Today I got to experience a different side of the Amazonian region of Brazil. Around 11:00 we set off from Marnie & Yan’s apartment to visit her sítio – her country house. Before she & Yan got an apartment in the Educandos neighborhood of Manaus, this was here primary place of residence in Brazil. She purchased it from someone she described as “A crazy old man – no really, he was actually crazy.”
What she purchased is what I would describe as “squatter’s rights”. The entire village of Fatima, where her sítio is located, is technically on the property of a very wealthy Brazilian landowner, but Brazilian law states that if lands that were unused by a property owner are cared for by another for 3 years, the caretaker then has rights to the land and can not be evicted. Those rights can then be bought and sold, which is how Marnie came by the land. Apparently there’s a general opinion in Brazil, that if the wealthy have more than they can use, it should be shared with the poor. I feel like there could be some insightful political commentary made about how this pertains to the Occupy Wall Street movement, but I’ll leave that to someone else.
We arrived at the docks on the Rio Negro at around 11:30 – the sky was clear and the sun was blazing hot. At the docks, we again saw the effect the rise and fall of the water level has on those who rely on the river: since the available space along the shoreline was greatly diminished by the low water, the boats were all crowded very closely together, with only a few inches between them.
Low water = tightly packed boats.
We boarded a ferry, that could seat about 20 people, and were soon away from the docks and out on the river. The boat made a few stops along the way – one at a beach that I was told was usually very popular, but due to the low water level there was a danger of stingrays, and several people had been recently injured.
A few swimmers braved the stingrays...
The ferry dropped us off at the stop for Fatima, where again we saw the effects of the low water level. After scaling a 20-foot slope of sandy soil, Marnie pointed out a tree with exposed roots, and said that within a few months the base of the tree would be completely underwater.
In a few months, these roots will be underwater.
She also pointed out a pile of garbage bags, mentioning that the trash barge was currently unable to make it far enough inland to collect the trash, so it was just accumulating.
It was only about a mile’s walk to her sítio, but due to the high temperatures and blazing sun, we decided it would be a good idea to take one of the local “taxis”. While we waited for one to arrived, we sat in the shade at local shop, the owners of which Marnie is friends with. They were very friendly, and offered us drinks – at Marnie’s suggestion I opted for Baré Guaraná, a root-beer like beverage, only available in the Amazonas region. Delicious!
mmmm... tasty.
After we waited for about 15 minutes, a small pickup truck (more a car with a pickup bed – I’ve seen many of them since I arrived) passed the store, and one of the owners flagged it down for us. Marnie & I enjoyed the bumpy ride in the pickup bed, and within about 10 minutes were outside her gate.
She showed us around her property, which was populated with fruit-bearing trees of all sorts: Avocados, cashews, ingá (fleshy white fruits with large purple seeds, which are contained in pods several feet long), acaí and cupuaçu, among many others.
Marnie's sítio!
After straightening up the one-room house, on a small propane stove, using water pulled by hand from her well, she cooked a delicious meal of Jaraqui. It’s a small local fish, about which is said, “Quem come jaraqui, não sai mais daqui,” which translates to, “He who eats, jaraqui, never leaves here again!” Along with it she made vinagrete and rice – a simple country meal, but absolutely fantastic.
This picture makes me hungry.
A few hours later, the pickup taxi returned us to the docks, where I watched a boy – who couldn’t have been more than fourteen – attempting to push his water taxi away from the docks. Every time he tried to do so, his dog would leap back onto the dock, and he would have to chase it back to the boat. I captured a few seconds of video of that dog, which I thought I’d loop for you all in .gif format (this was after the boy finally wrangled him onto the boat and cast off).
Later that evening, back in the city, we went to a rooftop party at Marnie’s friend Telma’s house – a surprise birthday party for her friend Beth’s husband. The food was great, the music was loud, and the people were wonderful, but what was most memorable was the stairs we scaled to reach the roof!
How's that for stairs?
