A Family Visit and Farewell to Brasil

Thanksgiving has come and gone.  Christmas is one week away.  We leave Brasil today after a rewarding three-month stay to return to the United States.  At the supermarket, White Christmas is streaming through the store and everything is decorated in green and red tinsel.  Piles of boxes of holiday Pannetone fill the ends of the aisles and boxes of Brasilian champagne are displayed prominently near the check out counters.  It is 90 degrees Fahrenheit and the beginning of summer.  We will return to 40 degrees and the beginning of winter.

We had a wonderful visit during the last week of November – the American Thanksgiving with our son and daughter-in-law.  While our son lived in Brasil as a toddler and has visited throughout his life, it was our daughter-in-law’s first visit to Brasil.  Their time was short.  We agreed that the focus of their time would be visiting places in Piracicaba that our son remembered from his youth and going to the beach.  Somehow we managed to crowd in a weekend at the goat farm, Cabra Feliz; two visits to our amazing gym in Piracicaba (exercising is a family passion!); a visit to Rio Piracicaba and our favorite restaurant along Rua do Porto.  We shared the traditional Sunday lunch of grilled tambaqui, salad and ice-cold caipirinhas.  Our daughter-in-law ate her first palmitos (palm hearts) and mandiocas fritas!  She loved them.  Then we spent six days at the beach near Ubatuba enjoying the sun, the surf, the sand and the shrimp.

The day of Thanksgiving found us on the beach.  Our dinner was not turkey and cranberry sauce – it was fresh grilled Atlantic fish and risotto; mango salad and great big barbequed shrimp.  On Thanksgiving morning my son went surfing with a friend while my daughter-in-law and I bonded over old family stories. 

There is really something special about a daughter-in-law – and I suspect – although I have not yet experienced it – a son-in-law.  When our son married, one of my sisters, whose son had married two years before, told me to cherish the gift of a daughter-in-law.  She told me that at the moment of your child’s marriage, you instantly have a new family member.  It is someone who will be the life-long partner of your child, and perhaps the mother (in this case) of future grandchildren. 

This person isn’t a passing acquaintance.  This is family with all the important love and support and acceptance that family implies.  But it is not a child you raised from infancy.  Someone you knew from the beginning of his or her life.  A daughter- or son-in-law is a fully formed adult with whom you have the amazing chance to develop a new relationship.  My sister was right.  My daughter-in-law is a gift.  I was thrilled when our son married this young woman and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to be in Brasil with her and share our life here.

We went to a small town on the São Paulo coast called Ubatuba.  Ubatuba caters to beach goers and surfers.  We stayed at a condominium that belongs to our dear friends Bea and Reynaldo – of Cabra Feliz fame.  Happily Bea joined us for part of the week.  When you sit on the terrace looking at the view – you can see the surf line breaking along the beach and beyond the beach, layers of coastal rainforest mountains – the Mata Atlantica – fading into the distance. 

The Brasilian coastline in the state of São Paulo and all the way north to Rio is a continuous series of tranquil sandy coves and secluded bays that back into the Mata Atlantica.  The sand is very fine and lovely to sit on.  Sometimes it is almost white and other times almost red – the color of the surrounding iron rich soils.  If the sun is too hot there are beach umbrellas and shady trees to protect you. The steep mountains of the Mata Atlantica fall sharply from the high plains of São Paulo to the coast.  The access roads are crazy steep switchbacks that make you wonder how any road engineer could have designed them, let alone built them.  But the switch back roads are there.  On holidays they are filled bumper to bumper with sun seekers.  Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Brasil and the beaches were delightfully empty.

My son is a surfer.  He took it up seriously in his twenties and tells me that he is reasonably good.  But he isn’t as good as the surfers on the beaches of Ubatuba.  These surfers are there every day and appear to catch waves effortlessly.  My son tells me the trick is to being a great surfer is to just quit your job and surf all day!  Fortunately he hasn’t gone there.  But there is definitely a surfing contingent in Ubatuba that has. 

We saw some amazing surfers, riding on the tongue of the breaking waves as easily as I ride a bicycle.  Perhaps if you just keep practising, here or there you will catch a perfect ride on a perfect wave.  Like all marine beaches, these Atlantic beaches have endless waves.  The waves cross the ocean and break one after the other as they near the shallow coastal plain.  I suspect one of the attractions of surfing comes from that infinite nature of waves…if you miss one there is always another one coming.

