What the Dunes Teach

Written by Allison Lee, High School English Teacher
Photography by David Trajtenberg, Director of Student Growth and Performance  
 

Fourteen hours. More or less. That is what it takes to get from São Paulo to Lençóis Maranhenses, what Vogue once called "a hidden paradise on the Northeast Coast of Brazil." We arrived late at night, tired, the darkness concealing everything the place had to offer. The adventure, we were told, would begin in the morning. 
 

It did. A bumpy jeep ride delivered us to the edge of something that felt almost alien. Soft, pure white sand dunes stretching in every direction, shallow lagoons pooled between the ridges, sky and horizon with nothing interrupting them. Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman describes "panoramic vision" as a physiological state associated with calm and stress reduction. Standing there, I watched it happen in real time, in myself and in the students around me. 
 

The usual walls and agendas melted into the landscape. And then, the kids began to play. Jumping from the heights of the dunes, burying their feet in the smooth alabaster sand, splashing into the lagoons below. Three hours passed without anyone noticing. Afterward, we ate a delicious local lunch and swung easefully in hammocks strung in the shade. The day ended with a visit to one more dune area. Once we arrived, the skies threatened rain, but no one cared. 
 

The three days felt fluid and unhurried. We traveled by Jeep and boat, open to whatever the next experience had to offer. During our local community visit, we learned from artisan women who work with natural dyes made directly from the flowers, trees, and plants on their land. Each student left with a gift from the community—a small, naturally dyed, handmade basket. Later that day, we watched the mandioca process from start to finish as a farm piglet wandered into the group and became the undisputed star of the day.
 

For our final excursion, we went down the Preguiças River. We stopped along the river to learn about the significance of the mangrove ecosystem and the brackish waters where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean. We then spent time with a local fishing community. They shared their struggles in the face of large-scale commercial fishing as a community that continues to fish sustainably and on its own terms. 
 

In the late afternoon, we climbed the Farol de Mandacaru lighthouse together, a building that had just marked its 85th anniversary. The panoramic vista showed off the estuary where the Preguiças meets the Atlantic. It was hard to distinguish individual buildings and shapes, as the high-angle perspective turned everything into rows of white and tan, except for the green of a Brazilian flag waving from a storefront. We all knew that evening would be our last, that we were heading home the next day. Nobody said much. We just stood there and looked at where the water became the sky.
 

Long after a trip like this ends, something stays: the memory that there is a whole world out there, and people living entirely different lives in it. That is what Classroom Without Walls is for.