Our week spent wandering the streets of Boa Vista was finally made worthwhile when we were granted permission to enter Canoanim, a Wapichana Indian community. When we arrived, there was a tribal assembly going on which we participated in during its final day.  We were grilled over the intentions of our stay, over what the results of our work would be, and over what the Wapichana would gain from this interchange of popular children’s games.

In the end, they were finally convinced that a cultural trade could be beneficial, and we were sent to stay in the house of one of the local teachers.  We hung up our hammocks, made our first personal connections, and began to adapt to this new reality.

“Semi-deserted” is the first impression you have of the community. You don’t see people; only birds and dogs seem to be around. How wrong we were! One needs at least two days to even begin to understand the local dynamic. When people are not in their family garden plots, or out hunting, they’re bathing or washing their clothes in the crystalline streams hidden behind their houses.

Just after sunrise, you can already hear the sound of children riding around on their enormous bicycles.  Even though the older kid driving usually has trouble getting the pedals around, they still stack up to three others on a bike and head off to school. The bicycle is the most common form of transportation in this community that has a habit of building houses quite far from one another.

Soon after we arrived, we had the luck of meeting Dona Lucia Cadete’s family. (Dona Lucia is the daughter of one of the community’s founding members).  She has nine children and each contributes in some way with the daily chores.  During our first visit, her 5-year-old daughter was at her side mashing and toasting manioc flour, and then just like that she was running back to school because the bell had signaled the end of morning break, not that there wasn’t enough time to grab a handful of fresh, hot flour on her way out.

We experienced several special moments in this place, like the circle of stories around a bonfire where every story led to another until the moon finally tired.  Or when I went to wash my clothes in the stream encircled by a bubbling bunch of kids that climbed and dove off trees, played water tag and brought miriti seeds for us to eat while I scrubbed away.

We learned how to make a cage trap  for birds and small rodents.  And we drank the famous “caxiri” (a manioc by-product the ferments into alcohol).  
Besides receiving lots of drawings and hand made tops, I also now carry with me the desire to return again and again to this place that was so beautiful and welcoming.