wonder where your stuff comes from and where it goes?
The Story of Stuff.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Awh Yeah.
I am sitting at my host-parents' computer in my underpants, enjoying a bag of cookies and basking in the glory of freedom. In just a few minutes I will be heading over to the SIT office to hand in the final copy of my Independent Study Project. I still have to present my project to the "INTERSOMETHINGMENTAL PANEL" of SIT, but that will be over before I can hop, skip and fall on my face.
In exactly one week, I will be on a TAM flight on my way back to the U.S.A. Wow. If you are looking for trip reflections, declarations, or exclamations of glory, you won't find them here. In fact, I really don't know if there are any to be made. Quite similar to the London quote I posted in an early entry, no long periods of time can be summed up by a statement that "it was good," or "bad," let alone three months in a completely foreign area. Over the span of the trip I have had every imaginable physical, emotional and mental feeling towards most of the world. It is hard to imagine that the experiences had here could ever be understood by a mind that was not present, experiencing the very same roller coaster of life. In a precursor to the conversation that I know I will be having with way more people than I can count, I will say this: Brazil was great. Brazil was terrible. Brazil was unique. Brazil was an experience that I will never forget.
For those of you who have stuck it out the whole semester with me, thanks for taking an interest in my demure, everyday life, and I will try to make updates on my post-brazil life and I will surely be keeping up the photo web site.
Cowabunga.
Andrew
In exactly one week, I will be on a TAM flight on my way back to the U.S.A. Wow. If you are looking for trip reflections, declarations, or exclamations of glory, you won't find them here. In fact, I really don't know if there are any to be made. Quite similar to the London quote I posted in an early entry, no long periods of time can be summed up by a statement that "it was good," or "bad," let alone three months in a completely foreign area. Over the span of the trip I have had every imaginable physical, emotional and mental feeling towards most of the world. It is hard to imagine that the experiences had here could ever be understood by a mind that was not present, experiencing the very same roller coaster of life. In a precursor to the conversation that I know I will be having with way more people than I can count, I will say this: Brazil was great. Brazil was terrible. Brazil was unique. Brazil was an experience that I will never forget.
For those of you who have stuck it out the whole semester with me, thanks for taking an interest in my demure, everyday life, and I will try to make updates on my post-brazil life and I will surely be keeping up the photo web site.
Cowabunga.
Andrew
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
DUM Dum dum (menacingly...)
The end approaches.
The last three weeks of my life have been a blur of boredom, ISP, anxiety, excitement, saudade and fruit. Saudade, for those who do not speak Portuguese, is a term for homesickness. Recently I have been having (because you have saudade, you don’t feel it) quite a bit of it. There are myriad things here in the southern hemisphere that I do enjoy, mangoes, for one, but all things considered I prefer the friends, family, weather, food, and hominess of home.
The ISP. Despite ample frustration and stress, my ISP is happening. It was touch and go for a bit at the beginning. As I may or may not have expressed in a previous entry, my initial thoughts/desires about the project were to work with the cattle/meat industry in the state of Par·. I figured that this would tie in nicely with my interest in the atrocity of the American food industry. After talking with many researchers around town, (which, by the way, is not fun nor generally a good experience. Imagine: you are a student studying in a foreign country, don’t speak the language well, study with an organization that no one knows about, and approach distinguished researchers on the premise that you have one month to conduct a research project of which you have little idea of what you want to do) and being shrugged off by many researchers in town, I spoke with Osvaldo Kato, a senior researcher at EMBRAPA, who is familiar with the SIT program and the nature of the ISP. Basically, he introduced me to Dr. Stefan Hohnwald (German researcher who speaks English and Portuguese) and said: “look, this kid has a month to do a research project, find something for him.” More like, “make something up” for him. So my project was born.
Stefan’s project is quite interesting. However, at the start of my project, there was more or less nothing to be done for the larger project. So my project was fabricated. The said “interesting project’ is working with the integration of a phase of pastureland into the traditional cycle of slash and burn agriculture. Slash and burn is a very common practice among small-scale farmers in tropical environments. Traditionally, this process involves four phases: cutting down forest, burning the biomass to both clear the land and fertilize the soil, planting crops, leaving the cleared land fallow for a number of years for secondary growth to accumulate. However, due to many factors, this style of agriculture has become highly unsustainable, quickly degrading cropland, and forcing farmers to move to new land, deforest new tracts, etc… Thus, much of the world thinks it is these farmers driving deforestation. Anyhow, Stefan’s project is examining the potential of inserting a phase of livestock pasture after the cropping phase and before/during the fallow period. He has planted legumes among the native secondary growth, because legumes, generally speaking, are versatile plants and are efficient at fixing nutrients in the soil. The legumes are thought to serve a dual purpose: fix nitrogen in the soil to increase soil fertility for future cropping phases, and accumulate nitrogen (i.e. protein) in the above ground biomass, and therefore provide a nutritious food source for the grazing livestock.
My project is a comparison of the two leguminous bush species planted in terms of biomass and nutrient composition. For those of you who exceeded the level of “gumshoe” in Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, you probably figured that looking at bushes not only has nothing to do with food industries, but it is boring. But there is a tradeoff: the project is not in a field that is interesting to me, but I was basically handed a project that is feasible and fairly straightforward. The pros and cons are raucously battling for control of my perception of the project. I go through extreme phases of feeling that the project is quite simple and I am lucky for that, only to be faced with feelings of extreme lethargy and indifference to it because I just don’t care about the topic. Ob-la-di.
