Arival

At four in the morning with tears in my eyes I kissed Shoshi once more. Said, ´I love you´. Then, waved back and forth through the security line. The line was built for fifty or more, but before the sun was up, JFK´s sound system, which constantly blares inconsequential announcements wasn´t awake either.

 

At the end of the line, I went through security. I took off my shoes, pulled out my bomb like laptop and walked through the magnetic eyes of the law. As I turned around on leaving security I gave Shoshi a wave. Being separated by fifty feet I had no gesture for my love of ht last three years but a meek wave followed by a cute blown kiss. Love really is changed by distance.

 

I fed my laptop while I was waiting to board my flight to panama city. I pluged in my macbook, and an Ecudarian man across from me asked `whats its capacity?´ I told him it was 2.2 Ghz. ´He said he loved music and was ddict to it on computers. Apparently,he really was in love with computers, (he bought four laptops to take home, for ´computers are much more expensive´.  He said he was buying his son a special laptop. It had a beautifuyl tag art caseing of shiny bage and cubes and rectangles. it was gorgeous.

 

The Ecudarian man then said he was in love with Apple computers. I said I had been since the year I was born, as me and them came out the same year. We boarded the plane then and he said, áh you have to stop feeding your beast, with his level of consumption, he was clearly aware of electronics veracious appetite.

 

Planes have no time. We boarded at 6:30. In an uncomfortable coach class seat I sat and slept. I had half a cheese blintz and a coka-light. Then, flaps emerged our plane plumeted to earth, kissed the ground, didn´t pull away and rolled to safety. The audience, by which i mean the passengers, who hadn´t shared a word the whole flight, burst forth in a round of applause, all equally elated to avoid a gruesome shared death.

 

Panama cityhas free wi-fi. With it I told my fellowship that IU was leaving for Brazil, and told Hanah about the thousands of dolphins I saw out the window while I was landing over the Gulf of Mexico. From 4,000 feet, their bodies, white like marble, looked like self-propelled skipping stones.

 

I left Panama two hours later. After disembarking in BrazilI emigrated, found my burnished orange hiking backpack and met Marica, my only contact in Brazil

 

Marcia is a small, beautiful women with a quick smile and calculating movements. She is a financial accountant.I hugged her with one arm when I met her and she asked about the flight and apologized for her English ´which´she demanded ´was terrible´I couldn´t tell.

 

We left the airport. I climbed into a large strange man´s pick up truck with my fifty pounds of gear. He was a friend of Marcia, who owned the car. He didn´t speak any English, that is the norm now though.

 

The side of the truck said LBA, a large research program Hoj-pojed together from smaller projects. They research climate chnage through passive anbd active monitoring of the rain forest.

 

The streets of Manausare dusty with the red river-bed clay. rom the back seat of the truck I saw high walled buildings, many with electric fences There are a lot of cars. The roads choked on cars. The buildings are concrete and the vegitation is green and lively, palms are common.

 

As I rode in the car my aniexty rose. Marcia was my only contact in Brazil, and our conversation moved ahead in starts and stops at best. She told me the bed she might have had been taken

 

Regardless, we arrive at her house. She says ìf you want, you can put your bags inside´The layers of trust are already building. She unlocks the gate on her six foot tall concrete wall, with Electical fencing on top, and lets me into her home. Inside we meet some of her roomates and see the house. They filter all of the their water, and have a swimming pool in thge back yard.

 

I put my backpack against the wall, along with my computer bag, then she says ´I have to go back to work and meet one of my other guests, you can come ´she again apologizes for her English. I take my three thousand dollar camera with me. Its not that I don´t trust her. Its that I don´t know who I am ion this trip if I don´t have the camera to prove that I am doing something. I want to pull it out and show these peoplke who I am and what I am capable of.

 

We walk to LBA. It airconditioned. On the way we meet a French girl I say ´Bonjour,´She responds and then I stumbled over `Ca va?`she speaks Portuguese with Marcia, and donnates me a smile.

 

We cross a sufficating traffic artary and Arrive at LBA. Marcia says, ´the city is a beautiful MODERN city, but the traffic is terrible. I wonder what a modern city is to her, but don´t have the words to ask. LBA is a large compiund Ít looks like a resort´I observe, ´you know, look at the umbrellas, just like on vacation,´ She looks up and points to the sky ´its for the sun. I go silent realizing I somehow just said her place of work is a vactation, which it cetainly feel s like to me. I don´t know she understood the insult, but my guilt for thinking of someone elses´lifge as a breka shamed me into silence.

 

She pointed out the entomologist´s building and we went to her office. The doors were made of glass and the floor of marble. On the walls were sienctific briefings, just like my friends did for their senior project in science at Bard College. Her was was chilled. Inside, I met David, from France. I he was balding with thick five o´clock shadow and wore a T-shirt and shorts. His legs were hairy, like they had grown to the length of his travel. He wore sandals. That afternoon he had gottern back froim a trip to an observation tower LBA maintains for measuring the forest. He explained  it sticks up high above the sixty meter forest canopy.

 

Marcia said she had to go back to work for thirty minotáos. So, we went into the hall and met two other of her colleagues. Marica introduced us, they quickly embarced, after saying a lack of words, they couldn´t speak english, I apologized for my lack of Portugu8ese. They bath spoke to David. He smiled at them, said few words.

 

MArcia spoke to me and David in Engliush the other two fell silent.

 

Marcia said she had to go back to work,m as she had fifteen minutes left. I wint with David and one of the other two girls. She was wearing a yellow shirth that was the color of Brazil, she had awide happy face with beautiful hair and eyes the color of the stripes of of her flag. She was studying for her Mastadoes ´de que?´I asked, ´de scientifico?´she replied. Having exhausted my Portugues, David and Her went back to speaking.