Amazon Expedition - the first 40 days

29 September, 2009 - Day 23, 6:28am - The morning dawned bright and orange. At first, as I peered out of my hammock and through my bug net, all that was visible was a bright, vibrant orange ball, silhouetts of trees, brush and hills on the opposite shore, and the intensely orange reflection of the water. Slowly the sun rose into the sky and the world became visible - lively greeen leaves and sprigs pushing up from the brown dirt and dead leaves on the ground... rocks, trees, moving water - the rapid we descended yesterday directly across on the opposite shore. From somewhere, I seem to smell yeast bread - it must be coming from the instructor's campsite. It smells good. I could go back to sleep, but I think I'll get up and enjoy the morning.

I am currently writing from a small internet cafe in the city of Apui - smack in the middle of the Amazon Basin, on the Trans-Amazonian Highway. Today begins the second of three days of travel to reach a small, remote community on the Madera River, where we will spend the following 5 days. I don't have much time to write, but I will give you a taste of what has been going on.

During the first 30 days of our expedition, we (15 students, 4 instructors, and the director of the Juruena National Park) traveled 600 kilometers in open canoes down the Juruena and Tapajos rivers. We camped on rock ledges and sandy island beaches in the middle of the river; we ran Class 2 rapids, lined our canoes through shallow water, and portaged around massive waterfalls. We saw hundreds of birds of every shape, color, and size, and hundreds of thousands of insects. There were nights where the sky was so clear it seemed one could see every star in the sky, and nights when the mosquitoes were so thick you cold grab a hundred simply by waving your hand before your face. We've woken up to exquisite sunrises and to ants eating our tents in the middle of the night; to extreme thunder storms and calm, placid mornings.

After our river section, we traveled for about a day and a half further down the Tapajos River and then spent 7 days hiking along the river. Sometimes we were walking through relatively open forest under the canopy, and at other times fighting through unbelieveably dense tangles of vines and undergrowth in areas where the canopy had been disturbed and sunlight found its way to the forest floor, allowing green things to grow up in a dense tangle.

That is all I have time to write now... but I shall recount stories of stingrays and river dolphins, giant Suma Uma trees and armies of leafcutter ants, capering monkeys and all manner of other forms of life and nature once I have completed this Amazon Expedition.

Oh, and one last thought: "The Amazon" is everything you ever heard it was, and more.

Coming Home

All-you-can-eat buffets, free refills, meals-on-the-go... America. For one who spends the academic year in Europe, coming home is always an adjustment. No matter how long one is away or how far one travels, any who travel can attest to that. Traveling opens our world, whether that's the intention or not. Even for one who travels often, coming home is always different. Or, perhaps, it is always the same.

Shortly after returning home from the spring semester at University, I had lunch with a friend who had also recently returned to the United States, after living abroad for the past decade. We settled on "Joe's Pizza and Pasta" for lunch, joking that it was probably a typical American 'fake Italian' restaurant (we can talk - we both study in Italy). Joe's turned out to have a lunch buffet, which we enjoyed, along with the massive fountain sodas with free refills. I reacquainted myself with American buffet customs by introducing them to my friend.

The check arrived at the table barely after we began eating, and shortly we both came to the realization that neither of us could eat anywhere near the amount many Americans would eat at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Turns out European serving sizes have become habit.

Every place, every home or adventure, has its own habits. I frequently find myself smiling or shaking my head and thinking, "that's America," no matter where I am. Just as frequently, the thought "that's Italy" or "that's Cairo" runs through my mind. Part of truly knowing any place or any culture is having the experience of returning -- of coming home. Seeing familiar faces and familiar places, the things that will never be the same and the things that will never change. When one leaves and then returns, one inevitably sees ones home through different eyes.

My mother will never quite understand how, after being born and raised in the United States, I come home and American supermarkets make no sense to me. But for one who learned to live on their own abroad, home will never be quite the same.

Another thing one will always run into, whether at home or abroad, is stereotypes. America tends to get a bad rap for stereotyping the rest of the world and being ignorant of anything beyond their state borders, much less anything beyond the national borders. This is probably mostly true. To be honest, however, the same is true of people all over the world.

Traveling can in some instances lead to being an ambassador of sorts - both to and from your own culture. I've seen and heard the stereotypes which various groups of people hold about themselves and about the rest of the world, from those which prove themselves over and over to those which hold not even a grain of truth. All Americans are egregiously wealthy. The entire non-English speaking world hates Americans. Americans understand the situation in Gaza. Every Muslim country forces every woman to wear a head scarf (or burka, even). The Middle East is dangerous. Italians are great lovers. Italians eat spaghetti with meatballs. All Americans just want to get drunk.

These are a few of the stereotypes I've heard, either overtly or inferred. Some are flattering - it certainly inflates the Italian ego to have the world think they're the best lovers - and some not so much.

To respond to a few: no, the entire world does not hate all Americans (just President Bush); no, not all Americans have unlimited reserves of wealth; very few Muslim nations require ANY woman to wear a headscarf, and some (Turkey) forbid it in public places; Italians do not eat spaghetti with meatballs; and not all Americans want to get drunk all the time -- just Americans studying abroad in Europe (or on Spring Break).

One stereotype I hear over and over, however, couldn't be farther from the truth: people accept these stereotypes as true. More often than not, I have been faced with inquisitiveness and not hostility, everywhere in the world.

Having been raised in a small, Virginian town where I attended the same high school as my mother, the quirks and traditions and even the stereotypes of the people of this town are part of me and my life just as much as of the lives of those around me. That's not to say I agree with or believe the same things as the people I grew up around, any more than I agree with all of the stereotypes I hear abroad. But all of the quirks and traditions and stereotypes I encounter in my life affect my interpretation of those I already knew and of those I will learn.

Perhaps, in the end, the best part of leaving is coming home.