In similar news, Thanksgiving brought about some serious saudade, and in the wake of the day and the feelings, Meg, Emily and I crafted a spectacle of Thanksgiving dinner last night. A whole day of cooking produced: green beans, mashed potatoes, one loaf of sundried tomato and one loaf of garlic and rosemary bread, both from scratch, stuffing, turkey, apple pie and pumpkin pie. Oh, friends, it was glorious. The joy brought about by the food and the company and they wine, in addition to sharing our festivities with Brasilians was magnificent. A wonderful homage to an American holiday, while embracing the fact that we are in Brasil. In fact, at the time of this writing, nearly lunchtime the morning after, I have yet to hear the call of the hunger fairy.
On the topic of the joy of cooking, I AM GOING TO HAVE A TELEVISION SHOW WHEN I RETURN TO SKIDMORE. Yes, you read correctly, I will be hosting/creating a vegetarian cooking, responsible eating awareness show on Skidmore’s own SkidTV this coming spring semester. Hoorah. It is nearly impossible to convey the excitement I feel for this show in words…so LFBBSAJH#!!!$@!@#$HSKLJ should suffice for the time being. The planning and thinking about the show has occupied my mind for many hours of many days, and is certainly contributing to my desire to return. Anyhow, before I lose the audience that tunes in for my posts, I will certainly be putting up more info about the show: description, website, and where you can watch it once it comes out. So be alert! Check back frequently! And let me know if you have an uncle in the TV business!
Don’t forget to wash behind your ears,
Andrew
The last three weeks of my life have been a blur of boredom, ISP, anxiety, excitement, saudade and fruit. Saudade, for those who do not speak Portuguese, is a term for homesickness. Recently I have been having (because you have saudade, you don’t feel it) quite a bit of it. There are myriad things here in the southern hemisphere that I do enjoy, mangoes, for one, but all things considered I prefer the friends, family, weather, food, and hominess of home.
The ISP. Despite ample frustration and stress, my ISP is happening. It was touch and go for a bit at the beginning. As I may or may not have expressed in a previous entry, my initial thoughts/desires about the project were to work with the cattle/meat industry in the state of Par·. I figured that this would tie in nicely with my interest in the atrocity of the American food industry. After talking with many researchers around town, (which, by the way, is not fun nor generally a good experience. Imagine: you are a student studying in a foreign country, don’t speak the language well, study with an organization that no one knows about, and approach distinguished researchers on the premise that you have one month to conduct a research project of which you have little idea of what you want to do) and being shrugged off by many researchers in town, I spoke with Osvaldo Kato, a senior researcher at EMBRAPA, who is familiar with the SIT program and the nature of the ISP. Basically, he introduced me to Dr. Stefan Hohnwald (German researcher who speaks English and Portuguese) and said: “look, this kid has a month to do a research project, find something for him.” More like, “make something up” for him. So my project was born.
Stefan’s project is quite interesting. However, at the start of my project, there was more or less nothing to be done for the larger project. So my project was fabricated. The said “interesting project’ is working with the integration of a phase of pastureland into the traditional cycle of slash and burn agriculture. Slash and burn is a very common practice among small-scale farmers in tropical environments. Traditionally, this process involves four phases: cutting down forest, burning the biomass to both clear the land and fertilize the soil, planting crops, leaving the cleared land fallow for a number of years for secondary growth to accumulate. However, due to many factors, this style of agriculture has become highly unsustainable, quickly degrading cropland, and forcing farmers to move to new land, deforest new tracts, etc… Thus, much of the world thinks it is these farmers driving deforestation. Anyhow, Stefan’s project is examining the potential of inserting a phase of livestock pasture after the cropping phase and before/during the fallow period. He has planted legumes among the native secondary growth, because legumes, generally speaking, are versatile plants and are efficient at fixing nutrients in the soil. The legumes are thought to serve a dual purpose: fix nitrogen in the soil to increase soil fertility for future cropping phases, and accumulate nitrogen (i.e. protein) in the above ground biomass, and therefore provide a nutritious food source for the grazing livestock.
My project is a comparison of the two leguminous bush species planted in terms of biomass and nutrient composition. For those of you who exceeded the level of “gumshoe” in Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, you probably figured that looking at bushes not only has nothing to do with food industries, but it is boring. But there is a tradeoff: the project is not in a field that is interesting to me, but I was basically handed a project that is feasible and fairly straightforward. The pros and cons are raucously battling for control of my perception of the project. I go through extreme phases of feeling that the project is quite simple and I am lucky for that, only to be faced with feelings of extreme lethargy and indifference to it because I just don’t care about the topic. Ob-la-di.
In similar news, Thanksgiving brought about some serious saudade, and in the wake of the day and the feelings, Meg, Emily and I crafted a spectacle of Thanksgiving dinner last night. A whole day of cooking produced: green beans, mashed potatoes, one loaf of sundried tomato and one loaf of garlic and rosemary bread, both from scratch, stuffing, turkey, apple pie and pumpkin pie. Oh, friends, it was glorious. The joy brought about by the food and the company and they wine, in addition to sharing our festivities with Brasilians was magnificent. A wonderful homage to an American holiday, while embracing the fact that we are in Brasil. In fact, at the time of this writing, nearly lunchtime the morning after, I have yet to hear the call of the hunger fairy.
