Dia 4 - Quarta-feira : Dia Finados
In the morning, went for a longer trek through the forest to try and find the source of Rio Pombo. Or at least that’s what I thought. I’m finding there’s lots of crossed wires in terms of getting exact information. Confusion about departure time, as the night before I thought Antonio said before breakfast, but turns out he meant after breakfast, but got the English words the other way round. As everything here, it’s all tudo bem and in typical Brasilian time left the house around 10, perhaps 11. Doesn’t seem to really matter, and the search party was larger than yesterday so these delays are to be expected. This was a much more arduous trek. Went up all the way to the end of the dirt road that the house is on. Hacked through more forest, and found a stone reservoir that was feeding 3 hoses. Went up further, but not sure if that was the source because I didn’t understand what’s going on.
Went to the Trutas in the afternoon. Not sure what I was expecting, as I’ve never been to a fish farm before it was pretty crazy. It was built in 1984, before the APA was created so think they have some special allowance to keep running. There are four large stone tubs where the fish are groomed. The water is constantly flowing from hatchery to tank to tank to water purification pools. The tanks for the fish are 3 times the size of the filtration tanks with the water plants. A very knowledgeable man who works there told the rest of the team about the farm, the fish, and somehow the topic jumped to the native wild animals around the area. Never been too keen on trout, and after having seen them grown in an industrial system, even less so.
Fernanda and Tito jointly celebrated birthdays in the evening. Looked out at the stars at night, couldn’t recongnise any of the constellations. Brasilians know how to have fun. Had too much cachaça.
Dia 5 - Thursday
Woke up super early with a sore stomach. The principal of the local school came by this morning. Have agreed to run a workshop for two classes tomorrow about the future of the area in regards to clean water supply. Mapped out the story in post-its notes on the flip-chart sheet. Have rooms, paths, a few characters, some dead-ends. Sabrina and Aline went to talk to Dona Gloria, a local woman in her 70’s. Her daughter lent us a giant map. Unfortunately, this is also in the cartoon style with giant people and cows.
Created barebones Twine file of the story at the house of internet. Started raining buckets & buckets - first unpleasant weather so far. Using if statements to have bilingual option.
Turns out the workshop with the kids starts at 8am. Have no lift into town, so will need to wake up around 6:30 for the 40 or so minute walk to the school. Will see what the kids at the school think.