Perculator

Life on the Napo

We have been in Santa Clotilde a week now and are still trying to adapt. The weather has been great. I have no idea what the temperature is but it probably has been in the upper 80-90s daily and upper 70s at night. Sometimes it is humid but we have had frequent rains, which really cool it down. The heat is much like that of a July in Chicago except with more cooling rains; very pleasant.

So far we have not had any encounters with exotic wildlife, mainly insects. I noticed a few ants crawling on a board above one of the doors in our house, so I decided to spray a little insecticide…bad idea, about 300-400 more ants came pouring out of the board and fell to their death. I wasn’t too comfortable with the idea of more being up there (Toni didn’t mind them at all since they don’t bother us) so I sprayed again the next afternoon and another 500 came out and also fell to their death. These were just carpenter ants and they do not bite, I have quickly learned that the “selva” (jungle) is boss here. We are learning to live with the bugs. Our house is quite nice and screened in, but bugs are everywhere... this was their home first. The boards will be replaced eventually. Nothing happens on a strict time schedule, which is a beautiful thing most of the time.

The food here has been pretty good, I definitely have not lost any weight. We usually have a large lunch as the main meal of the day. Breakfast consists instant coffee and bread with jelly. Lunch is at 2pm and consists of rice and either chicken or fish along with plantains and beans. Dinner is leftovers or whatever you can scrounge up. In the afternoon around noon they always put out some fresh juice from a local fruit called a guayaba brazilero and some bread. The local cerveza Cristal is sold in 22oz bottles, and we have a few glasses during the week at night. The things I miss the most so far are good quality fresh brewed coffee and cheese. I definitely plan on bringing a perculator down later, a coffee maker would be good but since there is no power for half the day it would not stay warm….i think the perculator is the way to go. No cheese here on the river and the milk is sold as evaporated milk in a can.

I was able to check on the internet and message with my brother Jon at the end of the super bowl- sounds like it was a great game, I almost completely forgot it even was going on, amazing the media frenzy and coverage in the US. I do enjoy all sports and following several teams, but man do I know realize how much emphasis, time and effort into covering sports as a whole in the US. I am going to go check with the nurses to see how things are going as I am on call tonight. Buenas Noches.

Brian

07 Feb 2012