On the topic of the joy of cooking, I AM GOING TO HAVE A TELEVISION SHOW WHEN I RETURN TO SKIDMORE. Yes, you read correctly, I will be hosting/creating a vegetarian cooking, responsible eating awareness show on Skidmore’s own SkidTV this coming spring semester. Hoorah. It is nearly impossible to convey the excitement I feel for this show in words…so LFBBSAJH#!!!$@!@#$HSKLJ should suffice for the time being. The planning and thinking about the show has occupied my mind for many hours of many days, and is certainly contributing to my desire to return. Anyhow, before I lose the audience that tunes in for my posts, I will certainly be putting up more info about the show: description, website, and where you can watch it once it comes out. So be alert! Check back frequently! And let me know if you have an uncle in the TV business!
Don’t forget to wash behind your ears,
Andrew
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Goin´ Down South
Oupa.
Twenty years old. I am now a man. Similar to Mimi-Siku, I have crossed that invisible border separating teenybopping from manhood that resides between the ages of 19 and 20. Yes, it feels good to be a man; I have already completed several business transactions, grown a striking moustache, and taken to silk bathrobes and Cuban cigars. I am, however, still waiting for my membership card to arrive in the mail. For those who wonder, and to all who asked: Yes, it feels good to be twenty years old.
My life recently has been fairly uneventful. Since our second “LONG EXCURSION,” my mind has been occupied with figuring out my ISP and attempts at relaxing. The latter turns out to be fairly difficult, at least more so than one would think, in a foreign country, with few feelings of establishment.
Two weeks ago we took a trip to the south of Par·, to the cities of Marab·, Parauapebas, and Palmares II. Marab· is eight hours of bumpy roads, off and on pavement, palm tree monocultures, and smoky cattle pastures to the south of BelÈm. The drive was really quite incredible, our first experience of large areas of large scale deforestation. At times, our eyes quite literally could not make out the end of the pastures. Lone Brasil nut trees stretching skyward, standing like champions, like giants, like martyrs. They retain their upright status because it is too costly for ranchers to cut them down. Thus, they remain, as reminders to the cattle, of what their land used to be.
This is the story of an increasingly unfathomable, incomprehensible number of hectares of the Brazilian Amazon. Myriad reasons drive ranching, and are contributing to its growth, especially in Amazonia. Essentially, it is more profitable, easy to cut down rainforest and elude the law in the Amazon. Amazonian beef is feeding Brasil, while beef from the south, and increasingly, from Amazonia, is exported, making Brasil the world’s largest beef exporter. Snap.
Marab· is a central location to the Amazon ranching expansion. It is home one of the largest slaughterhouses in Brasil, and the majority of areas surrounding are devoted to ranching. For at least half of the drive, the smell of smoke lingers in the air. The smell is constantly lingering from the amount of burning (burning forest, that is) that takes place in the area. It was quite astonishing to drive for hours and hours through the monotonous landscape of ranches.
However, the reason for our trip to the south was to learn about the Movimiento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). This is the landless workers’ movement. The Brasilian constitution grants the right of land. A lot of people in Brasil do not have land. A few people in Brasil hold the majority of the land. This makes the landless angry. The MST is the revolution of the landless against wealthy landowners and the government.
Spent two nights in Old Marab· (there are three Marab·s. New ones have been established due to floodings from the Rio TocantÌns). Found a bombtastic, deliciously ill restaurant. Para da Guarana. Guarana is a very popular drink here. It is a carbonated beverage, similar to ginger ale, but made from the Guaran· fruit. It is soda. Brasilians quite enjoy it. At PDG they have many varieties of sandwiches (sand·iche, in PortuguÍs), AND all of those varieties with fried banana. Yes.
I challenge you to, next time you make your favorite sandwich, fry a banana, and place it among the junk that comprises your “favorite sandwich.” BEFORE YOU TASTE IT, make sure your shoes are tied well. Now taste. Now you have your new favorite sandwich.
They also have Guaran· shakes. These are delicious as well. Your traditional Guaran· da Amazonia shake has guarana syrup, avocado, peanuts, brasil nuts, ice, and any combination of fruits, chocolate, condensed milk, and other delicious things. Talk about power shake. These things keep you going for hours. Several meals in one drink.
AÁai. Perhaps you have heard of this, seen it in your local hipster coffee joint advertised in some new energy tea or power shake. AÁai is a tiny, ravishingly purple fruit that grows on a type of palm tree. A thin wrapper of purple fruit surrounds the marble-sized seed. It takes more of these fruit than you can fit in your pants to make a liter of aÁai. The edible form is a cross between a drink and a porridge, denser than a black hole (which, in case you have not been reading up on your astronomy, is infinitely dense) and more satisfying than the dump I took this morning. It has a supremely unique flavor: bitter, fruity in the sense that an avocado is fruity, and very sassy. To increase the delicious factor, most people add sugar, and if you want to go crazy you can add tapioca, too. After eating a half liter of aÁai, you may wonder who put all the rocks in your stomach, and how the hell he got them in their without your noticing, but it is so delicious and satisfying that it really doesn’t matter. Many Brasilians consider the post-aÁai nap to be integral to the eating process.
The point, my friends, is that they had “aÁai na tigela (com granola e fruta)” at Para da Guaran·. Thinking that this dish was some brilliant take on the traditional aÁai, I ordered it. What could “tigela” mean, and how could it possibly make aÁai any better? Heart racing, mouth watering, the feast arrived at the table. The dish was a bowl of aÁai the size of your face, the supporting roles played by a plate of fruit (avocado, papaya, banana, and melon), granola, and tapioca. Needless to say, the Great Rock Caper struck again, and satisfaction followed. “Tigela” did it.
A week later, I was at Natalia’s house, brushing up on my advanced Portuguese vocabulary, when learned that “tigela” means bowl.
