In 2012-13 the Swedish violinist Linn Lillsunde was a volunteer for AmaZonArt, a charity organisation founded by the cellist Diego Carneiro, that provides music education to poor areas in the north of Brazil, as a tool to help and inspire children and their families by offering an alternative to the violent culture they live in; in form of free instrumental lessons, workshops, concerts and much more. She was teaching the violin at the AMA Institute in Bragança, a poor city at the mouth of the Amazon river; in Tracuateua and in Mosqueiro, an island close to Belém – the capital of Pará.
In Tracuateua she was hosted by a serious but good-natured Catholic Priest and a moody Deacon. In Mosqueiro she was living in the home of a somewhat bad-tempered evangelical pastor (who was secretly trying to marry her off with his eldest son, but naturally she would first have to accept Jesus); and in Bragança she lived with the son of the founder of the AMA Institute, Aurimar – Brazil’s very own Borat and the missing link between Basil Fawlty and Manuel. She shared an apartment with his wife, son, parents, two teenage girls, Chrissie the over-energetic yorkshireterrier, a bird that sang non-stop and five ducks. This is her diary.
AmazonSueca 