There were so many things we did together – a good introduction to "a vida Brasileira" or at least Brasilian life on vacation… I remember sitting on the deck of the condo in Ubatuba – looking at the incredible view and just talking; doing our best to walk both sides of the river along Rua do Porto after two caipirinhas; sweating it out at spinning class at the gym; eating home made linguisa and succulent pork belly at Cabra Feliz; visiting the goat and pig barns and ogling at the tiny new baby piglets; 

listening to the guitarist play old bossa nova songs while we ate lunch in Paraty; jumping in the waves and swimming at our favorite beaches – Toninhas and Feliz; churning out laps with my daughter-in-law in the cool pool at the condo; watching the sun go down and loving the sparkling sea; cooking together at the condo; walking up the steep stairs from sea level(whew); shopping for a new bikini; seeing the big sky as we drove home from the beach across the Serra; hanging out; visiting old friends; enjoying the time together!!!

Their visit was a microcosm of family life…full of warmth and activity but also deep talks about our memories, what we think or perhaps wish we didn’t think about the state of the world and what is and isn’t important to us.  As we move headlong into the Christmas season, it is the right time to love and share with family and friends.

One thing that is important to me is our relationship with Brasil.  We leave tomorrow after three months.  We plan to return again in about three months.  Our goal is to split our time as seamlessly as possible between our two countries.  It is hard to remember when Brasil first became important to me.  It was likely in the very beginning in 1982 when I arrived on the Amazon River at 4 in the morning.  At 6 am I left with Jeff and a group of other American and Brasilian scientists on a 20-meter riverboat.  We traveled upstream that day to a small town called Manacapuru.  It was August and the town only had electricity from a small diesel generator.  But there was an important futebol (soccer) game being played and Brasil was playing.  Along with much of the town’s population and the whole boat crew, Jeff and I crowded into a small bar.  I was so tired that if the crowd had not been close enough to hold me up I would have fallen on the floor!  There was one small TV over the bar and we all watched and cheered as Brasil won! 

Another memory that I hold close comes from a few years later – 1986.  I was four or five months pregnant with our second child and we had come to Brasil for a three-month assignment.  Our son was two.  In the beginning we stayed with our friends, Bea and Reynaldo.  On the second or third day I was feeling a bit displaced.  My son was playing with other kids in the garden.  Bea told me that there was afternoon tea in the kitchen.  I went into the kitchen and there, set on the counter on a handmade tablecloth was a tea pot; a small pitcher of milk, cups and saucers and tea biscuits.  It looked so inviting and so like home.  I was born in England and had (and still have) afternoon tea almost every day of my life.  I felt instantly at home and loved the Brasilian heart that welcomed me so warmly.

Jeff and my relationship with Brasil is long and deep.  We are sad to leave but happy to return to our home in Seattle and a traditional family Christmas.  We look forward to coming back to Brasil in 2014.  Last night, after a final visit to our gym, we toasted farewell with Bea at Maravilhoso – our favorite chopp (draft beer) bar.  Later today we will drive to São Paulo and fly all night to the United States.  I feel very lucky to know Brasil and very happy to have shared a part of it with our son and daughter-in-law.

A perfect beginning to the Christmas season.  Feliz Natal!  Boas Festas!

Reflections in Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brasil

As 2013 draws to a close I cannot help but be in a reflective mood.  It has been a year of transitions.  The biggest transition for me was my retirement.  The other big and wonderful transition was welcoming our daughter-in-law into our family following our son’s wedding last year.  There were other transitions of course but these two were big and important.  They are good transitions.  But while welcoming our new daughter-in-law is wonderful, my retirement is a major shift from a lifetime of working.

Excepting three years in the mid-eighties when my husband and I and our two very young children lived back and forth between Brasil and Seattle, I worked my whole adult life – almost forty years.  That meant that with the exception of vacations, I went to an office and worked as a water resources engineer more than eight hours a day, five days a week for years. 

Now I don’t have an office to go to.  My job is at home.  I am the boss!  This is a rather nice situation but then again, what is my job?  I like to have a job or what I like to call a program.  Here is my program: writing; taking time to reflect and understand what is important in my life and in the world around me; connecting with family, old friends and new friends; learning Portuguese; staying healthy; cooking delicious food (and making sure I get enough exercise to maintain a healthy weight); and figuring out how to give back to the world.  I am adapting to retirement.