From Marab· to Parauapebas. Four hours. Pasture. Smoke. Lunch. Parauapebas to Palmares II. Forty Five minutes. Upon arrival we are informed that there has been a “slight miscommunication.” So what else is new? We hung out at the house of Vanda and Whatever Vanda’s Husband’s Name Is for the next hour and a half. There, they had a puppy. A very small puppy. A very cute puppy. I put the puppy on the cat. Hilarity ensued.
If you read the previous entry, you have been acquainted with my family in Palmares II. I never actually learned all of their names. I could never understand what they were saying. It was embarrassing, but I don’t think they knew. I arrived just before dinnertime on Friday night.
Before I go into the events of the stay, it is important to note a few things about the town. The town of Palmares II is one of the oldest assentamentos in the state of Par·. An assentamento (translation: settlement) is just that: a settlement of the MST, whose people have been granted their lawful right to the land. The people living in this town (and others like it) have won their rights to land, and are fighting for myriad other rights which the government owes them, yet still deprives them of. I came into this situation expecting to find something similar to my other homestay. Quite wrong I was. The town was much more “modernized” or “technologized,” I suppose, than I was thinking. My family had a big TV with DVD player, refrigerator, oven, etc…
Upon my arrival at the house of Family, I chatted with the mother and father for a few minutes. Anison arrived home. Fairly immediately, he asked if I had seen “Turistas,” an American movie about young sexy Americans traveling to Brasil looking for “hot babes, white beaches and good times.” Directly following his inquiry, backed by the smiling faces and encouraging words of the rest of the family, he put it on. Within five minutes of the opening credits there are boobs. Quality film. Dinner. Sleep.
Early rise. Coffee and crackers. Anison and I ride out to their “rosa,” or agricultural fields close by. When I say ride, I mean we rode on his motorcycle. I have always said that if I ever reach a point in my life where I need a motorized form of transportation, I would get a Vespa, or some type of motor scooter. My previous ethical reasons for this decision are now firmly backed by the fact that riding motorcycles is freakin’ sweet. It was my first ride on a moto, and it was awesome. Flying down the dirt roads, banking and leaning into the turns, fresh air rushing past flapping lips and white knuckles.
Anison showed me the fields. He sat on a cow. We collected some mini coconuts. The fruit of these is quite different from what you probably think of when “coconut” flashes through your mind. There are four fruits per coco, each shaped exactly like the extracted tooth of a saber-toothed tiger. Equally as tasty. Well, not really that tasty.
Next stop: the water tower. 25 meters. Half the height of the canopy-eclipsing LBA tower. Weak sauce. Nevertheless, it was quite breathtaking, I can not complain about getting another high altitude 360_ view. Spent many hours up there. Chillin. I gratefully accepted the wind’s offer to cool me off. Went back to the house. Lunched. Back to the tower with Peter and his sister, Cristina. Sunset. Beauty. Smoke.
Despite my suspicions, the sun rose yet again the next morning. An early group departure and a drive brought us to a nearby acampamento (encampment). This is an encampment of the MST which has not been granted legal rights to a plot of land. These acampamentos occupy land illegally in order to get the government’s attention. It so happened that this acampamento was the subject of front-page news. They were camped on the tracks of a train that carries iron oxide (i.e. iron mined from the ground) from CVRD, the largest iron mine in the world, to Maragusa, a close by iron refinery. The day we visited, an agreement had been made between the MST leaders present and the government, so they were no longer camped on the tracks, but merely next to them.
This experience is still beyond words for me. Seeing the faces of rebellion. The eyes, endlessly searching for justice. The fire burning inside every man, woman and child, exploding forth, silently lapping at my face, my heart, and my own dormant senses of power, will, desire. The posters of rebellion and inspiration. The leaders, charisma exuding from every pore on their bodies. The air. The ground. The land. The landless.
I forgot to mention it, but we visited Maragusa, the iron refinery. Check out the pics. It was big.
One more day spent in Palmares II. A wonderful lecture with the regional MST representative of the state of Par·. Por de sol. A beautiful phrase. In Portuguese, we say “the putting of the sun” for the sunset.
This morning was meant for departure. My family sent me off with a jaca. The largest fruit in the whole damn world. Think watermelon times two, no stripes, and small spiky bumps covering the surface. I rolled up to the departure spot on the back of my bro’s moto, carrying my backpack and the jaca. Everyone was impressed. By the size of my fruit.
Trek back to Marab·. Notable day’s events: lunch.
Monday. Trip to Companhia do Vale Rio Doce (CRVD). The very iron mine that the MST acampamento was protesting. I was in a fairly blah mood for this trip for several reasons, so the majority of the visit was, accordingly, blah. Caraj·s, the town in which the mine is located, is a planned town, similar to Porto Trombetas. Less eerie. This may have been due to one or both of the following aspects of the town. In the middle of a large praÁa (grassy square with benches), there was a large tree. The tree had one strand of Christmas lights wrapped around, stretching from the ground to the canopy. A plaque at the base of the tree proclaims: “Largest Christmas tree in Brasil.” Hurrah. Merely feet from The Tree is a bench. The bench is adorned with various colorful bulbs that resemble Christmas lights. I declare this bench: chrismassiest in Brasil. I can not put my finger on it, but something about the combo of chrismassiness in that bench/tree combo says: “Caraj·s, not as creepy as Trombetas!” Maybe that should be their town slogan. They could have a poster with the tree and the bench. Holding hands.
We drove up a mountain, through clouds, and came to a road the Kombis could not drive up. Proceed on foot. Cue the rain. We run through the rain, hopping down a worn, rocky path, into jungle vegetation. After a few minutes, we enter THE BATCAVE. Well, there were bats, and it certainly was a cave. One of only 800 discovered in the Amazon. Lecture. Cold and wet.
