Day 10 Wednesday July 22nd

We finished the church today! Everyone is very relieved and happy to be done with such hot and tiring work. We spent part of the day cleaning up and washing the floor of all the cement gunk.

Late this morning we went down to the boys swimming area and watched them drag up six wild boars they had just killed. Everyone will eat well tonight. Afterward I was sitting with several of the Indians on a bench and Aiampa came up to me with a pen and paper and began asking how to say and spell in English. The sound of our words makes them laugh so hard.

Now they all request pictures - even the older people. Since they are so serious we tell them to make funny faces. They are so happy about the church. Judy says they really like it.

The Brazilians that are here are a little scary. They don't look trustable. Several of them look like agents of some kind...like the bad guys from thrillers. I think it's mostly their sunglasses because I can never tell exactly where they are looking.

Tomorrow is an official play day.


Day 11 Thursday, July 23rd

Truly the best day yet. Today we did everything I've been dying to do. This morning Aiampa took Cama and I out in a canoe and we went up the flooded river amongst tree's and branches for quite some time. We had machete's with us and Cama and I tried to look for snakes but we didn't see anything. Which is almost scarier. Aiampa had brought us to her field, which doesn't look like our fields at all! They are full of burned trees and scrubs where they have cleared it and all over are pineapples, bananas, sugar cane, and the mansa stuff that is like a potato. Sugar cane is good. You hack off the skin with a machete and then chew the liquid out of the stringish white stuff and spit it out.

I went down with Johanna and Etiana to a house at the end of the village this afternoon and watched an old woman weave a basket. They look like so much work. Coming back from watching the basket weaving then Brazilian woman were cooking and called us over and with gestures and signals asked me to braid their hair like they'd seen me braid the little Indian girls hair yesterday. I agreed, feeling a little awkward with all of them crowding around and a little like they were demanding that I do it. As if I didn't have a choice. But they were very pleased with the result. After that Aiampa wanted to learn more English and had me write down the English while she wrote in Apurina next to it.

Right after lunch Mongwa came to take us on another canoe trip to see if we could find any more animals. We did see some monkeys and heard an alligator slap his tale. Mongwa took us through the jungle, which is a little less wild then I expected, and showed us where they cut their Wood for boards.

It was awesome canoeing through that - rather epic.

We didn't get back until about 3:00 and the swim we took after all the sweaty stuff felt incredible.

Played Frisbee with the little boys for a while before we had a church service. It was a dedication and communion service. It was so beautiful - not only in their new church building, but in their faces and singing and words of thanksgiving. It was very dark when we got out of church and the lit the bonfire. It was a big hot fire and everyone crowded around with short sticks and turned faces from the intense heat and roasted marshmellows.

Laughter rang across the village. Boar meat roasted. Grant had brought some glow sticks and we threw them whizzing back and forth. They couldn't believe how they glowed. Everyone posed for pictures. The Brazilians who were visiting mostly just watched but I probably had to pose for 30 pictures. They don't often seen blond hair and blue eyes (and all of us girls had one degree of it or another) and it fascinates them. The Brazilian guys can get rather annoying.

At one point, we all formed two lines - one of boys and men and one of woman and children. The lines faced each other. The men sang a chant and would step, step, half step, stop while the woman backed up simultaneously. The men held palm leaves in their left hand while their right was on the next guys left shoulder. Back and forth we went laughing and turning in big circles until everyone was tired.

It was an evening never to be forgotten. It reminded me so much of the kind of feast C.S. Lewis would describe in a Narnia book.

For a while we sang...miserably since we couldn't think of a song we all knew.

We "partied all night" for a Indian...which was until 9:30 pm...I have to admit I was utterly exhausted by then too.

The Apurina boys are so sweet and give us wooden rings they carve out of nuts and aren't happy until you try them on to be sure they fit.

Everything is packed up and ready to go. Tomorrow we leave early.