This little community of houseboats seemed to be connected to each other by an intricate system of planks and floating platforms and its lights powered from energy clandestinely borrowed from the city’s streetlights and powerlines. Astonished by this discovery, I soon realised that the electric eel and the piranha were not the only hidden dangers lurking in these muddy waters.
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Like many of Brazil’s larger cities, the majority of its families are impoverished and live in crowded and cramped conditions of shantytowns that shadow the city. Educandos, the suburb where the sisters lived was a colourful shanty of wooden and metal sheeted shacks on stilts, huddled on top of one another overlooking the river. We turned away from the main road and we headed down a small steep dirt track winding through a maze of shacks, over wobbly planks and makeshift bridges. Numerous paths seemed to divert interminably in every direction between uneven rows of little dwellings. There was no UBD or Gregory’s street directory that could guide you through this little neighbourhood of unnamed paths and devoid of street signs. How the postman could possibly deliver his round was certainly astounding.
To Joici and Dylla, this is where they have lived their whole lives, it’s more than just a suburb they explained. It’s a very close community, more like a huge extended family. Everyone looks out for each other and this spirit is highlighted when the community unites and expresses its pride and colour annually at the Carnival.
Their little house was the last one at the end of a narrow winding track, balanced high up on stilts with an incredible undisturbed view of the river. The little two-room shack only had one window, more like a wooden shutter that peered over the river from their tiny kitchen. The bedroom they shared was small, with one bed and a hammock hanging above diagonally from the corner. The largest room in the house was the lounge room, which contained a sofa and two non-matching chairs. “Sorry but we don’t have a table on which to eat” said Joici, a little self conscious about their humble décor. I said I didn’t care and explained how back in Australia we commonly ate in the lounge room as well. Somehow, I don’t think they believed me but they smiled anyway.
The sisters treated me to a traditional dish of fried Piranha, rice, black beans and “macarone” (a type of spaghetti). Ironically, I was feasting on the infamous water predator whose razor sharp teeth instils terror and has been known to devour many a victim unfortunate enough to fall into their tropical midst.
“Eh, Juan and TAZMANIA?” asked Dylla. Over lunch, Dylla seemed more interested in asking me about kangaroos and koalas and seemed fascinated most of all by the Tasmanian devil, thanks largely to the cartoon character. Funny as it may seem, the one thing that attracted me to this region was the wildlife that I expected to encounter. They were disappointed to learn that the Tasmanian devil was nothing like what was portrayed on the cartoon strip.
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Later that evening as I stood in the tiny kitchen helping with the coffee, I watched in amazement as the sun slowly lowered itself in the distance. Before long, an endless flame of red and orange engulfed the sky. This tiny little kitchen did not have running water, but from its makeshift wooden window, a view that would envy those more fortunate who lived on the Swan River or along Sydney Harbour. As I continued to admire this wonderful spectacle, a sharp sting soon reminded me that it was time to leave before the swarms could begin their evening demolition upon my foreign flesh.
As I headed home over the bridge back toward the city in the coolness of the evening, I thought of the friendliness I had encountered during my short stay here in this amazing city. Tomorrow, the city would once again come alive with the hustle and bustle of a modern urban jungle. Only Manaus was a concrete jungle set in the heart of the largest and wildest natural jungle on earth.