Next stop was the oldest mining site at the project. Seeing this, I knew how Jack felt, upon first glance of the world of Giants. From my eyes, the landscape drops…who knows how many hundreds of meters. Every 10…or 20…or 50 meters there were what quite resemble what you and I would call stairs. A bowl of stairs. From my perspective it appeared the I could easily hop all the way to the bottom via the Giant Steps. At least I could have sent an oversized slinky down. Sliding its way into the abyss, is a chute used to transport iron up and down the stairs.
After tens of stairs, my eyes land hard on the iron-solid bottom layer. Flat. Descent impeded. A factory, which I could easily pick up between thumb and forefinger to bring closer for further inspection, lives there. A lonely existence it is, at the bottom of a mine. The obviousness of the factory’s size is turned head over heels when, on the opposite side of the bowl, a sight nothing short of miraculous grabs my eyes.
A truck. Pickup. Your normal Dodge Dakota, or Chevy Gasburner, the size of a pea. If I ate a hundred for dinner, I would, needless to say, still be quite hungry. Stranded halfway up the staircase, my eyes struggle for a way out. With the rude awakening of context, they are stuck with 20 meters of iron wall above, and a 20 meter drop below. The giants laugh.
The carrot in my backpack summons me, and in a fantastic and fleeting display of athleticism and craft, vision and body were reunited, now focusing on my delicious snack.
Return to BelÈm.
Worry about ISP.
One month to go.
May your days be long, adventures exciting, and heart be strong.
Andrew
Twenty years old. I am now a man. Similar to Mimi-Siku, I have crossed that invisible border separating teenybopping from manhood that resides between the ages of 19 and 20. Yes, it feels good to be a man; I have already completed several business transactions, grown a striking moustache, and taken to silk bathrobes and Cuban cigars. I am, however, still waiting for my membership card to arrive in the mail. For those who wonder, and to all who asked: Yes, it feels good to be twenty years old.
My life recently has been fairly uneventful. Since our second “LONG EXCURSION,” my mind has been occupied with figuring out my ISP and attempts at relaxing. The latter turns out to be fairly difficult, at least more so than one would think, in a foreign country, with few feelings of establishment.
Two weeks ago we took a trip to the south of Par·, to the cities of Marab·, Parauapebas, and Palmares II. Marab· is eight hours of bumpy roads, off and on pavement, palm tree monocultures, and smoky cattle pastures to the south of BelÈm. The drive was really quite incredible, our first experience of large areas of large scale deforestation. At times, our eyes quite literally could not make out the end of the pastures. Lone Brasil nut trees stretching skyward, standing like champions, like giants, like martyrs. They retain their upright status because it is too costly for ranchers to cut them down. Thus, they remain, as reminders to the cattle, of what their land used to be.
This is the story of an increasingly unfathomable, incomprehensible number of hectares of the Brazilian Amazon. Myriad reasons drive ranching, and are contributing to its growth, especially in Amazonia. Essentially, it is more profitable, easy to cut down rainforest and elude the law in the Amazon. Amazonian beef is feeding Brasil, while beef from the south, and increasingly, from Amazonia, is exported, making Brasil the world’s largest beef exporter. Snap.
Marab· is a central location to the Amazon ranching expansion. It is home one of the largest slaughterhouses in Brasil, and the majority of areas surrounding are devoted to ranching. For at least half of the drive, the smell of smoke lingers in the air. The smell is constantly lingering from the amount of burning (burning forest, that is) that takes place in the area. It was quite astonishing to drive for hours and hours through the monotonous landscape of ranches.
However, the reason for our trip to the south was to learn about the Movimiento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). This is the landless workers’ movement. The Brasilian constitution grants the right of land. A lot of people in Brasil do not have land. A few people in Brasil hold the majority of the land. This makes the landless angry. The MST is the revolution of the landless against wealthy landowners and the government.
Spent two nights in Old Marab· (there are three Marab·s. New ones have been established due to floodings from the Rio TocantÌns). Found a bombtastic, deliciously ill restaurant. Para da Guarana. Guarana is a very popular drink here. It is a carbonated beverage, similar to ginger ale, but made from the Guaran· fruit. It is soda. Brasilians quite enjoy it. At PDG they have many varieties of sandwiches (sand·iche, in PortuguÍs), AND all of those varieties with fried banana. Yes.
I challenge you to, next time you make your favorite sandwich, fry a banana, and place it among the junk that comprises your “favorite sandwich.” BEFORE YOU TASTE IT, make sure your shoes are tied well. Now taste. Now you have your new favorite sandwich.
They also have Guaran· shakes. These are delicious as well. Your traditional Guaran· da Amazonia shake has guarana syrup, avocado, peanuts, brasil nuts, ice, and any combination of fruits, chocolate, condensed milk, and other delicious things. Talk about power shake. These things keep you going for hours. Several meals in one drink.
AÁai. Perhaps you have heard of this, seen it in your local hipster coffee joint advertised in some new energy tea or power shake. AÁai is a tiny, ravishingly purple fruit that grows on a type of palm tree. A thin wrapper of purple fruit surrounds the marble-sized seed. It takes more of these fruit than you can fit in your pants to make a liter of aÁai. The edible form is a cross between a drink and a porridge, denser than a black hole (which, in case you have not been reading up on your astronomy, is infinitely dense) and more satisfying than the dump I took this morning. It has a supremely unique flavor: bitter, fruity in the sense that an avocado is fruity, and very sassy. To increase the delicious factor, most people add sugar, and if you want to go crazy you can add tapioca, too. After eating a half liter of aÁai, you may wonder who put all the rocks in your stomach, and how the hell he got them in their without your noticing, but it is so delicious and satisfying that it really doesn’t matter. Many Brasilians consider the post-aÁai nap to be integral to the eating process.
