Pearls of Life: Amazon Brazil
Amazon River , Brazil
I was traveling to Amazon Colombia, on my way, I passed the city of Tabatinga in Brazil. I was staying in a hotel in Leticia, which is in the Amazonians city in Colombia, bordering Tabatinga. Passing from Letiticia to Tabatinga was with a scooter, where my Colombian friend was driving, since I was not able to rent a moto myself. Strolling in Tabatinga streets and markets was very fascinating, but in a sense a little bit frightening experience. The Brazilian population in Tabatinga are living in really poor conditions and lots of people are in the streets. The Tabatingian people are divided into different classes. Some live in nice houses, while others are living in the street. In the market, you can buy everything, from food, clothing and antibiotics without prescriptions, which was for me a crazy thing to buy in the market. But I did witness one American buying antibiotics in the Tabatinga market and consuming it. When I asked him how he’s confident to take medicine like that from the Tabatinga market, where the street has no hygienics, he said its good and not his first time!
One day, in one of those trips between Letitica and Tabatinga, I decided to get my tattoo in Tabatinga. I got 7 flowers, covering all my belly from side-to-side. The Tabatinga Amazonians tattoo artist was very professional. I drew the name of my children on each flower and I promised to invite him for an exhibition in New York. I was amazed by the professionality and of course the price was totally different than the one in the West. Being happy with the results, I took a ride on the motorbike and went to celebrate with local friends on the Amazon River bed. The local bar was a structure of wooden cabins with a billiard pool table and a dancing stage for the girls. It’s a day club and not a nightclub. Very decent and clean place. A lot of people are gathering together to drink and dance starting from noon time until the early hours of the evening. In the background of the bar, you can see indigenous Amazonian people from Brazil on their boats floating on the Amazon River. The boats contain all kinds of foods, rice, beans, and other materials to be spread among the communities who live there.
There is a difference between the communities indigenous living on the land part of the Amazon River and in the jungle from the other side of the Amazon River. There are differences in their clothing, customs, ceremonies and whereabouts spending their days. The indigenous communities living on the land gather in the local church and get medicine and advice while gathering together around the Shaman. They cook their fish and meat in the house individually. There are parts of the communities where you cannot even go to watch and visit because they keep their privacy very strictly. The children attend local schools and you can see them playing soccer [football] which is the most important game among the communities. On the Brazilian side of the Amazon River, the indigenous communities and the Brazilians are used to the existence of soldiers of the militaria of the Brazilian government, which has a lot of presence in that area. The Tabatingian people's way of moving around is by tuk-tuk and motorbikes. They do not like to communicate with the tourists and I didn’t see tourists sitting together with the locals.
On the other hand, the communities living on the jungle side of the Amazon River, in partially, developed lodges for tourists and they benefit from the income driven from those lodges. They are used to seeing the Western people and they accommodate them. Some of them speak English but mostly Spanish and not only dialogue. In those communities, you can find more opening to the modern world and witness communication via internet and phones. For the more remote communities in the Amazon Jungle, all of this is not existing. They live in wooden cabins without electricity or signs of the modern world. There are no schools in the communities. The Shaman is the leader of the community and the Chief in charge. The Shaman is the center who communicates with other leaders and indigenous communities around. In the Amazon Jungles, I witnessed the existence of preservation and reserves for animals and unique biodiversity and plants. You can spend days and nights on the Amazon River and it’s definitely a fascinating place to be around the incredible nature. I think it's a dangerous place to go in different splits of the Amazon River unless you are accommodating with the locals and with a group that specializes in tourism. It is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime adventure and experience.
