South American Explorer

Children make the best guides, says Andrew Semotiuk, who just came back from volunteering in medical clinics along the Amazon.

Our boat pulled up to a village on the banks of the Rio Negro, in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. I was here as part of a volunteer medical team that sets up clinics each day in small communities, and travels by night to new ones. After clinic there is always some time before our boat embarks for the night and my jungle experience takes full root during these times.

After clinic, people return to the boat. Some swim in the river, others relax in their hammocks listening to their iPods. I load my pockets with stickers and gifts, and head to see the village children. They are always my native guides. The children speak with me, even though my Portuguese consisted of greetings and a few phrases, and they have the same sense of adventure I have.

For the price of one sticker, or even a curious look at a flower in the jungle, the youngsters rush me away to teach me a wealth of knowledge.

They show me beautiful plants, and animals that the adults think are commonplace. These young curious ones make the best guides, and language teachers. One boy in particular, shows me how to live off the land. I study botany as a hobby, so I ask what jungle plants can be eaten, and immediately we are running through the bush to emerge at a marsh.

He breaks down stalks of cana (sugar cane), and we eat the sweet pulp as we march to the next site. There we find an abundance of abacaxi (pineapples). Then we are off to find fruits I’ve never seen before; one fruit, the inga, grows on a tree and looks like a giant green bean. It gives us a slightly sweet, puffy white flesh around large hard black seeds. We eat the white flesh, and spat out the seeds.

This botany course from the children rivals any botany course I ever took at university.

On the plane I had read a short Portuguese phase book, but phrase books can only help marginally. My Portuguese requires significant help. Fortunately, at the clinics there are time gaps between patients, so I decide to enroll in a language course. I just need to attract a child ‘professor’.

What better way to interest one than by using a magnet? When a child walks by I close a magnet in my fist, then lift a paperclip with the back of my hand. In awe they ask me questions. Of course I have no idea what they were saying, but for them to be understood they have to explain with simple words and by pointing.

They find out that I use a magnet instead of magic, which satisfies their curiosity, and I learn Portuguese. Their Portuguese lectures involv all the senses of listening,

seeing and feeling. They even have me taste and smell to describe fruits. The children are also quick to correct my mispronunciations with gales of laughter. They are better than any book, or language learning software.

One village has a sophisticated horticulture and fish farming operation. With my prerequisite botanical and language experience in the jungle, I graduate to a more advanced level of learning the intricacies of their community. Once again a child is my guide. We tour the yucca and vegetable fields. The people use ash and charcoal as fertilizer and grow many vegetables on raised beds; peppers, onions, and various types of medicinal plants abound. The fish farm utilizes a low point of the river, where the water was deep during every season. The adults pointed at a field or fish, but my child guides ‘teach’ me about it and explore the fields with me.

My guides are unmatched in the knowledge of their land, and I try to repay them in what little way I can. For my botanist, I make a small botany book. I hope he will be inspired to learn more about the jungle and protect his home. After my Portuguese lesson, I give an English lesson to my ‘professors’. For my horticulturalist friend, I write a small biochemistry book as a trade for my new knowledge of fish farming, and medicinal teas.

I hope this small compensation helped them and I encourage anyone who travels anywhere to learn from the local children. You will appreciate and value your newfound discoveries so much more. 

Biomedical graduate student Andrew Semotiuk recently finished a two-week volunteer medical trip with Loma Linda University to Rio Negro in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil. They journeyed by boat to set up clinics in remote villages. He dreams to one dayhave a nonprofit that preserves indigenous languages, and knowledge of medicinal plants.