The point, my friends, is that they had “aÁai na tigela (com granola e fruta)” at Para da Guaran·. Thinking that this dish was some brilliant take on the traditional aÁai, I ordered it. What could “tigela” mean, and how could it possibly make aÁai any better? Heart racing, mouth watering, the feast arrived at the table. The dish was a bowl of aÁai the size of your face, the supporting roles played by a plate of fruit (avocado, papaya, banana, and melon), granola, and tapioca. Needless to say, the Great Rock Caper struck again, and satisfaction followed. “Tigela” did it.
A week later, I was at Natalia’s house, brushing up on my advanced Portuguese vocabulary, when learned that “tigela” means bowl.
From Marab· to Parauapebas. Four hours. Pasture. Smoke. Lunch. Parauapebas to Palmares II. Forty Five minutes. Upon arrival we are informed that there has been a “slight miscommunication.” So what else is new? We hung out at the house of Vanda and Whatever Vanda’s Husband’s Name Is for the next hour and a half. There, they had a puppy. A very small puppy. A very cute puppy. I put the puppy on the cat. Hilarity ensued.
If you read the previous entry, you have been acquainted with my family in Palmares II. I never actually learned all of their names. I could never understand what they were saying. It was embarrassing, but I don’t think they knew. I arrived just before dinnertime on Friday night.
Before I go into the events of the stay, it is important to note a few things about the town. The town of Palmares II is one of the oldest assentamentos in the state of Par·. An assentamento (translation: settlement) is just that: a settlement of the MST, whose people have been granted their lawful right to the land. The people living in this town (and others like it) have won their rights to land, and are fighting for myriad other rights which the government owes them, yet still deprives them of. I came into this situation expecting to find something similar to my other homestay. Quite wrong I was. The town was much more “modernized” or “technologized,” I suppose, than I was thinking. My family had a big TV with DVD player, refrigerator, oven, etc…
Upon my arrival at the house of Family, I chatted with the mother and father for a few minutes. Anison arrived home. Fairly immediately, he asked if I had seen “Turistas,” an American movie about young sexy Americans traveling to Brasil looking for “hot babes, white beaches and good times.” Directly following his inquiry, backed by the smiling faces and encouraging words of the rest of the family, he put it on. Within five minutes of the opening credits there are boobs. Quality film. Dinner. Sleep.
Early rise. Coffee and crackers. Anison and I ride out to their “rosa,” or agricultural fields close by. When I say ride, I mean we rode on his motorcycle. I have always said that if I ever reach a point in my life where I need a motorized form of transportation, I would get a Vespa, or some type of motor scooter. My previous ethical reasons for this decision are now firmly backed by the fact that riding motorcycles is freakin’ sweet. It was my first ride on a moto, and it was awesome. Flying down the dirt roads, banking and leaning into the turns, fresh air rushing past flapping lips and white knuckles.
Anison showed me the fields. He sat on a cow. We collected some mini coconuts. The fruit of these is quite different from what you probably think of when “coconut” flashes through your mind. There are four fruits per coco, each shaped exactly like the extracted tooth of a saber-toothed tiger. Equally as tasty. Well, not really that tasty.
Next stop: the water tower. 25 meters. Half the height of the canopy-eclipsing LBA tower. Weak sauce. Nevertheless, it was quite breathtaking, I can not complain about getting another high altitude 360_ view. Spent many hours up there. Chillin. I gratefully accepted the wind’s offer to cool me off. Went back to the house. Lunched. Back to the tower with Peter and his sister, Cristina. Sunset. Beauty. Smoke.
Despite my suspicions, the sun rose yet again the next morning. An early group departure and a drive brought us to a nearby acampamento (encampment). This is an encampment of the MST which has not been granted legal rights to a plot of land. These acampamentos occupy land illegally in order to get the government’s attention. It so happened that this acampamento was the subject of front-page news. They were camped on the tracks of a train that carries iron oxide (i.e. iron mined from the ground) from CVRD, the largest iron mine in the world, to Maragusa, a close by iron refinery. The day we visited, an agreement had been made between the MST leaders present and the government, so they were no longer camped on the tracks, but merely next to them.
This experience is still beyond words for me. Seeing the faces of rebellion. The eyes, endlessly searching for justice. The fire burning inside every man, woman and child, exploding forth, silently lapping at my face, my heart, and my own dormant senses of power, will, desire. The posters of rebellion and inspiration. The leaders, charisma exuding from every pore on their bodies. The air. The ground. The land. The landless.
I forgot to mention it, but we visited Maragusa, the iron refinery. Check out the pics. It was big.
One more day spent in Palmares II. A wonderful lecture with the regional MST representative of the state of Par·. Por de sol. A beautiful phrase. In Portuguese, we say “the putting of the sun” for the sunset.
This morning was meant for departure. My family sent me off with a jaca. The largest fruit in the whole damn world. Think watermelon times two, no stripes, and small spiky bumps covering the surface. I rolled up to the departure spot on the back of my bro’s moto, carrying my backpack and the jaca. Everyone was impressed. By the size of my fruit.
Trek back to Marab·. Notable day’s events: lunch.
