Saturday 11/6/10 6:25am (This entry reflects what happened on Friday, 11/5/10)
Well what a day we had yesterday. We loaded up in Brandon’s car around 8:30am. Then we headed to his house for him to find a book and to meet with the former Mayor of Amogalose (?). He gave us information about the Matses tribe that live near the Peru/Brazil border. He said that half of teh Matses where he lived were Christian. A man from Alaska would come down and teach them. He built a church building in the villages. He was going to start building wells for them but they have not seen him in about a year. We are not sure if his numbers are correct but it is worth investigating.
We went to the docks to load and it was crazy. There was a street corner preacher with a megaphone. We finally got loaded and headed out around 12:30 or so. We passed a DEA/CIA headquarters where they team up with the Peruvians to help with drug trafficking. We made it to Mazan where we unloaded and took carts from one side of the river to the other. We stopped halfway for Brandon to get his tent from David’s parents. Oh…forgot…we loaded our groceries for the week. We had 5 big bottles of water, fruit, rice and several LIVE chickens…so we got to the other side of the river by cart because ti would take too long by boat to go all the way around. We loaded up and headed to Sucusari which took about 2 hours. Once we got to the Sucusari Tributary it was slow tracking. The river is way down. We met up with one of the
Maijuna’s fishing who led us up the river on his canoe. We unloaded and placed our things in the brick community center. It was hot, very hot and humid because as we were traveling in on the boat it began to rain which just made it hotter when the sun came out. We set up our tents…Gerald put up his hammock in an empty house. We went down to the river to take a bath. The water was very hot but refreshing. The kids got in with us and really took to me not having hair. They kept rubbing my head. As I got out they took to splashing water in Gerald and Brandon’s face…just goes to show kids are kids no matter where you go. After we got dressed we hung out with some of the guys from the village…oh and kids. It got dark around 6:30pm so most of our time was spent with flashlights. The ladies finished dinner. We had fried rice and two of those chickens. The kids sat around us as we ate just waiting to get into the food. We ate by flashlight…we took turns holding it for each other. After dinner we talked for a little while. Then tried to go to sleep but it was so hot. I sat up visiting with Brandon till about 8:30 and the laid down int he tent with my towel that was damp to help with the sweat. I finally fell asleep but woke up often. The guys who drove the boat slept on it to keep it from being stolen. Needless to say it was a very, very long night.
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