep on our trusty hammocks. We needed to travel a good amount by the
morning so that we could do our last activities and get back to our
ship in time, so at about 4 am the engine started and we began moving
again. A storm hit around that time and we played what I call "bumper-
hammocks". From 4 am on I didn't get to sleep much because of all the
swinging and bumping, but hey, I got to see the sunrise!

BRAZIL DAY 2 PICS!

Text follows after the pics!

BRAZIL- DAY 2

(This day was full of a LOT so this post is pretty long…sorry!)

After a night of swinging around and maneuvering to get
myself in the most possibly comfortable positions, I was awoken by the
return of the sun and humid heat of the Amazon. I looked out and saw a
wall of green with a lonely, rickety flight of stairs going up to the
top of the "wall". We got out of the boat wearing long pants and lots
of bug spray and walked up the never-ending staircase (PICTURE 1).
When we got to the top we saw a small shack with lots of supplies like
a coffee maker (not the type we know, the kind where you make it by
hand), a "pig pen" with live pigs, and another area with a bunch of
chickens and roosters. I didn't understand how these animals and all
those supplies were there since the area seemed so un-livable to me.
Then a man walked out of his home named Emanuel. Emanuel joined our
guide (Ananji) for the remainder of the day. We deemed this man the
most "hardcore" of anyone and I'll explain why throughout. To start
out, he hiked the rainforest with us for 4 hours while BAREFOOT!

After meeting Emanuel, we followed him and Ananji into
the rainforest. I have done many, many hikes before, and typically
with all of them, there is a clear laid of pathway with markers every
once in a while so that you know you're going the right way. This hike
we did was not at all like there…there was no distinct path, no
markers, no way (for me) to know where I was going. We stopped every
once in a while so that our guides to explain different parts of the
nature we were seeing (PICURE 2). We saw rubber trees, and learned
about all sorts of herbal remedies- for example, certain trees have
leaves that are used to heal wounds, and some trees the bark can be
used to reduce a fever. We learned that people in this part of the
world rely on the nature and the rainforest for their well-being, not
advil and supplement pills. The hike was amazing, I looked in every
direction and saw only wilderness and green (PICTURE 3). I thought,
"what if for some reason I was not with my guide right now? Would I
ever find my way out of here." A lot of the stories you hear about
people getting lost in the rainforest and suddenly their stories
became so much more understandable.

After nearly four hours we saw an opening in the
rainforest, we had made it to the end of our hike! We all cheered as
we saw the water of the Amazon and our boat waiting nicely there for
us (PICTURE 4). I quickly changed into a swim suite and jumped into
the water to cool off (PICTURE 5). We swam around in the not so clean,
brown waters of the Amazon and decided it was a good place to wash our
hair for the first time in a while. We laughed as we "washed" our
bodies in the dirty water (PICTURE 6). To my surprise, we got out of
the water, and I really did feel a bit cleaner…I guess at that point I
had come to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to be really clean
for a while, so some conditioned hair was pretty awesome for the time-
being. I was so thankful for our opportunity to experience the nature
and beauty of the Amazon during that hike, and even more thankful to
have had some locals that knew where they were going.

