We are now leaving the state of Amapá, a state that received us warmly and taught us many things besides its incredible games.

Our major contact here was Ney Pennefort, a fifty-year-old adventurer that was born and raised in the city of Oiapoque. He overwhelmed us with childhood stories about playing marble soccer, about making boats from miriti, about mimicking fireworks with coconut leaves, and about learning to hunt and fish with the Indians from the region. He also told us how common whooping cough was when he was a kid and that the cure laid in the cargo of the regular visiting military airplanes…not that these planes actually brought medicine. Rather, they boarded all the sick kids on the plane, took them up and let the plane enter a free fall believing Zero-G’s would facilitate deeper respiration. It was called the "flight of the whooping cough" and Ney was an assiduous client (though he never had whooping cough, he just faked sick for the thrill).

Through Ney’s contacts, we were able to visit Galibi and Karipuna Indian communities, both of which are just down the river from Oiapoque. Because of a long history of contact with western civilization, these two ethnicities include many urban familiarities in their customs. But they still perpetuate traditional toys like the little top made from the tucumá seed that screams like a siren as it spins.  Or the toy that mimics the hopping Bacarau bird made from Guaruma reeds. The Bacurau is a bird, don’t get me wrong, but it seems half owl and half frog because it only awakes at night and it always leaps in the path of one’s steps just like the “pipa” (a species of frog that doubles as a favorite dinner plate amongst the Galibis).

So far, we’ve been privileged enough to have been served several regional-game plates, like capivara, cotia, alligator, and all kinds of fish, always, always, accompanied by mainoc flour.
For anyone thinking of going to Oiapoque, be sure to be prepared for the long, hard journey. We caught the 17-hour bus ride from Macapà that unfortunately didn’t have room in the luggage compartment for a third of the luggage.  The distance isn’t even 360 miles, but the highway conditions (only 70 miles are paved) are enough to convince one they’ve embarked on an off-road rally bus.

At the moment, we are preparing to depart for Santarém, where we hope to find more stories and games with heavy scents of the jungle, still damp from the river, and baked from constant exposure to scalding sun.

See you there!