-Part 3-

Fifty-three kids aged seven to twelve years old clustered around us, seated on the ground, enjoying the sweets I brought with me from America. Some of them had a monkey perched on their shoulders.

"It was not even that hard to gather them," I said to the professor. "I gathered fifty percent of the total children in this village on the first try."

"Yeah, using candies like a creep." He stood close to me, peeking at the crowd with a frown, rattled. "And when I said primates, I wanted you to gather homo sapiens, not monkeys."

"Quantas vezes devo dizer-lhe? Eles não vão incomodá-lo, Professor." [How many times should I tell you? They won't bother you, Professor.]

"Tell that to my twelve-year-old self!"

"What happened to your... twelve-year-old self?" I asked. "You have a bad history with monkeys?"

"Bad history?" he hissed. "Bad history is Christopher Columbus's history in the school textbook." He rolled his sleeve and showed the humanoid bite scars. "I was attacked by two monkeys that were so hell-bent on stealing my M&M's."

I cringed from my spiritual pain. "Sorry to hear that." I approached a box containing flashcards, the kind you use to teach kids in pre-school. "É isso que você quer que eu te ajude?" [Is this what you want me to help you with?]

"Yes." He threw a suspicious glance toward the monkeys before he approached me. "This and interviews. The people are illiterate, so this is the only work-around. We will find out the correlation of language shift with age for now."

"So there has been a study about the language? Researchers had reached this place before?"

"Yes. In 1976 and 2000. Though twenty years ago, there was barely four hundred tribespeople in this village, and the assimilation of the societies was low. I have the complete lexicon from the study in 2000, and it will be a reference for me to codify the language shift and re-transcribing the language... in case I found any shift."

"Como vamos entrevistá-los? Nós não falamos a sua língua. Você?" [How will we interview them? We don't speak their language. Do you?] I was sure I knew the response.

"Theoretically, yes. I am not yet conversant in their vernacular. I will after three months. The vocabulary is small. We're here for the practicality. But to answer your first question, several tribesmen are fluent in Portuguese in this village. They participated in a Teacher Training Course in the year 2000. It was to educate the tribespeople in the national language of Brazil--Portuguese. Essien and them will help us with the interview and interpretation throughout the study period." He pointed toward three men around his age.

They were distributing the flashcards and talking to the naked children.

"This is where you will be functional to me. Besides me, you're the only one... well, let's exclude William and Chaves who are not here now... who can speak both Portuguese and English."

His train of thought clicked in my brain. "So I'm a translation tool for your students? I thought Ethan can speak Portuguese."

"That's another thing you'll help me with. Speaking Portuguese with him. He's not that fluent. He's decent in reading, but not in speaking. It's a pain to work at his pace. And to be exact, you're the interpretation tool. But you get the gist, yes. You have your head screwed on right." He smiled. It looked genuine from how many porcelain teeth he was showing me.

I didn't understand how he could exploit me and look so happy about it.

"And don't think I'm exploiting your labor. I'll pay your salary as my RA."

"One, let me reiterate that I'm not your RA. I'm helping just... for the sake of it. Two, I don't need a salary."

"As the owner of three gyms in Palo Alto, I'm sure you have a heap of money in your bank account. But it's still unethical to use your service without remunerating you."

When he didn't open his mouth, he looked... amicable and breathtaking. The harsh sunlight highlighted his blond wavy hair that barely touched his wide shoulders. His reddened, mild sun-tanned skin that appeared too flawless for a man glistened in sweat. He even gave out the air of regality.

But he was simply a posh, rude anthropologist.