After "bathing" in the Amazon, we got back in our river-
boat and set off for our next destination. We pulled up to another
"wall of green with a stair-case" (PICTURE 7- by the way the two
people in this picture are our guide, Ananji, and his son Karish). As
we walked up the stairs I felt many little eyes peering out at me,
speaking in a language that neither I nor my guide spoke. The kids ran
around hiding behind trees as we walked up the staircase, observing
us. When we got to the top, I saw a lot of rustic homes surrounding a
field (PICTURE 8). On the field there was a group of young boys
running around and playing soccer…or football I should say (PICTURE
9). We all sat down and heard a few words from our guide as well as a
local from the village. The village is called "Terra Preta" meaning
black land in Portuguese. Each group of indigenous people speaks both
Portuguese and a local language, this group spoke a language called
Cookrano. Inside this small town there are two teachers, one to teach
in the local language and one to teach in Portuguese. Until secondary
school, all of the ages learn together, then when they get old enough
they take the "school-boat" to a school in another village. Once a
month, a doctor travels 4 and a half hours to the town from the larger
city of Manaus to do check-ups and such. I asked what if someone gets
hurt to the point that they cannot deal with it in the village? We
were told that if that is the case then they would have to take a boat
to the town over where they have a speed boat, then they would have to
take the speed boat to Manaus which would take about 4 hours. The way
of life in this village certainly seemed foreign- everything I ever
need…doctor, convenient store, food…etc has always been within a 5
minute drive of me! Then, a bunch of the boys joined the soccer game,
I walked up to a group of young girls and sat down. I tried
desperately to communicate with them…this reminded me SO much of my
first couple months on my gap year in Israel where I worked with kids.
Those were some of the greatest times in my life and equally
frustrating, it is so hard at first to interact and form relationships
when there is a language barrier. Those times taught me how to
communicate other ways and to my surprise a lot of them came back as
soon as I sat down with those indigenous children. I felt the same
emotions, same frustrated feeling, and same feeling of ignorance for
not being able to talk. It's SO easy to take something as simple as
communication for granted…especially if you never leave the place
where your language is spoken. The second you remove yourself from
that, something like just saying hello how are you seem like such a
respectable, difficult task. We are human and learn to adapt, so we
used pictures and body language- while this works, I have to say that
from my experience, there is nothing like actually talking, while it
seems so normal, it's actually such a personal, amazing thing.

Myself and a few others ended up bringing out some water
color paints and drawing with the girls. This started out with drawing
pictures to each other. Then I made the mistake of letting one girl
draw a butterfly on my arm, before I knew it, my arms and legs were
completely covered in butterflies, hearts, and just plain dots and
lines (PICTURES 10, 11, 12 and 13). A couple of girls- shtiel, Erica,
Marie, and Natalya also got ahold of my camera for a while and would
not stop taking pictures of one another and then looking at the
product and laughing. When first sitting down with these children all
I could see were our immense differences. Their childhoods are worlds
away from what mine was like…in theory. Then, I saw some of the
pictures they drew, the smiles, giggles, secrets whispered from one
ear to the next, the hand-clap games with different words but similar
motions that I used to do in elementary school and realized how much
we truly have in common. I think that kids are the best way to learn
about the true essence of a place and culture, their innocence and
unknowing makes it possible to see past all of the problems and just
see. About 10 minutes before we were scheduled to leave the village, a
boat arrived with some deliveries for the town…the boys from our group
ran down to help bring them up all of the stairs to the village. When
it came time for us to leave all of the kids ran down the stairs and
jumped in the water. They swam around and grabbed onto the rope that
was anchoring our boat to the ground as if to not let us leave
(PICTURE 14). Just as we were about to leave the school boat pulled up
(PICTURE 15) and we saw the younger siblings embrace their older ones.
We pulled away and yelled Ciao and blew kisses. I heard one of the
girls yell out "BYE SHTEFANI". I felt an intense feeling of not
wanting to leave…if I could I would have stayed there for days, gotten
to know the language, the people, the culture…that is one of the
largest tradeoffs with this adventure around the world, I get to see
so much, but for so little time….though no amount of time is never
enough time, so I am SO thankful for what I have.

