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ripened; it was still green and sour. I looked around for a good place to fish. If I could only catch a dorado like the one we got in the Ipurama, it would last me for two weeks. The river rushed by rapidly, and I had doubts that I would be able to catch any fish. I clambered back over the rocks to my private beach. On the way I stepped on some kind of flat fruit, similar in shape to a carob. It was green with yellow splotches. When I peeled back the outer skin, I found black pits encased in a white, velvety pulp. I tried a bite. I thought it must be a wild variety of tamarind.

The fruit on the ground was rotten and infested with ants, I gazed up at the thick tree trunk, its towering branches laden with fruit, all out of my reach. The trunk of the tree was smooth and afforded no foothold. A machete would have saved me a lot of trouble. Machete-less, however, I decided to try knocking the fruit down by hurling rocks at it but soon concluded that this was both pointless and dangerous. I was blinded by the sun and couldn't see where the rocks were landing. One of them almost bashed my head in. I tried inching up the tree, hugging it tightly with my knees and digging my fingernails into its bark; but I fell back down into the mud. My failure infuriated me. I couldn't bear the thought that I might die of hunger while mountains of fruit hung over my head, out of my reach. It wasn't fair. Who was all the fruit for? My inside churned with frustration. Then I had another idea.