Manaus \u2013 The group of Saudi students on an exchange trip in Brazil visited S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 Community on Thursday (30), in the city of Iranduba, 50 kilometres away from Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas. This was the first time that the village received visitors from an Arab country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no clue where Saudi Arabia is,\u201d said tradesman Pedro da Silva regarding the country of origin of the visitors. According to the river dweller, most of the tourists visiting the community, a two-hour boat ride away from the state capital, are from the United States and France.<\/p>\n
S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 community houses 50 peoples, whose income comes mainly from fishing and tourism. \u201cThey are very nice, despite our not understanding a word they say,\u201d said V\u00e2nia Mendes, who sells local handicraft, after being given a 30 real (US$ 20) tip from one of the students, who bought a baseball cap from her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe families who live in the Amazon need support,\u201d said Abdulrahman Abdulraihm, aged 23, the buyer of the cap. \u201cIt is important for them to have means to survive in their own region, with no need to travel to great cities,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n
Salesman Paulo Moraes spoke about the importance of tourists for the community. \u201cIncome here is very little. When they come and buy water, an ice cream, it already helps,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the students also saw the meeting of the waters of the Negro and Solim\u00f5es rivers, which come together to form the Amazon River. The group also visited the Aria\u00fa River region, where they walked through the Amazon Forest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt euphoric. You can only see this in books and in the cinema, especially in Saudi Arabia, where there is not much green,\u201d said Sara Almaeena, aged 23. \u201cI loved seeing the trees, the water, the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is real life, not what media shows,\u201d said the young Waad Aldossary, aged 17, who played a game of football with the residents of S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and the colleagues in his group. \u201cIf I had to choose a place for my holidays, I would come here. It is a great place and there is no difference between men and women,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On the boat ride, the students attended a talk about environmental preservation promoted by the Sustainable Amazon Foundation and also by the State Conservation Unit (CEUC), under the Environmental and Sustainable Development Secretariat of the State of Amazonas.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Mark Ament<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Students from Saudi Arabia visited S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 community, in Amazonas, which received Arab visitors for the first time. \u2018They are very nice, despite our not understanding a word they say,\u2019 said a local.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-culture"},"wps_subtitle":"Students from Saudi Arabia visited S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 community, in Amazonas, which received Arab visitors for the first time. \u2018They are very nice, despite our not understanding a word they say,\u2019 said a local.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2313"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}