The weekend after my post ordeal I had planned to spend a little time relaxing, and the rest of the time preparing my equipment to being work when my student, Natalia, returned on Monday. However, the rain that began on Friday continued all weekend, which confined me to the house almost entirely, and I started to discover a rather worrying number of places where the roof leaked. On top of this, when I finally got around to doing some work and trying to assemble all my equipment which had finally arrived, I realised that one vital piece was missing – my supervisor had accidentally forgotten to include the power cable for the laptop, which would be necessary to download my data. The laptop is so old that it won’t even turn on without the power cable. This discovery pushed me to a point of total disbelief. How can so many things go wrong in such short succession? I quickly began devising a new work plan, knowing it would be at least a week, probably two, before the cable could be posted here – assuming it ever arrived!
Natalia arrived that Monday and it carried on raining continuously for another 4 days. Sometimes it got a little lighter, or even stopped for a minute or two, and I started to feel optimistic that maybe it would stop for a while, but then it came back, harder than ever. The rains began to cause real problems. Although it made digging colonies slightly easier because the soil was softer, it removed all internet access for me because my laptop would get wet, and it turned the roads near the farm into a mud bath. Natalia and I were quickly running out of food, a situation exacerbated by the temporary loss of electricity for 24 hours, during which the fridge had no power. But with 30 minutes of treacherous dirt roads between us and the nearest shops, we started to worry. There are two ‘taxis’ a day which run from the farm into the town of Campo Formoso, one at 6am and one returning at about midday, acting almost like a bus, collecting many people along the way. However, we weren’t sure if the taxi would be able pass along the muddy dirt roads, and if we made it into town successfully, there was a good possibility we would be stranded if the midday taxi couldn’t get back. We decided to postpone until the following day.
The next day the rain still had not let up, but a pressing desire to be able to eat lead us to try to brave the roads and get into town. So at 5am I dragged myself out of bed, gathered my things and trudged up to the farm gates where the taxi would arrive. After 20 minutes waiting in the rain, a taxi finally arrived. It was full to the brim with people, but the driver told us another would be along in a few minutes. Thankfully, he was right, and we managed to squeeze into the back of the next taxi, joining about 10 or so Brazilian locals. The taxi ride was as treacherous as we had anticipated, and at one point, whilst driving down a fairly steep slope, we seemed to loose grip almost entirely, and spent what felt like forever skidding around on the mud before finally regaining grip at the bottom. I was starting to think that we would not make it there alive! (It isn’t unheard of for cars to over turn on this patch of road, especially in such bad conditions). However, somehow we managed to make it into town safely, and found a cafe where we could wait until the shops opened.
The taxi ride was the final straw for me, and that morning I made the decision that is just wasn’t practical to stay at the farm for the rest of my trip – I wasn’t prepared to risk my life every week just to be able to buy food! That morning we stocked up on food and equipment so that I could try and collect as many colonies as possible to take back to the lab in Aracaju.
Of course, as soon as I had made the decision to leave because of the rain, as if the weather was deliberately trying to contradict me, the sun came out and for the next few days it was gloriously sunny. I tried to comfort myself with the knowledge that this wouldn’t last, and it would undoubtedly start raining again soon.
The next two weeks proceeded fairly uneventfully. Each morning Natalia, Jose (the burly Brazilian man I hired to help dig) and I headed out to the forest to collect colonies, returning for lunch, and then in the afternoon we would try and collect a colony in the fruit plantations close to the house. A note on the return for lunch – despite the fact that I was quite willing to stay out in the field all day to work, apparently Brazilians absolutely cannot tolerate eating sandwiches for lunch and have to return home to eat a huge meal of rice and beans. They all thought I was completely insane for wanting to eat bread at lunchtime. Of course, I thought they were completely insane for wanting to eat such a big meal in the middle of the day and then go back to work – that much food would just make me sleepy!
At the weekends, Natalia’s boyfriend, Lucas, came to stay at the farm and so we all had a few beers together, chatted and watched films. It was nice to find that my Portuguese had finally improved to the point that we could spend an entire evening drinking and chatting and understand each other. After this long away from home it was a relief to be able to communicate at more than just the level of necessity.
The two weeks of digging flew by, and before I knew it, we had 18 colonies in plastic boxes at the house, and it was time to pack up and leave. That Monday, the day of our departure, the rains came back, as if they somehow knew this was the most inconvenient moment for them to arrive. Nevertheless we packed up all our belongings (I now need two suitcases and a backpack to transport all my clothes, equipment and ants!) and loaded them into the pickup truck. One of the farm workers drove us back to Campo Formoso. Unfortunately, due to the relative rarity of buses from Campo Formoso to, well, anywhere, I had a rather daunting journey ahead. A 10 hour wait at the bus station in Campo Formoso, followed by 7 hours on a bus, arriving in Salvador at 4am. Then another bus journey, 5 hours long, from Salvador to Aracaju, arriving the following day, 26 hours after leaving the house. Believe it or not, this was the best possible option of those available (the main alternative involved spending 12 hours, over night, waiting in Salvador bus station, which is considerably more dangerous than Campo Formoso). Never before has 10 hours felt like such a long time. Campo Formoso bus station basically consists of a ticket office, some plastic benches and a small cafe. So I spent 10 hours reading, sitting, reading some more, and, towards the end of my wait, being pestered by an extremely drunk man.
One thing that kept me sane was watching one man who had fallen asleep on the grass outside. Clearly he must have been ridiculously drunk because he was asleep there when we arrived at 11am and he continued to lie there asleep through all the rain, and through several passers-by trying to talk to him and wake him up. Watching him, and taking bets on when he might wake up, provided us with some entertainment, at least for a while.
Finally I arrived in Aracaju, exhausted, and dropped the ants off at the lab and headed to my new home, where hopefully I will stay for the next 4 weeks.