The sleepy town of Paraua came alive with preparations for the Festival of Sao Joao. Lines strung with green and yellow streamers, the colors of the Brazilian flag, were hung across the streets. Dozens of canoes arrived from the surrounding forest with revelers ready for the first festival of summer.

            Dona Luiza moved her canoe closer to the crowded shore, dipping the paddle first on one side of the bow and then the other. Her small daughter sat midway back, holding very still. Approaching the backs of the canoes tied at the shore dona Luiza grasped one and slid it aside to make a space for the bow of her canoe to slide forward.

            “So many people here you can’t even get to the shop,” she muttered to herself. Her long face was serious.

            The paddle would no longer fit in the water between the tightly packed canoes, so she moved the boat by hand, shoving the other canoes out of the way and grasping their sides to pull her canoe to shore.

            It was hard to tell her age. Her long, thin hair was still dark, but her toothless mouth and jutted chin made her look like a hag from a children’s fairy tale. Once the bow touched shore, she stepped wide to climb out and tethered the canoe to the stub of a tree trunk.

            Her serious face softened as she spoke to her daughter. “You want to come with me?” The little head shook from side to side. “Then you take care of the canoe. Don’t let it drift away. I’ll be right back.”

            She walked stiffly up the dirt road toward the shops, her heavy breasts swaying under her faded cotton dress. Except for those breasts, she was painfully thin, with scrawny legs that looked like any misstep would snap them in two. She resumed her determined look as she picked her way through the muddy ruts and holes.

            The river was high this time of year, so the shops near the water were flooded and boarded up. But the shops further up the road were busy with festival goers, promenading to and fro, some stopping to buy a cold drink or a piece of grilled chicken. Music blared out of several weathered wood storefronts and one enterprising proprietor had set up a homemade wheel of fortune gambling game and was drawing a crowd of river folk, eager to try their luck.

            Sad-looking dogs, balding and red from the tropical heat and pests, picked through the litter looking for bits of edible garbage. They showed no signs of aggression. Their continual weak and dependent state made them resigned and preoccupied only with food.

            The small girl in the canoe watched her mother walk up the road. She sat, holding the seat with both hands, her legs tucked up underneath. When her mother was out of sight, she looked around, her eyes following the other children.

            Some were already in their Sao Joao costumes, dressed like country bumpkins, the boys with patched pants, frayed at the bottoms, and the girls in frilly checked dresses. They had painted freckles on their faces and wore woven straw hats. A few boys swam in the shallows among floating chicken bones, paper and shop debris. A man in a larger boat down the way had fish for sale. The little girl looked at those fish a long time, staring at their shiny black, scaleless skins.

            Some of the costumed children on the shore were whispering and pointing at the small girl. Then one started chanting and the others followed, “Marianna, Marianna. Filha da macumbeira. Marianna, Marianna. Daughter of the macumbeira.”

            The girl looked away, shamefaced. When she looked up again, she saw her mother hurrying down to the canoe. “Get out of here. Leave her alone or you’ll be sorry!” dona Luiza shouted and waved her hand.

            “Macumbeira,” the children shrieked and scattered. “Run! Here comes the witch lady!”

            Dona Luiza made her way back to the canoe. She carried a small amount of coarse farinha flour and four eggs tied up in a plastic bag. She smiled gently at the girl as she untied the canoe and stepped down into it, pushing off from shore with one leg. She sat at the front and pushed against the sides of the other canoes to move back toward deeper water.

            Dipping her paddle in the black river, she aimed the canoe close to the fish seller. “Hey,” she called. The fish seller was talking to people on the shore. “Hey,” she called again, louder. The fish seller turned around. “How much for that smaller fish, brother?”

            The fish seller glanced at her, called a figure and turned back to the people on the shore. The price was high, but one of those festival goers or town dwellers would eventually give him that price, hurrying home from work with their pockets full of money.

            “Well,” she called back, jutting her chin out a little, “not today. They don’t look all that fresh.”

            The little girl kept quiet as her mother back paddled and turned the canoe around, heading for a cluster of small clapboard floating shacks at the other end of the inlet. She held the farinha and eggs firmly as her mother dipped the paddle first on one side of the canoe and then the other, using swift, strong strokes to stay out of the wake of a large boat that passed, approaching the town.