Amazon Adventures

The next morning, I woke up near noon and found that they were already at work. And it wasn't just them either. There were other men working around the farm, and a few women too. I watched their robust bodies moving around in the field, doing hard work. They were plowing and sowing and cutting. Man, that job looked tough!

I woke up, and stretched. I went around looking for something to eat. There was some coffee on the table, as well as some buttered bread. I gulped it all down in less than five minutes. I was hungry. Once I was done, I went around looking for a telephone. Maybe I could call the hotel and have them send me some help. It may take them a while to get here but at least they would show up someday soon and help me out, you know? Unfortunately, Antonio and Rachel didn't have a single telephone in their house. They also didn't have any electricity. They used oil lamps, like the one in the room they put me in. How charming! You would have thought this was the 1800s.

I decided to step outside, since I had absolutely nothing to do. I was greeted by the ardent stares of the locals. I looked at these hard-working people, and waved. I even said good morning in what little Portuguese I knew. That's when everybody burst out laughing. I looked around, surprised. Did I say something wrong? What in hell was their problem? It's only later that I would figure it out. It was around noon, time for Siesta, in most Latin American cultures. While I was sleeping, these hard-working people had woken up at the crack of dawn and put in a full day's work. Now, they were resting. As the American who overslept and didn't know any better, I was looking pretty silly.

Oh, well. I decided to show the locals that we Americans could be just as hard working as they were. After Siesta, I began working as hard as any of them. I grabbed a shovel, dug into the earth and made neat holes like they were doing. I observed them. I did it just the way they did. One of them, a chubby guy named Santos volunteered to help me. He showed me how to place the seeds into the holes after digging and I thanked him for it. All of us worked until five in the afternoon, then everybody took a break.