One of the things I realized about myself recently is that I don’t believe in hiding feelings.  I am a ridiculously sentimental person but I am not apologizing.  On the contrary I think deep feelings, feelings of love and forgiveness are crucial.  It seems that the older I get, the more important it is to simply say what it is that I feel – sometimes speaking up might be interpreted as being a bit in your face – too much information – my young relatives call it. 

But, as we age and loved ones die from natural and unnatural causes, life becomes short.  It is important to tell the people you love just that.  Just say I love you.  Be clear about how you feel.  If something matters to you, let others know.  In all likelihood they might share your feeling.  The worst thing that will happen is that the other person or persons won’t feel the same way.  But if that happens you are no worse off than before and at least you have been honest. 

I don’t mean to be corny.   I’m sure I could be accused of that.   Over the past few years both I and many people I care about have lost parents, spouses and even children due to accidents, illnesses and old age.  Once someone dies there is no time left to say what you feel.  So now is a good time.  It is in the spirit of the holiday season.  Speaking up is not only about affection.  It is about forgiveness too.  Often we have misunderstandings with people we love.  Sometimes someone who is important to you does something that hurts you or just doesn’t feel good.  Tell them why the action makes you unhappy, talk it through, but then forgive them and move on.  The recent death of Nelson Mandela is a reminder to all of us what incredible power forgiveness holds.

Catedral de VItória

This week Jeff and I visited the city of Vitória where Jeff has a project.  It is located on the northeastern coast of Brazil north of Rio de Janeiro.  Vitória is the capital city of the state of Espírito Santo.  Vitória and the surrounding metropolitan region have a population of about one million people.  The city is physically beautiful – set on green hills that fall to the Atlantic Ocean among a series of natural bays and harbors.  It is an old city with many historical buildings.  The Portuguese developed the area starting in 1535.  

The state of Espírito Santo is small and mountainous but quite prosperous.  Its economy depends heavily on industrial development including offshore petroleum, manufacture of iron and steel as well as forestry and agricultural products.  The agriculture and forestry industries thrive in the rich soil and humid climate – Espírito Santo produces coffee, many fruit (including the sweetest pineapples I have ever tasted), milk, eggs, eucalyptus trees for pulp and many other important agricultural products that feed Brazil and, via export, other nations.

Moqueca Capixaba with traditional side dishes

People from Espírito Santo are called capixabas… literally people with hair the color of corn silk.  The word derives from a native Indian language and began in response to the blond hair of the original Portuguese settlers.  Now the population is diverse and includes many people of Italian descent and descendants of African slaves.  As a seaport, Vitória boasts excellent seafood.  It is famous for its moqueca capixaba – a delicious seafood stew that, unlike its counterpart in Northeastern Brasil, does not use coconut milk.  It is cooked traditionally in a special clay pot that keeps its hot on the table and imparts a unique wonderful taste.

While in Vitória I attended a Feira do Verde or Green Festival put on by the state to celebrate and educate citizens about environmental protection and sustainability.  I felt right at home due to past work.  The state of Espírito Santo is very progressive in protecting and managing its water and land resources.  The keynote speech was all about using biosolids (a by-product of sewage treatment) as fertilizer for forest and agricultural products.  I chatted with many folks who had the same commitment to managing the natural resources that my colleagues in Seattle and King County have.  One highlight for me was listening to the Coral das Águas sing Christmas carols.  The choir is a group of talented men and women who work for the regional water utility – this is one thing King County doesn’t have!

Yemanjá

We stayed on Camburi beach – a perfect half moon bordered by yellow sandy beaches.  Palm trees line the boardwalk that runs along the coast.  The water is very clean – clean enough to swim in and see your feet – due to the advanced water and industrial treatment required.  At one end of the beach, a pier extends out into the bay.  It is lined with broad leaf trees and ends in a citadel adorned with a statue of Yemanjá.  Yemanjá is an Afro-Brasileira deity for Candomblé worshippers.  Yemanjá is both the patron saint of fishermen, deciding the fate of those who enter the sea and a sort of Brazilian Aphrodite – the goddess of love.  I walked its length and saw, appropriately enough lovers sitting on the benches and rocks as well as fishermen. The boulevard that borders the beach is lined with bright Christmas decorations – yellow and white stars that light the night sky.  

