Sharon and I were asked to be team leaders in 1991 for a Rotary Group Study Exchange between our district and a district in South Brazil. I had not been back to Brazil since my missionary days of 1950-1960. After our tour we flew to the interior and visited the village of Macauba, which I founded and built a home for my family at that time.

Sam Greene was our District Governor.

Sharon and I call them working vacations. We have taken many trips to Brazil, combining volunteer work, along with our vacation time. Sharon doesn't tolerate the bugs or the muggy heat well and it's a real sacraficial effort on her part to come along with me and help dip the mosquito nets in insecticide.

Sharon working in the Galley of our Medical Launch, named Hertel after a Rotarian friend
came on one our first expeditions. He died shortly afterwards, much to our loss.

The medical launch also serves as our traveling apartment and freight transport. Here we are beached for overnight. The blue packages are thousands of mosquito nets which we distribute to the Indians in trade of small trinkets. Malaria had been a major problem in this area, but since the distribution of our nets, along with government spraying with insecticide, malaria no longer seems to be a serious risk. The last case in the villages was in 1999.

Here are some pictures of sunsets we enjoyed.

  
Sharon drying mosquito nets that she dipped in insecticide. This remains effective for around 10 months. She also is our cook and is in charge of the galley.

She always has onlookers, but seldom offers of help.

  
Getting a shower from rainwater pouring off of roofs.                                  Water tank for our irrigation project.

My picture at age 25. I worked with the Karaja Indians as a missionary-linguist during the years 1950-1960. I am sipping their corn soup with a clam shell, which they used as spoons. We called it 'spit-soup' because they would spit in it after cooking it to help the fermentation process, which took about four days to sweeten the graded corn.

We built several shower and wash stations to improve sanitation

This is a fresh burn, which will help prepare the area for planting. The burn kills the seeds, provides
phosphorous for fertilizer, loosens the soil and neutralizes the acidic soil. The next step is to gather the
remaining branches, burn them, clear the area of minor debri and then plant around the logs and tree trunks.

This is a floating paddle wheel connected to a pump. The hose carries the water to a storage tank on land.
Our program was to introduce irrigation so that the Indians could plant during the dry season, as well as during the rains.