Sunday August 5

Up early to visit the village we were at yesterday. Early enough that many of the villagers weren't even up.

It isn't a large village. Probably less than a dozen homes but it is a very important village. And more contrasts.

While walking through it looks like a typical Amazonian village - little houses, shacks really, with most having just hammocks for beds. The traditional look of a poor village with chickens running loose, scattered canoes, motors, and generators in various states of disrepair. There is only sand to walk on.

But at the end of the village you suddenly come into a clearing with a set of very well built and modern looking buildings with fancy brick sidewalks and well manicured lawns. This is the new school and a model for how the government would like to transform the region.

Children are brought to school by boats that stop at villages up and down the river. Depending on far they must come, they either return home each evening or are boarded in the very nice dorms only returning home on the weekends.

The school is equipped with the most up to date technology including the Internet. Satellite technology delivers some of the class lessons. One can only imagine the changes this is going to make in life along the river.

Now it is back to Manaus to catch a flight to Brasilia. The rest of the day is travel with arrival in Brasilia early this evening.

This has been a very different experience from the other parts of Brazil. One that I have enjoyed and it does make one stop and wonder what the future holds. So much of the world depends on the Amazonian rainforest for everything from climate to medicine. What effects are the changes going to bring?