On Sunday afternoon, Jeff and I ate lunch at one of the kiosks along the beach.  A resident samba band started playing soon after we arrived and kept the whole crowd enthralled.  They wore matching t-shirts and fedora hats!  The t-shirts said, in Portuguese, in rough translation “Anyone who doesn’t like samba, don’t go there.”   

These people had serious jeito.  Jeito is another word that doesn’t really have an exact English translation.  A laid back manner might be the closest.  But jeito is much more than style.  It speaks to the full feeling and mode of being that is the coolness of playing amazing music on the beach on a Sunday afternoon while the audience eats fresh shrimp and drinks icy cold beer.  That was Jeff and me. 

Midway through the show, the leader, who was a vivacious man and a versatile singer, told everyone that it was the birthday of an older lady who was sitting at a nearby table.  With that introduction and after her family saluted this lady – who, I may say, bowed to all of us graciously – the band broke into the most extraordinary version of Happy Birthday that I have every heard.  While the tune was traditional, the musicians riffed on the classic and played a samba version that went on for close to twenty minutes. 

At times the whole restaurant sang along and at other times the drummer, or one of the other musicians just took off into a samba riff.  At the end everyone clapped and cheered.  The birthday lady stood, grinning broadly and took another gracious bow.  I have no idea if the musicians are retired or still working their day jobs – some, including the leader, looked about my age but who knows.  Either way they were a group of people who were seriously enjoying making music on the beach.

At the end of the 2-hour set, friends of the band welcomed the musicians to a feast of homemade empadinhas (little savory pies), pasteis (fried turnovers) and other delicacies.  I told the banjo player it was the most amazing rendition of Happy Birthday that I had ever heard in my life.  He laughed and in true Brazilian fashion immediately hugged me!   As I have said, I am an effusive person and also very demonstrative in my affection.  I hugged him right back.  Maybe this is why I love living in Brasil!

We greatly enjoyed the rest of our 4-day visit to Vitória.  The town is very accessible and friendly.  It has a bike path that runs along most of the beaches.  We found a great gym that our hotel gave us vouchers for.  We went there twice and survived a dynamic hour-long spinning class and two intense weight training and abdominal (core strengthening) sessions.  As part of our commitment to healthy aging, Jeff and I try to do some sort of aerobic, flexibility and strength training exercises four to five times a week.  This is a major and time consuming commitment but well worth the effort.

On Camburi beach one afternoon I enjoyed watching kite surfers race across the water.  One of the surfers did a 360 aerial turn right in front of me.  I saw fishermen and fishing boats painted in bright colors.  I watched teenagers skate board on the boardwalk and play soccer (futebol) in the sand.  I sunbathed on the beach and swam in the ocean.  The weather was hot and the clear water was deliciously cooling.

Next week, although I am not ready to leave Brasil, I look forward to our return to the Pacific Northwest and seeing our family and friends for the holidays.

Fishing Boats in Vitória, ES, Brasil

Santarém and the Rio Tapajós

In a short two weeks from today Jeff and I will leave Brazil until sometime in 2014.  We will return to the Pacific Northwest and our home in Seattle for Christmas and New Year’s and the first part of next year.  How can it be almost three months since we arrived?  Despite my moment of expat angst a few weeks ago I feel very much at home in Brazil.  The time here has flown by.  I am just now finding that my Portuguese is entering the next stage of fluency and I haven’t had a chance to do everything I planned to do.  Instead I will continue Portuguese lessons in Seattle so as not to lose ground.

I have not yet told you about a wonderful part of our trip to the Amazon region that happened almost two months ago.  So this week’s blog goes back in time to our visit in October to the city of Santarem in the equatorial state of Pará.  As a quick note I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving or at least as good a time as we did at the beach!  More on that later.

Santarém Pará Brazil, October 2013

I am looking at the Tapajós River, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon River.  The Tapajós is roughly comparable in size to the Mississippi River.  It flows north into the Amazon River past the jungle city of Santarém.  The Tapajós is famous for its clean “clear” sometimes called blue water and its white sandy beaches.  When Jacques Cousteau visited the area many years ago he predicted a tourist-filled future for the Tapajós as the Caribbean of the Amazon.  Fortunately or perhaps unfortunately for the local economy that future did not happen.  The region is largely undeveloped and absolutely beautiful.