When we got back on our riverboat we all put on our long
pants, long sleeves and even more bug-spray. We took down our hammocks
and packed them up for night…we weren't sleeping on the boat that
night. We got to another "wall of green" and stairs…we walked up as
the sun was going down and watched the sun-set from the top (PICTURE
16). Then, we walked with our hammocks, water-bottles, and yes, more
bug-spray back into the rainforest. We walked for about 30 minutes,
constantly yelling things like "LOG! BRANCH! ROCK!" since we couldn't
see much at all. We finally arrived to our site for the night, it was
a small clearing with a small area to hang out hammocks from (PICTURE
17). Ananji and Emanuel then impressively started a fire with the wet
wood we could find. Then it was dinner time. These guys are so
amazing, they took sticks they found in the rainforest, turned them
into spears and began to cook chicken (PICTURE 18). While the chicken
was cooking, Emanuel disappeared for a few minutes into the dark.
Then, our of nowhere he reappears with live Cayman in his hands…keep
in mind he had no supplies on him to help catch this thing…and, he was
BAREFOOT (PICTURE 19). He let us hold the Cayman and then eventually
let it go. Once dinner was ready we all went out and found these large
leaves to use as plates…don't worry, we sanitized them by passing them
through the fire (PICTURE 20). It was truuuuly an Amazonian
experience. Sleeping that night was not so bad at first, I was
surrounded by friends and felt pretty safe. I made myself into a
cocoon with my hammock so that nothing would be able to get in. As I
drifted off to sleep, I felt an intense feeling of separation. I
thought about how far I was from any type of familiar, or comfortable
place. I thought about how not only was I unable to connect to the
outside world, but if someone had wanted to reach me, they were not
able to. Situations like this today are truly rare, and I tried to put
my feelings of discomfort aside and just enjoy the experience. I felt
pretty comfortable throughout the night, and slept much better than
expected. I woke up once though in the middle of the night…what I
heard was not silence, but sounds of lots of animals out there. I was
completely surrounded by nature, there were millions more animals than
myself and friends which was almost too overwhelming to comprehend. I
could feel them out there. Lots of thoughts ran through my head about
where I was and my surroundings and it took me a bit to fall back
asleep. When I had been walking into the rainforest the night before
in the dark with my hammock in hand I looked at a friend and said
"Wow, this is one of those experiences that I will be so glad to say I
had, but right now I'd probably fast-forward to the morning if I
could." Well, the next morning I did not feel that way anymore. I
enjoyed my evening in the rainforest so much…and being able to say
that I did it is only an added plus.

If you're still reading, good-job! I know this was a long
post, I can't express how nearly impossible it is to sum up my
experiences into a blog post. There are just so many feelings and
emotions that go into these new memories. I hope you enjoyed, I will
write about day 3 later…that entry will be a lot shorter (day 2 was
definitely the most packed).

Missing everyone at home…and by the way, we are turning
off all internet and outside connections on the ship tomorrow (other
than navigation I'm sure) because we are going to try and use
everything to stream the super bowl, and show it in the student union…
I'm rooting for the Giants!

Missing everyone at home!

Steph

BRAZIL- DAY 1 PICS

These pics go with the blog entry below!

BRAZIL- DAY 1

HELLO EVERYONE! I am alive and well…with only about 10823019248 bug bites to complain about! That's about all I have to complain about though…I had an AWESOME week in Brazil!

I am going to post entries for each day, right now, after a CRAZY week of no showers and no sleep, I've only finished day 1. So stay tuned for the next ones. ALSO, I am going to post pictures right after this post labeling them in order (1, 2, 3…etc.). Throughout the post I tell you in parenthesis which pictures correspond with what I'm talking about, so you can go along with me J.

            Monday morning I woke up at 6:30am and ran up to the top deck. After 5 days of endless blue and a full day of sailing through the flat, desolate Amazon, the site I saw was unexpected and almost at that point foreign. We were heading for Manaus, our port city, and one of the larger cities in the Amazon. To be honest, I knew I would not be spending much time in the city so I did not really do my homework on it…I pictured a very, very, small attempt at a city- instead I got an actual city with high-rises and everything! It was a both beautiful and surreal to see the metropolis juxtaposed with rainforest in all other directions. Two tug-boats came out and helped pull us into the port (PICTURES 1 and 2). I watched below and saw us getting closer and closer to the port. Then an organ rope was thrown from our ship onto the ground and a few workers grabbed it and knew exactly what to do. After the first, two more ropes came out. It really is like an art, the process of getting into the port- it's so wild to me that these people, who don't speak the same language as the people on the MV Explorer (our ship) knew exactly where to be, when, and what to do. We officially arrived, waited to be cleared by customs and then had a mad dash to the gang-way. I got off with some friends to find our guide that we'd arranged for the week.

