Amazon River Boat – Day 4 and Brazilian Family Life
This morning the rumor was spread that we might be arriving already today but later during the day this rumor disappeared. For whatever reason I somehow don’t enjoy being on a boat for multiple days. Therefore, I was hoping that our arrival in Belém will be sooner than later.
We killed time by playing Ludo against each other and with the kids on our deck. The kids were quite well-behaved and when we gave them some food or sweets they were seeking their family members to share with them. I wish we would have more cohesion in our families in the Western civilization. Many people (and I wouldn’t exclude myself) have become more self-centered as they have been a few years ago. When thinking about my social network, many of my friends don’t even want to have kids since they fear that kids constrain their own life and they are not willing to compromise on that. I also wish that many of us will return to the classic family model and have larger families or a family at all, emotionally sticking very close together and helping each other. I guess I need to start by myself…
While travelling on the river boat it was also interesting to see how business is done around the boat. Whenever we stopped in a small town there were always people from the town trying to do some business with the people on the boat such as selling them hot meals, fruit and other snacks. Even when we didn’t stop there were people in small boats appearing from the middle of nowhere, paddling like crazy until they reached the river boat, holding on to it and selling their items. Once it also happened that several boats with women and kids appeared. They didn’t say anything but waited until people started to throw things over board. I usually don’t give to begging people but this time I decided to do so. I had some fluffy bread left and before throwing it away in Belém I gave two of the packages to the kids.
Some people also saw a couple of Amazon River dolphins jumping over the water but when I got aware of it they were already gone. What a pity!
