Sleeping School Teacher
For those of you who may be wondering why I have been comparatively quiet this contract (especially for a Grand Voyage, I know I usually talk a lot on a Grand) there are two explanations. The first is that there has been rather a lot going on off-page that has kept me from writing much of anything down. That’s neither here or nor there and most of it is probably not all that interesting to anyone not directly involved.
The rest of the explanation is actually startlingly simple: Brazil.
We’re in Brazil.
For what feels like a very very long time.
This is not entirely by choice you see. Amras and I took this contract for one specific reason: it was the ship open for some form of both of our positions (Amras actually had to temporarily switch positions to come here), which is the only way we can actually be together. I mean we’ve only been married a handful of months, we kind of want to stay together! However, in order to achieve that – the last quarter of the itinerary is the price we pay for it.
Don’t get me wrong – there are a lot of things about South America that I actually really enjoy. Argentina? I would go back to any day. Rio in Carnival? Absolutely crazy but worth the adventure despite that. The very fact that we’re going down the Amazon? Also seriously amazing. A few days ago we had professional samba dancers in full costume parade through the shipboard buffet during dinner hour. I mean, not many people get to say that about their workplace!
But…the rest of Brazil? Brazil is not what you see in the postcards. People come here expecting balmy temperatures, beautiful beaches and vivid culture. What you don’t necessarily expect? Is that that vivid culture is very very different from what you may be used to. Those temperatures rocket up into the low 90s and most of the time the shops are not airconditioned and the streets provide little to no shade. And the beaches are no where near our ports (unless you want to swim in the harbour, which I definitely would not recommend!). And for every vividly beautiful handicraft market there is a port life Recife (where we called a few days ago), where the sun beats down on street side stalls full of everything from coconuts (okay, drinking out of a coconut is brilliant no matter where you are), to sad and tired looking tanks of sad and tired looking fish that seem to be gradually warming to death in the relentless heat. You feel like you want to somehow rescue everyone and everything; all while trying to breath through your mouth to somehow avoid coating your sinuses with the smell of the open sidewalk drains baking in that same heat.
This little Canadian girl? With her fair skin and freckles? Isn’t built for these temperatures. And as an empath, I sometimes feel I’m not built for the overall environment of this part of the world. It makes me tired and angry and frustrated that – even if I won the lottery six times over – I wouldn’t be able to fix any of it.
So, I have been quietly staying in most of the time, working on my rather large embroidery project and trying to catch sleep where I can on a ship that sometimes seems to be fighting against granting that wish.
But we continue steadily onwards. As of today we started slowly making our way down the churning caramel waters of the Amazon…
And if there is one thing that this area of the world always reminds me of? It is how incredibly grateful I am to have been so lucky in my life…because it is after all only chance, that they are not me, and I am not them.