Monday. Trip to Companhia do Vale Rio Doce (CRVD). The very iron mine that the MST acampamento was protesting. I was in a fairly blah mood for this trip for several reasons, so the majority of the visit was, accordingly, blah. Caraj·s, the town in which the mine is located, is a planned town, similar to Porto Trombetas. Less eerie. This may have been due to one or both of the following aspects of the town. In the middle of a large praÁa (grassy square with benches), there was a large tree. The tree had one strand of Christmas lights wrapped around, stretching from the ground to the canopy. A plaque at the base of the tree proclaims: “Largest Christmas tree in Brasil.” Hurrah. Merely feet from The Tree is a bench. The bench is adorned with various colorful bulbs that resemble Christmas lights. I declare this bench: chrismassiest in Brasil. I can not put my finger on it, but something about the combo of chrismassiness in that bench/tree combo says: “Caraj·s, not as creepy as Trombetas!” Maybe that should be their town slogan. They could have a poster with the tree and the bench. Holding hands.
We drove up a mountain, through clouds, and came to a road the Kombis could not drive up. Proceed on foot. Cue the rain. We run through the rain, hopping down a worn, rocky path, into jungle vegetation. After a few minutes, we enter THE BATCAVE. Well, there were bats, and it certainly was a cave. One of only 800 discovered in the Amazon. Lecture. Cold and wet.
Next stop was the oldest mining site at the project. Seeing this, I knew how Jack felt, upon first glance of the world of Giants. From my eyes, the landscape drops…who knows how many hundreds of meters. Every 10…or 20…or 50 meters there were what quite resemble what you and I would call stairs. A bowl of stairs. From my perspective it appeared the I could easily hop all the way to the bottom via the Giant Steps. At least I could have sent an oversized slinky down. Sliding its way into the abyss, is a chute used to transport iron up and down the stairs.
After tens of stairs, my eyes land hard on the iron-solid bottom layer. Flat. Descent impeded. A factory, which I could easily pick up between thumb and forefinger to bring closer for further inspection, lives there. A lonely existence it is, at the bottom of a mine. The obviousness of the factory’s size is turned head over heels when, on the opposite side of the bowl, a sight nothing short of miraculous grabs my eyes.
A truck. Pickup. Your normal Dodge Dakota, or Chevy Gasburner, the size of a pea. If I ate a hundred for dinner, I would, needless to say, still be quite hungry. Stranded halfway up the staircase, my eyes struggle for a way out. With the rude awakening of context, they are stuck with 20 meters of iron wall above, and a 20 meter drop below. The giants laugh.
The carrot in my backpack summons me, and in a fantastic and fleeting display of athleticism and craft, vision and body were reunited, now focusing on my delicious snack.
Return to BelÈm.
Worry about ISP.
One month to go.
May your days be long, adventures exciting, and heart be strong.
Andrew
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Palmaresian Lunch
"We are going to catch it now," alerts my host mother. I put down my cracker and race into the house to fetch my camera.
Now rewind four weeks to my previous rural homestay in Piquatuba, hundreds of kilometers north in the heart of Amazonia. Sebastão, a man of few words, silently spreads corn kernels on the ground. As the golden specks of sustenance arc from his hand, chickens come running. Systematically placed at his feet, the sea of corn Sebastão stood in moments ago has transformed into a sea of chickens. Calmly and coolly, with the stealth of a jaguar, Sebass leans down, and with the swiftness of the aforementioned predator, snags a chicken. Fingers firmly grasping the chicken by both wings just behind the shoulders, a smile spreads across his face.
Time warp. Back to Palmares II, the MST assentamento where I spent three days last week. My family was: Maranata (mama); Ijaesse (son, 21); Alenice (daughter, 18); Anilson (son, 17); Ariel (son, 9), and Francisco (father). Upon my departure, Maranata gave me a small flag on which she wrote the names of all their family members. The name Francisco was
not present on this flag. This means one of two things: Francisco, in a devilishly sly ploy to make me look stupid without even knowing it, lied to me when we met, OR I am just stupid and called him Francisco my whole stay for no apparent reason.
Anyhow.
Camera in hand, I arrive back to the breakfast table, conveniently situated in the backyard. Barking. Yelling. Wings flapping. Father in the lead, club in hand, is followed by dog, and Anison and Ariel fanning out behind. The chicken takes refuge behind a planting box against the fence. Cornered, he is running out of options.
*click*
Hiding behind the flowerbox, the chicken waits for the hunters to make their move.
*click*
Hiding behind my camera, I think: "I wonder what that chicken is thinking."
Animal psychology is quite an elusive academic field. The science often takes many forms and is quite abstract. Even the greats Aleksandr Vondstein, Hamilton Greinstead and Gertie Weingarten could never tell you exactly what an animal was thinking. But, my friends, at this moment in time I believe that I can, with great confidence, tell you exactly what that chicken was thinking:
"Shit."
In a supreme breach of the tirelessly practiced chicken-catching method, Roxy (for those of you who don't know, this is the ambiguous name for every dog whose actual name I don't know) unleashed a near lethal string of barks and, displaying his best William Wallace impression, charged.
Sensing its chance, the chicken dounded for the newly opened hole in the defense. Daddio stepped up to fill the hole, but was faked out of his pants by the juke the chicken managed to pull off. Running with everything he had, feet pounding, wings spread, *click* mind focused, Lunch ran for cover behind the oven against the opposite fence. This time Team Go closed in fast and hard. Francisco emerged from behind the over, chicken in hand, grin slapped on his face. Mom walks over, knife in hand.
*click*
Head hanging on by a single tendon. Wings flap slower yet. Lunch is on its way.
Andrew
In case you are wondering, it was delicious.
