It’s now about 11:30PM on my first full day in Manaus, Brazil, though I expect this will be posted much later than that due to less than optimal connectivity. This delay seems rather appropriate, as I’m quickly discovering that timeliness and schedules are not a priority in the local culture.
In spite of the fact that I had taken a bit of a nap yesterday afternoon, I slept like a rock on my inflatable mattress. I awoke to the rumbling of nearby thunder, and the sounds of heavy rain on the tile roof. Every few minutes, when the wind picked up, there would come a loud thumping sound overhead, as the wind lifted and rattled the roof tiles, the dropped them back down.
Not long after I awoke and showered, my sister’s fiancé Yan dropped off breakfast, in the form of sandwiches comprised of egg, sausage, tucumã (a mildly sweet fibrous fruit), and cheese, accompanied by coffee & cupuaçu juice. Marnie explained to me that a cupuaçu was a hairy, egg-like fruit. The juice was a cloudy white color, and delicious.
A cupuaçu in my hand!
Halfway through our meal the power went out. My sister Marnie seemed unsurprised, cracked the window (for light) and moved the dog beds away from the window to stop them from getting soaked – we finished the meal by candlelight. The power was out for several hours, and all cell phone service went away as well. Apparently a large power station several miles outside the city had failed, and that failure had shut down powere to the whole city.
Marnie asked if I would like to join her as she walked the dogs. After so much time spent stationary, I decided that was a fantastic idea. We took them down the street, moving at a slow pace to accommodate their lethargic gaits, and made a right turn down a hill. We walked past a water treatment plan, shortly after which the road abruptly ended, and a steep hill led downward to a very shallow waterway. On the hillside were some ramshackle houses on platforms, and a boat in process of being built.
A boat under construction
To the west you could see it met up with the a huge body of slow-moving dark water, the Rio Negro. Marnie informed me that the river was currently at its low point. Towards the end of the rainy season, which was just starting, the canal would be completely full – and that the houses were in fact houseboats.
House boat? Or just house?
We returned to the apartment, passing a giant engine block that had apparently been sitting by the street for years (perhaps scrap has no value here), little housefront shops, and a small child with an incredible mane of hair.
The power came back on early in afternoon, but at that point it had already thrown a monkey wrench in the wedding preparations – since all businesses were closed, the suits were still at the cleaners, the rings had not been picked up, and Marnie’s nails were yet to be done. Yan had the car to attempt to accomplish some of the wedding-related tasks, and so we were stuck at the apartment until he returned. Marnie made a delicious lunch of fried sausage, onions & peppers, along with farofa and some leftover fish stew.
At 4:00 Yan returned, mildy frantic from his attempts to get everything in line. Many businesses had remained closed, and so some final items would have to wait until tomorrow – the day of the wedding – to be finished. He drove us to the nail salon where Marnie received a manicure & pedicure, which ended up taking several hours.
The rehearsal was scheduled to happen at 7:00, so Yan picked me up from the nail salon then, leaving Marnie & my mother there, and we drove to the big blue Catholic church where the ceremony would be held. In a perfect example of the kind of Brazilian scheduling I was beginning to become accustomed to, not only were there no members of the wedding party present, there was a mass taking place, which appeared to be about half over. We returned to the salon with news that there was no hurry.
We returned to the church around 8:00, at which point the wedding party was beginning to arrive. At this point we discovered another wonderful example of Brazilian scheduling – the church band was rehearsing at the same time! Regardless, the rehearsal went smoothly. Marnie & Yan had run into trouble trying to get a photographer lined up for the wedding, so I had volunteered – in part because it would give me the opportunity to play with Marnie’s Canon 60D, the same camera much of my “Start To Begin” music video was shot with. I was able, from the rehearsal, to get enough of a sense of the flow of the ceremony that I felt prepared for the next day.
By the end of the rehearsal we were all starving, and realized we were in need of groceries for tomorrow morning’s breakfast, as we had cleaned out Marnie’s fridge to make our lunch. We made a 20 minute drive to the other side of the city, where the only late-night grocery store was located, and grabbed a delicious dinner of fried meats before shopping. When ordering, the waitress told us that it might not be enough food, as it was intended for 3 people and there were 5 of us present. When the food arrived, we were bemused by the massive mound of comestibles – for it to be consumed by 3 people, they would have to be world-class eaters. Needless to say, there were leftovers.
After dinner, we stopped by the grocery store. We tried to make it a quick visit, so we could get to bed early – after all, it’s a big day tomorrow! Though we found everything we needed quickly, our attempts at speed were thwarted when we arrived at the checkout line. The woman in front of us had a shopping cart filled with about 70 bottles of shampoo, each of which had to be rung up separately. When that process was finally complete, she tried three different credit cards, each of which was rejected, and finally resorted to paying cash. We waited for at least fifteen minutes before this process finally ended. Marnie informed me that this is how things always go at Brazilian grocery stores.
As soon as I finish writing this I’ll be going to sleep – Marnie’s hair & makeup stylists are supposed to arrive at 8:00 tomorrow morning, and will be working on here in the exact spot where my bed is situated. Given my experiences today, I’m going to make a bet that it will be closer to 8:45, but just in case they miraculously arrive on time, I want to be sure I’ve had enough sleep.
From Educandos, Manaus, Brazil… Boa Noite!
