Uricurituba (Towns of the Rio Madeira)

Uricurituba

Heading up the Rio Madeira the first town of any size the traveler encounters is Uricurituba, which sits high on the right bank of the river. Due to height of the bank, the town has never been flooded and the building are built along traditional lines. Unlike a village, Uricurituba has electricity and paved streets. When I was last there the town had at least a hundred buildings of various sizes, including several churches, a post office and elementary school and high school, as well as family residences and commercial buildings.

As in most of the interior towns, agriculture and fishing are the principal sources of income. There was also the beginning of a local industry of weaving baskets for the tourist trade.

One of the more interesting things about Uricurituba was its large population of Japanese-Brazilians. These settlers and their descendants are known for their hard work and a desire to improve the situation. The original colony has turned this part of the Rio Madeira into a productive area with products always available to sell.

In the town the predominant color is blue, with the occasional yellow and pink thrown in. Once again I was impressed with the hospitality of the people and their desire to make us comfortable.

There was a real pride in what they had done to their town and they had plans for future improvements.

Getting out of the cities and into the countryside is the best way to get to know the people.

More in the next edition.

Fazendinha

Fazendinha

The pictures above are not of the village of Fazendinha, I could not find any. However, they do provide a glimpse in the general look of any small village along the banks of the majority of rivers that flow through Amazonas.

I visited Fazendinha once during my time as a missionary in Amazonas. Fazendinha is a village near the mouth of the Rio Madeira, where the river empties into the Amazon River. Consisting of twenty to twenty-five homes (the majority painted blue, which is a popular color in all the villages I visited), the majority of the villagers make their living fishing, hunting, farming, and making baskets for the tourist trade.

The visit was during the time of the floods. Because of the rise and fall of the river, most of the villages on river banks with a tendency to overflow, have their houses built on stilts. The height has been decided upon based on years of river life and knowing how the river acts.

To get from one house to another one crossed on planks, about a foot wide and two inches thick. These are the same planks one uses to board and leave any of the river boats. Crossing the planks when they are wet, and especially if they are muddy, is always a challenge. Fortunately, I did not fall during this visit.

One thing I always enjoyed in the small villages I visited that made up our parish was the friendliness of the people and how they went out of their way t make you feel at home. Even when they had little, they always wanted to share, giving their guests the best portion.

True hospitality is one of the things I learned in these small villages.

While there I tried a small red pepper that my host said would be good with my fish dinner. He meant for me to cut up the pepper and sprinkle it over the fish. I ate the pepper whole and have never experienced anything like it before or since. Tears ran down my face for over an hour and even though I drank a gallon of water it had no effect. One of those lessons and experiences you never forget. Needless to say, I am now very leery when it comes to peppers.

When one comes to Amazonas as a tourist, if one has the time and really wants to know about those who first settled the region, it is important to visit the villages where in many ways they do things with little variation as they did a hundred years ago.

More in the next edition.

Rio Madeira

Rio Madeira

After the Rio Solimoes and the Rio Negro join to form the Amazon River, the next largest tributary is the Rio Madeira. The Madeira is a brown river, almost three quarters of mile wide in some places and so narrow and rough after Porto Velho that it is no longer navigable.

During my time in Brazil I visited the village of Fazendinha at the mouth of the Maderia and I lived for over a year in Porto Velho where boat traffic comes to a halt at the Falls of Saint Anthony.

For two and a half years I lived in Nova Olinda do Norte, and visited Borba, Nova Aripuana - where I lived two months the summer of 1977 - Rosarinho, Sao Sebastiao and Uricurituba with its large population of Japonese-Brazilians.

Going up stream, between Rosarinho and Nova Olinda was the large farm of a Japanese-Brazilian known as Oka. One of Oka's enterprises was that he was the first to have frozen chickens available to sell to the river boats going up and down the river. As I mentioned previously, travel on the river is slow, especially in the flood season when you are going against the current, and included in the price of your passage are meals on board the boat. For this reason the captains were happy to have a source of supply along their route.

The Madeira is a big and bold river and it is where I learned how to drive a small eight foot by twenty foot enclosed boat we used for our missionary travels. I was adequate as a pilot, but never excellent. On the plus side I never got stuck on a sand bar and the boat never sank.

Travel on the Madeira was always an adventure because even when the river was low during the dry season, the Madeira is a swift running body of water and it always seemed to carry a large amount of obstacles, especially fallen trees.

Along the banks of the river you would see the small farms and huts of the locals known as cabocles. Normally they farmed a little, hunted a little, and fished a little, their goal to survive, not make a great profit.

More on the towns of the Rio Madeira in the next edition.

Boats

Boats

During my time in Amazonas I have ridden in a variety of boats, as the rivers are still the principal highways, and in this land of jungle and rivers, they probably always will.

I have crossed lakes in small canoes (sank in one once upon a time), rode up back rivers in a small twenty foot by eight foot boat to visit communities so deep in the interior they had never experienced electricity without the assistance of a gas generator.

My first river trip was in a large two story river boat, an eighteen hour voyage where I saw the meeting of the waters, my first pink dolphin and where I slept in a hammock (rede in Portuguese) for the first time.

I went by small boat and then canoe to visit the flooded jungle and see the giant water lilies known as Victoria Redes, as well as troops of monkeys running through the tree tops, accompanied by the squawking of colorful parrots, parrakeet's and toucans.

Life on the rivers of the Amazon appears easy and laid back, but the truth of the matter is that for those who live on the banks life is usually a seasonal challenge, harvesting enough during the dry season, and staying above the water during the floods.

A visit to Amazonas is incomplete without a trip on the water.

One of the greatest spectacles in Manaus is on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. As patron of all who travel the water, Saint Peter is loved and honored. On his feast day boats of all sizes form a procession and travel the six or seven miles that make up all of Manaus' waterfront. Priests aboard a large boat lead the procession offering prayers and singing hymns. What appears to be hundreds of boats follow. (Always good to keep a sharp lookout and make sure no drunk captain is getting too close)

I have been a participant in the procession twice and both were exciting experiences.

If you get to the land of rivers and streams make the time to get out and explore and feel them.

More in the next edition.

Manaus Memories (continued)

One of the most fascinating things about Manaus when I first arrived in 1980 and still true today, is the diversity of the people who make up the city. There are native Indians, a polyglot of descendants of various European nationalities, blacks, the majority descended from the former slaves on Brazil's east coast, and Asians, predominately Japanese. Not only are they all present and working side by side, but they have intermarried and created some of the most beautiful people in the world.

Amazonas, is one of the few places in the world where the majority of the people judge you on who you are, not what you are. I find it fascinating that they do not consider anyone white or black, but rather have hundreds of words to described the varying shades of color.

I am well freckled and when I asked what color am I, they told me I was "rust" because that was the shade my reddish freckles gave me.

Division in Northern Brazil is not based on color or race, but sadly on economic status. A poor man is a poor man and a rich man is a rich man, regardless of the color of their skin.

With better education and more high schools, as well as more universities and colleges available to the many, rather than the elite, the division between poor and rich is being attacked. Currently in Brazil the middle class is on the rise and hopefully if the government's economic reforms hold true, the middle class should grow even more.

Our differences are what unite us and the sharing brings out the beauty in all of us.

More in the next edition.