Brazil: A Woman's Pride In Shining Pots

Squatting next to Rio Preto in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest, a woman washes dishes and polishes pots. Behind her and to her left are two canoes.

  

Rio Preto means Black River in Potuguese. There are many black rivers in the Amazon, including Rio Negro, South America’s second most powerful river after the Amazon, of which it is a tributary.

Black rivers look like black mirrors. However, when scooped in a hand their waters have the color of tea. They even taste like tea. Unlike white rivers, which run over sand and clay, they run over rocks and should be transparent instead of muddy, like the Amazon. They get their color by soaking the surrounding vegetation when seasonally flooding the forest.