The Rio Tapajós

The clear water river rises south of the equator in the ancient (pre-Cambrian) Brazilian shield.  Unlike the geologically young Andes Mountains that form the headwaters of the Amazon, the Tapajós watershed is very old and heavily weathered.  The river doesn’t carry the Andean sediment loads that make the Amazon look like café com leite.  The Tapajós’ upper watershed is rich in copper, nickel, iron and manganese.  International mining companies vie to extract the valuable metals from this part of the world’s largest jungle.  Millions of dollars can be made but the conditions under which the mining moves forward have, over the years, been at the cost of lives, the environment and the health of the area. 

Now, strict environment laws require “sustainable development”: the use of water quality treatment systems for all mining discharges to surface streams.  Mining conditions for the workers have improved a great deal.  Inevitably, there is still much to do before sustainability for people, the jungle and the rivers is real.  Prior to flying to Santarem my husband and I visited with one of his colleagues in the coastal Amazonian city of Belém to learn more about the upstream conditions, the water quality and hydrology of the Tapajós.

The mining is happening far upstream from where I sit beside the big swimming pool at the Hotel Barrudada.  I am watching small black and yellow songbirds flit in and out of the trees.  The continuous chatter of birds blends into background music from the poolside café and the intermittent noise of workmen carrying food and construction materials beyond the pool deck.  The light rustling of straw brooms being swept across the deck reminds me that I am in Brazil. 

The harsh heat, the strong winds, the heavy rains, and abundant vegetation that characterize the equatorial region seem to invade everything.  The men and women who make this jungle their home work continuously to counter these forces and bring order to their part of the world.  Along the streets, in front of houses and businesses, inside gardens and public parks, everywhere I look, there is a never-ending parade of owners and workers sweeping dust and vegetation; re-painting buildings; patching and fixing sidewalks and roads; cutting overly-zealous bushes and trees; cleaning windows and walls.  Our hotel, a giant concrete building that looks like an over sized bunker, seems to be in an on-going state of remodeling.  On the wide stairways, there are painters and plasterers fixing holes and re-painting; in the lobby there are men re-tiling the floor; in the west wing the sound of drills and saws is an on-going cacophony that blends with the other noises.

Late one afternoon during our visit to Santarém, I decided to have a manicure and pedicure at the Salao de Beleza (i.e., the beauty salon) in the Hotel Barrudada lobby.  Every woman in every country knows that having a manicure and pedicure is a delicious personal luxury.  I often have such treatments when I travel.  It is an instant way to connect and feel part of the local, girls-together community. 

I sat on a banquette and one young woman filed and massaged my hands while another attended to my feet.  They were half way through the treatments when a young girl who didn’t look more than nineteen walked into the salon carrying several large bags.  It turned out she was a dealer in fancy underwear and designer purses.  She had arranged to show the shop girls and the other clients her wares. 

The buying and selling that ensued was a most entertaining experience.  There were only seven women in the shop – plus the vendor – but the young entrepreneur sat down on the banquette and started taking endless sets of sexy undies and low cut bras out of the bags.  Each set was wrapped in a small cellophane package.  She unwrapped more than sixty or seventy sets.  That is a lot of underwear in a pretty small space.  The sets were sitting on my knees, their knees, the footstools, everywhere. 

The underwear came in every color and every design you can imagine – red, blue, black, leopard print, hot pink, Kelly green, lavender, deep burgundy and violet.  The styles were highly varied also – underwires, plunging v-cuts, push-ups, cut-aways…I honestly don’t know what the styles were called but they were something.  And the panties were tiny.  I mean REALLY tiny.  And pretty much all a thong cut and I don’t think I need to explain what that means.  But here was the crazy thing.  Most of the women who were buying were actually fairly hefty in terms of hip and thigh dimension.  But the size of the panties was not big at all.  No worries.  Everyone was buying.  By the way my mani/pedi was excellent.  All in all a most successful salon visit. 

On our last day in Santarém we went to an extraordinary beach – Ponte de Pedras…the Point of the Rocks.  We were invited guests at the weekend home of the in-laws of one of Jeff’s colleagues, José.  Saturday morning we drove out of Santarem down the only road out of town.  It penetrated the jungle, past many tiny villages or vilas as they are called in Portuguese – Santa Luzia; Sao Bruz; Santa Maria.  At first the road was well paved.  Along its margins were small stores, an occasional restaurant, subsistence farms and wealthier looking fazendas.  After about 40 minutes we turned from the paved road onto a rough dirt road.

