Welcome to my poolside breakfast blog. That's right, I am sitting by a pool at our luxury house turned hotel with my computer, my breakfast, my headphones, french bread and my cafe con leite writing updates on my Pantanal study abroad trip. Not too shabby huh?
So, here we at the beginning of day 5 of the trip. To recap the trip thus far, though I must start at:
Dia um (Day 1):
We arrived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia early Tuesday morning. Santa Cruz was an interesting place. There was a palpable tension in the air there, and driving through the city the poverty and third world status of the country was blatantly obvious. I didn't notice many military men with machine guns which I was told we may see in Santa Cruz, but driving down the road I saw people crowding the streets, children washing windows for spare change, emaciated stray dogs roaming the sidewalks, and bony horses tied to posts along the road. Hidden behind the crumbling buildings was a very nice, open restaurant where we ate lunch after our pre-lunch snack of traditional saltenas. The food there was muito bon. We then explored the city. We went to a beautiful, open air church in the heart of the city, and visited the market, where it seems like most citizens congregate for their meals. We then went to the train station where the tension was even more pronounced. We had to check our large bags and the man checking our suitcases essentially told us that our bags might not make it to our destination if he didn't get 5 pesos (less than a dollar in US). The train was an overnight one with reclining seats. So, for those keeping track this was night number 2 without a bed. As soon as we got on the train we were greeted by a video anthology of the music stylings of some greasy Bolivian singer blaring through the train. The same music created a sort of soundtrack in the morning, though, as we raced through the Bolivian countryside watching for wildlife the next morning and thus began:
Dia Dois (Day 2):
Early in the morning we arrived at the Bolivia/ Brazil border in the Bolivian city of Quijarro and met our van from the hotel and our guide for the day named Ricardo. We then crossed over into Brazil and explored the beautiful city of Corumba for a while. We spent most of this day in the van driving through the Brazilian countryside and stopping occasionally to get pictures of wildlife and the river. Unfortunately I slept through most of this experience since I took a Benadryl after being attacked by fire ants in case I had an allergic reaction. But, at last we ended up at the Universidade Federal de Matto Grosso do Sol's research station where we had lunch and then went trekking through the swamp. It was Jaou's birthday, so we kept an eye out for his "birthday anaconda," which I agreed to help him capture as a birthday present. I agreed to take the "bitey end" while he would take the "strangly end." On our trek we saw a number of bird species, our first capybara, and high up in the trees we saw a couple of howler monkeys waiting for us to leave their territory. We then headed to the hotel. Several hours and two lengthy construction stops later we arrived at our home for the month and at last had beds of our own to sleep in. We went, for the first time, to the restaurant where we will have dinner for the remainder of the trip and returned to our hotels to shower and sleep in preparation for:
Dia Tres (Day 3):
This may have been my favorite day so far. We visited each of our sites this day beginning with the Terena tribe and the Terena escola. I fell in love almost instantly, and visiting the site only confirmed my initial desire to work with the children in the school. We visited several of the classes and spoke with some of the children who were quite funny.
We then went to the fisherman's village and met Mr. Noel and his family. Mr. Noel took us out on his chalana, or boat, and showed us the river. We then talked with him about some of his fishing methods and such. But, for me, the best part of this site was the domesticated dogs. Because though there are many dogs in Bolivia and Brazil, playing with them is considered, by my doctor anyway, as "high risk activity," since they are strays and carry diseases. So, for me, that makes the streets like a bar to an alcoholic, filled with dogs that I can't play with.
After breaking for lunch at one of the many luncenetes we visited the cattle ranching farm, which was breathtaking. Though they are a working cattle ranch with seas and seas of white nelar cows, or boi, but it is also a tourist site with a small fruit orchard, a bird "tower," horseback riding tours and all kinds of amenities as a part of the push toward ecotourism in the area. So, the place was stunning. If I wasn't an English major I'd almost want to be there ridng horses and herding cattle all day.
Finally we went to the cultural center, which sold pottery that is supposedly Terena, or loosely inspired by the traditional crafts. Taken together these four site painted an interesting picture of the economic gaps between groups and some of the resulting tensions from this disparity. It was a really interesting day.
Dia Quatro (Day 4):
On day 4 we left the hotel at 6:15 after scarfing our breakfast of cake, jelly rolls, "squeaky cheese" and, of course "cafe con leite." We first dropped Keely and Steve off at the cattle ranch. While the professores were talking with the farm's manager, Alex, I played with Stinky, a young, highly energetic dog who reminded me of my dog back home when she was a puppy. We then headed to the Terena tribe where we first made small talk with our contact, Fernando, before I headed over to the school. Here is what I wrote in my journal, immediately after leaving the school, about my first morning at the escola:
Now I know what it feels like to be the "oddity." I feel like I'm the anthropological subject rather than the other way around. Today was overwhelming. I think the teacher, Celia, felt the same way. Right now I feel like even the chickens are trying to figure out what I'm doing here. They are surrounding me and clucking. I am barely picking up Portugese let alone a lingua frango (or pollo). In the aula de arte I sat in the corner for a while as the students drew pictures. A few of the boys kept staring at me, which I expected, but I tried not to look too uncomfortable, though I'm sure I failed miserably. As they got more comfortable around me they slowly began to bring objects to me and asked how to say them in English. Of course, I would say the English word and they would giggle and scurry back to their seats. But, eventually they moved closer to me and swarmed me with a cuaderno and showed me their notes from English class and we exchanged vocabulary. It was actually quite helpful and I know they didn't give me dirty words instead of the correct ones because many of the words were the same as in Spanish. I asked them about animals a little bit and got some of them to tell me their favorite animals and they said dog and horse, though I made the mistake of telling them that my favorite animal was a horse first, so the boy who said horse may have just been flirting with me. The boys were pretty much what I expected, flirty and giggly. They hit each other and chased each other around the room. They ranged in age from 11-15 (though the 15 year old may have been lying to flirt). The girls were more reserved, they just sat in their seats and some stood outside the window and stared at us. One girl in the second class did walk right up to me, shook my hand and said bom dia. I noticed a tightness among the girls who would walk down the halls holding hands and linking arms. They took, what seemed to me, like several breaks. Ten to twenty minutes after I arrived we broke for a meal of arroz and some orange broth with yuca and what looked like chicken and beef. I was still full from breakfast and the meat was very fatty so I struggled to finish it, especially since I was watching the chickens when we first arrived and we were sitting with Fernando.
After writing this Lindsay and John returned with Fernando and his wife. We learned how to peel the yuca and helped cook the traditional gizardo. We ate two more times while conversing with Fernando and practicing our Portugese and learning Terena. After that I felt significantly more comfortable with the language.
We then returned to the hotel, walked around the city and shared our experiences from the day with the rest of the group. Overall, it was a good day. Now, time to experience Dia cinco. . .
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