I had the pleasure of traveling with Padre Carlos from the diocese of Santarem to the Amazon River floodplain area last week. It was fairly much an all-day riverboat trip to several communities in the need for potable water. Yeah, hard to believe, but living on the largest river in the world doesn't guarantee a drop of good drinking water. As a matter of fact, it's hard to come by any time of the year. But water is another story. What caught my eye was this leaf that Padre Carlos showed us. It's called "lixa unha" (fingernail file) because seems to be a marriage between steel wool and a rough scouring pad. He tells us that the leaf is used for clean pots and pans. Sorry, no scientific name.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The native scouring pad
I had the pleasure of traveling with Padre Carlos from the diocese of Santarem to the Amazon River floodplain area last week. It was fairly much an all-day riverboat trip to several communities in the need for potable water. Yeah, hard to believe, but living on the largest river in the world doesn't guarantee a drop of good drinking water. As a matter of fact, it's hard to come by any time of the year. But water is another story. What caught my eye was this leaf that Padre Carlos showed us. It's called "lixa unha" (fingernail file) because seems to be a marriage between steel wool and a rough scouring pad. He tells us that the leaf is used for clean pots and pans. Sorry, no scientific name.
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4 comments:
Hello Steven. Plants like this are very handy to get to know. We have one here called a Flowering Pear (Dombei) which has a very similar use but the leaf is much smaller.
I'm also a nature lover. I wanted to be an environmentalist but my destiny made me enter in to business world. Will visit arizona someday...
shobin
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Realmente a amazônia é surpeendente, quando temos a oportunidade de passear pelas regiões mais nativas nos deparamos com diversas novidades da biodiversidade que a mesma nos oferece. Entretanto para os moradores desses locais são as coisas mais comuns, mesmo sem nenhuma nomeclatura científica!!!
Aproveito para demonstrar minha admiração por Padre Carlos que embora tenha um enorme nível de intelectual científico, não deixa de lado sua originalidade.
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