            We got onto the shuttle that takes us from the port to the city…it was about a 3 minute shuttle but apparently it wasn't walk-able for some reason. Getting out of the shuttle was such a familiar, yet also foreign experience. I have been to a fair amount of countries, but in the last 3 years, the only one I have visited is Israel. When I first got to Israel 3 and a half years ago for my gap year program, I felt the feelings that I felt in Brazil-  a complete and total lack of connection from the people, culture…this was due to my lack of knowledge of the customs, the language, the land. Luckily, I was able to spend a lot more time in Israel, and change those feelings immensely. As I got off the shuttle in Brazil I realized, I don't speak a word of the language, I don't look at all like the people, and my only knowledge of their common practices and customs comes from a class that meets every other day called "Global Studies" and two nice Brazilian students on our ship. I turned to a friend and made light of the situation by saying sarcastically "There is no way that these people know we aren't from around here…". He and I chuckled and then returned to realizing the reality of the situation.

            We found our guide- Ananji. We walked through the hot, humid city with our bags on our backs for about 25 minutes. Then we reached our new home away from home away from home- the small riverboat that we would be traveling on and sleeping in for 2 out of the 3 nights. We got on our riverboat, did some introductions and took off. We first sailed to see the "meeting of the two waters"…I had no clue what this was either so don't worry. Basically, there are two rivers, the Rio Negro and the Amazonia. When these two waters meet, you get the Amazon river. The  Rio Negro is a much browner, thicker water, and the Amazonia is much bluer, so when the two meet it's a pretty crazy site to see- it is as if someone drew a zig-zag line in the ground, put a wall up there, and that's how the two waters meet. Though, there is nothing physically separating them. The Rio Negro is much more acidic, thicker, and moving at a much slower pace than the Amazonia, and that is why it gives off this appearance when the two meet. (PICTURE 3).

            After seeing this, we sailed about 3 hours west of the city of Manaus (farther into the Amazon). We all couldn't believe that after being on a ship for 6 days straight, we chose to get on land for about 30 minutes, and then get right back on a boat. Along the way we saw lots of cool floating homes and small villages (PICTURES 4, 5, and 6). After traveling for a while we got to our next destination. We walked along a small, unstable looking wooden pathway to get to an observation deck. On this deck we saw lots of large lily-pads, vultures and Cayman (crocodilian reptiles…they look just like crocodiles but are smaller) (PICTURES 7, and 8 and 9). When we finished our hike there we got back on the ship. At this point it was already getting dark and we were told we had a lot more to travel that night so that we could get to our destination for the following morning. Ananji (our guide) along with his wife, brother, and a few crew members cooked us a nice Brazilian dinner where we ate rice, potatoes, fish (for those that eat fish…if you know me you know I don't!), chicken, and vegetables. This is the rainy season in Brazil, meaning that large rain storms come and go like it's Florida. As soon as we got back on the boat, a huge storm hit, we put down these tarps all around the open parts of the boat and tried to elevate our belongings so we could stay dry. This boat was pretty small in comparison to the MV (our usually ship), so we definitely did a lot more rocking and banging around. We all hung out that night on the boat and set up our beds for the night…by beds, I mean HAMMOCKS! (PICTURE 10).  Sleeping in a hammock is quite the experience. If you lay normally your body will be in a sort of U shape…this feels fine for the first hour or two, then you need to do major readjusting and get diagonally so that you feel like you're all on one level again. Also, when the boat is moving, the hammocks sway along with the boat…this part though wasn't too bad as we are pretty used to the movement.

 Like I said before, this is DEFINITELY not the last of my entries about Brazil. I have SO much more to say…so stay tuned!

-Steph