Well, I am finally going to try and finish up explaining my boat trip about 2 weeks after it ended and about 1 day before I leave again for the South of Para and will not have internet for another 11 days. The end of my trip culminated in a rural homestay with a ribeirinhos family near Juruti. Living with this family was one of the most amazing experiences of my life...I spent the days searching for fruits and brazil nuts in the forest and learning how to fish with nets in the river. I had about 6 or 7 children crawling all over me at all times and I have numerous pages in my notebook of doodles that we spent hours doing. In the late afternoons, we would spend hours playing soccer and the moms would even join in. These are the kids in my homestay family: Sauri, Alberth, Tomi Ta, and Tomi Carlon.

 On Sunday, the four communities that live near each other have a soccer tournament, so we hosted another community at our soccer field for a pretty intense game. Right before the game, I went to look for fruit in the forest and ended up by the farinha huts where the boys outside decided to throw brazil nuts at each other. I was lucky enough to be standing in the way of a particularly well thrown one that hit me just above the temple and had a great time sporting a black eye and welt on my head for about 2 weeks after. I was taken by the children down to my host mother who took care of me while the entirety of the two communities watched resulting in probably the most embarrassing experience of my life. However, the soccer game was amazing and afterwards I hung out with some locals and practiced conversational Portuguese. My host mother was very involved in the community so I was able to go to meetings and church and really understand the inner workings of it. Everyone in the community feels like one family and they do all they can to look out for one another. Education is on the rise, though they do not have access to proper materials until they reach high school age. It seems that only 5 or 6 boys are able to move to Juruti for school and they return every weekend with goods for the town. Upon leaving, my host mother began to cry and I realized why Brazilians have the word saudade....leaving someone you're relatively sure you're never going to see again that have truly touched your life.

Beyond this, life in the city has been interesting but not very noteworthy. I was able to visit Boa Vista, a community just north of Belem where we were all bathed in herbs to attract positive energy and apparently boyfriends, something that Brazilians hold in the highest esteem. I also visited the bird conservatory here, which is absolutely beautiful and a lovely paradise in the middle of the city.

I am leaving tomorrow for the South of Para and should return around May 3rd, so hopefully by then I will have plenty of stories to tell

After spending two days on the boat traveling down the river, we finally made it Trombetas, another port city in which MRN (Mineração Rio do Norte) uses strip mining methods to mine bauxite which is in turn used to create aluminum. Throughout my time here, I have been able to see the entire process from the mining of the bauxite, the distribution of the alumina, and finally to the creation of the aluminum. Brazil has about 6 billion tons of bauxite and exports the majority of the aluminum they produce, though the Brazilian consumption is expanding with their rapid economic development. After seeing the mining process, we met with the Quilombolas (escaped African slaves who created communities along the river). They basically partake in low impact activities on the land, but they are living in an area that has recently been deemed a conservation area, so they are no longer allowed to keep animals on the land and are restricted in the amount of fishing and hunting they can do. In addition, MRN has the rights to the minerals in their land, as people are able to own surface area but anything below the surface is federally owned and then leased out to large corporations. It has been interesting to see the development of this contention between federal conservation practices, corporations, and local communities that have been living on the land for quite some time. All of these interests have very opposing needs and trying to find a balance has proven to be difficult throughout the entire Amazon region, mostly, in my opinion, because the government does not do much in terms of understanding social conflicts, resource needs, and ecological concerns.
The head of the Quilombolas community took all of us around and showed us how to find Brazil nuts and open them with machetes, which they can sell for a reasonable profit in nearby towns.

In addition, sunrises over the Amazon are the most beautiful in the world

My first day in the boat, I was able to swim at the meeting of the waters (where the black water system and white water system meet). The white water is comprised of tons of sediments due to the run off of the Andes and the black water flows from the Rio Negro, and you can see a definite line between the two because of the differing flow speeds, temperatures, and densities. The black water was much warmer than the white, which is why you can see me sticking to the black water section. It also has a much higher biodiversity, so approximately 1 minute after this picture was taken i felt a large water creature brush past my leg and I decided it was about time to get out of the water.

After spending so much time away from the cyber world, I'm not sure that I can do the past month of my life justice. I will, however, attempt to go through my trip chronologically in hopes that I can remember as many anecdotes as possible to encapsulate the vibe of my time boating down the Amazon. I plan to update in stages so that this blog post doesn't turn into a novel....
I began my journey in Manaus, a major port city that rose to popularity during the rubber boom in the late 1800s. After going through a long period of economic depression, Manaus is now a touristy city that seems to me to be more used to seeing white people walking around than those in Belém. We found an amazing restaurant there that served vegetarian dishes (absolutely unheard of in Brazil) and became fast friends with our waiter there

He told us all about his life and thanked us for coming there to eat and it was so refreshing to finally be able to somewhat understand Portuguese.
While in Manaus, we traveled up to the north and visited a conservation forest there where there are many environmental studies going on. You're only allowed to visit it as a researcher or student, so the area is remarkably pristine and we were able to see monkeys and other wildlife wandering around. At 4:30 in the morning, 6 other students and I decided to hike 2 miles in the forest in the dark in order to reach a 70 meter high metal ecological tower that researchers use to measure UV rays, microclimate, temperature, etc. We climbed the ladders and watched the sun rise over the forest while hearing a group of howler monkeys nearby and watching all of the Amazonian birds flying by. After the sun rose, a rain storm swept towards us over the tree line and we decided it was probably time to hike back to the ecology lodge.

I will post more pictures of the sunrise when I am able to upload them, and I will continue to post more about my month on the river as I have time. I've never been in a place to beautiful in my entire life and this place has completely changed so many of my views on politics, environmental studies, and understanding interests groups.