We went as far as we could in the borrowed Fiat and then our friend Troy – an American scientist – and another of Jeff’s colleagues who married a Brazilian woman years ago, picked us up in a much-needed 4-wheel drive.  When we arrived at the house, the “Dona da Casa” – lady of the house – greeted us like members of the family.  She was José’s mother-in-law and a grandmother to boot.  She ushered us in and showed us the path to the beach.  It was an elevated wooden walkway that led through the jungle to the water.

At the edge of the beach a small deck with built-in benches gave a perfect view of the beach and the low-lying peninsula across the bay.  Troy ran down the beach and, using his t-shirt as a flag, waved to the folks on the sandy peninsula.  Soon two men started the outboard motor on a small aluminum boat and crossed the channel to pick us up.  José’s mother-in-law told me that we should get in the boat and enjoy a swim and be back in time for lunch.  She was a small woman in a cotton housedress, her hair cropped short and graying.  Her hands bore witness to a river life of outside work but she was relaxed, welcoming and very articulate.

We walked across the white sand to the water’s edge, took off our sandals and climbed into the boat.  It was similar to the aluminum fishing boats I know from the San Juan Islands back home, but longer and narrower.  The outboard motor however was a primitive affair - sort of like an old lawnmower engine with a long shaft that stuck almost horizontally into the water.  Troy pulled the outboard alive and off we went.

 The crossing was a mere five minutes.  The peninsula was a low-lying spit of fine white sand, with a few trees and almost no elevation.  At the nearest tree, our friends had erected a sun shelter with a yellow tarp and rope.  Under the shelter were chairs, packs, baskets and sand toys.  Several women, all about thirty something, were sitting and chatting.  They greeted us in lyrical Portuguese.  Two small children, about six or seven were playing in the sand and laughing. 

On the other side of the spit, I could see a small group of adults sitting in the water, each cradling a bottle of beer.  Two small kayaks were anchored beside them – one with a cooler on the front seat.  Troy told us to come on into the water and have a beer.  The water was lovely – warm and welcoming he told us in Portuguese.  I didn’t need more encouragement.   I took off my shorts and shirt, adjusted my bikini and walked into the water.  In the distance, near the other side of the wide river, I could see the faint rise of a distant island. 

Troy was right.  The water was amazing.  Like a great big warm bathtub.  No wonder everyone was sitting so happily.  I walked to the group and sat down in the shallow white sandy-bottomed water.  Someone opened the cooler and handed us cold beers.  We sat in a circle and chatted.  Somehow or other every time I just did not know a word, someone who spoke more English than I spoke Portuguese volunteered it.  Most of the folks were Brazilian academics who had some English skills.  But I also had some Portuguese skills.

Later everyone told us to walk down to the end of the spit.  It is beautiful they said.  Jeff and I got our camera and walked down the sand.  The sand was strewn with very small smooth quartz river rocks, all in different colors, white, pink, yellow, grey.  I collected several round and crescent shaped ones as we walked.  The spit was special – we walked half a mile or more until the spit ended where the main river channel entered the closed bay.   There were no bugs.  The air was clear.  The sky was blue. 

Soon it was time for lunch.  Our hosts had prepared a feast for the almost 20 person group: barbequed tambaqui (a delicious Amazonian fish); pork spareribs; linguisa; chicken; rice; vinaigrette; a potato salad and a curious dish of tomato sauce, onions, peppers and cut up hotdogs.  There was farofa (fried manioc flour) and the wonderful Amazon hot sauce, tucupi.  We sat on the open veranda in the jungle and feasted.  There was more beer, coca cola, and orange soda; cut up pineapple and ice cream.  At one end of the veranda three tables were set up for everyone.  At the other end, the grandchildren and their hard working grandma lounged on swinging hammocks.  We piled our plates and sat down to enjoy the meal. 

Later Jose’s father-in-law showed me a standing tray he had built at the edge of the forest where he called for, and then fed pieces of banana to a troupe of small monkeys.  Like his wife, he was a simple but elegant man – they had grown up along the river but clearly were very capable and intelligent.  All five of their children, he told me proudly, have college and some even have graduate degrees.  He had built the house from his own design.  He grew peppers, bananas, and tomatoes.  He was a master barbeque chef.  He knew all the plants in the forest.  He and his wife welcomed us into their house as if we were family.

Jeff and I left the Amazon the next day on an early morning flight back to the south.  We won’t forget Ponte de Pedras or the wonderful hospitality of our hosts.