Now rewind four weeks to my previous rural homestay in Piquatuba, hundreds of kilometers north in the heart of Amazonia. Sebastão, a man of few words, silently spreads corn kernels on the ground. As the golden specks of sustenance arc from his hand, chickens come running. Systematically placed at his feet, the sea of corn Sebastão stood in moments ago has transformed into a sea of chickens. Calmly and coolly, with the stealth of a jaguar, Sebass leans down, and with the swiftness of the aforementioned predator, snags a chicken. Fingers firmly grasping the chicken by both wings just behind the shoulders, a smile spreads across his face.
Time warp. Back to Palmares II, the MST assentamento where I spent three days last week. My family was: Maranata (mama); Ijaesse (son, 21); Alenice (daughter, 18); Anilson (son, 17); Ariel (son, 9), and Francisco (father). Upon my departure, Maranata gave me a small flag on which she wrote the names of all their family members. The name Francisco was
not present on this flag. This means one of two things: Francisco, in a devilishly sly ploy to make me look stupid without even knowing it, lied to me when we met, OR I am just stupid and called him Francisco my whole stay for no apparent reason.
Anyhow.
Camera in hand, I arrive back to the breakfast table, conveniently situated in the backyard. Barking. Yelling. Wings flapping. Father in the lead, club in hand, is followed by dog, and Anison and Ariel fanning out behind. The chicken takes refuge behind a planting box against the fence. Cornered, he is running out of options.
*click*
Hiding behind the flowerbox, the chicken waits for the hunters to make their move.
*click*
Hiding behind my camera, I think: "I wonder what that chicken is thinking."
Animal psychology is quite an elusive academic field. The science often takes many forms and is quite abstract. Even the greats Aleksandr Vondstein, Hamilton Greinstead and Gertie Weingarten could never tell you exactly what an animal was thinking. But, my friends, at this moment in time I believe that I can, with great confidence, tell you exactly what that chicken was thinking:
"Shit."
In a supreme breach of the tirelessly practiced chicken-catching method, Roxy (for those of you who don't know, this is the ambiguous name for every dog whose actual name I don't know) unleashed a near lethal string of barks and, displaying his best William Wallace impression, charged.
Sensing its chance, the chicken dounded for the newly opened hole in the defense. Daddio stepped up to fill the hole, but was faked out of his pants by the juke the chicken managed to pull off. Running with everything he had, feet pounding, wings spread, *click* mind focused, Lunch ran for cover behind the oven against the opposite fence. This time Team Go closed in fast and hard. Francisco emerged from behind the over, chicken in hand, grin slapped on his face. Mom walks over, knife in hand.
*click*
Head hanging on by a single tendon. Wings flap slower yet. Lunch is on its way.
Andrew
In case you are wondering, it was delicious.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
Funky Amazonian Ear Fungus
“Why the hell do you buy food for dogs and cats?”
-Gustavo, speaking of the probable reaction of a Riberinho to the pet food section of an American grocery store
For the past two weeks I have been traveling around the Amazonian region of Brasil. The trip was long, fairly intense, and eye opening. Not necessarily eye opening in the sense that I witnessed actions, reactions and developments that I had no idea existed, but rather in my first hand experience of these things I was able to contextualize the reality and impact of them in the world. And in myself.
The tale of the Manaus/Santarem trip begins two days prior, in which, considering myself rather clever, I did all of my laundry. Went well. No extreme situations. Hung up clothes and went to school. That afternoon: rain. Damn. Here in Brasil it is so humid that the only way clothes dry is in the direct heat of the sunlight. Figured that one more day to dry would be sufficient in both drying the clothes and keeping them only mildly smelly from the mildew. Next afternoon: rain. Damn. With no other option, I packed up my damp clothes that night and set off for Manaus.
You may recall that my last post was written due to the spider the size of a Buick in my bathroom. Due to this monstrosity of arachnid demon spawn, I was unable to shower for the previous two days (I was reduced to taking a dump with my mosquito net draped over myself and the toilet that morning for fear he would sneak up on me…). So the evening of departure I showed up to the airport with a bag full of smelly clothes, myself exuding an odor equal to that of the gym sock you forgot was stuffed in your underpants for the last three days, and a hunk of wax lodged in my right ear.
However, I made a discovery at the airport that made me forget all of my woes: corn flavored ice cream. I know what you are thinking: ew. But oh, it is delicious. Imagine…well… ice cream that tastes like corn. Its good. So good in fact that the second I got my bags on the return flight to Belém I went straight to Cairu (ice cream shop) and bought myself another cone.
Late night flight, arrived in Manaus, arrived at hotel late. I pulled some of my clothes out of the bag in an attempt to air them out, get rid of the smell. The smell that leapt from my bag upon opening it thought otherwise. The next morning, after a great run and a good breakfast I set out to find a lavenderia. After an hour of searching around the same four block area where people kept telling me there were these proposed lavenderias I finally found one. The clerk took a look at my two stinky sacks and said “20 reais,” 10 per sack. I tried to reason with him by arguing that I could stuff all the clothes in one sack, so it should only be 10R. Didn’t buy it. Walked around the port/market area. Had a delicious fish lunch. Chilled. Sunset. Sleep.
Sunrise. Run. This day, we drove to the LBA field station two hours north of Manaus. I rode with Lancelot…or Fabio (I can seldom remember his name, but he was a ravishing young Ph.D student) with four of my mates. We stopped off at his personal research site, where he is monitoring basically all the functions of a forest in a campina forest (sandy soil). FABRICIO was his name. Fabricio spoke English very well, made for an enjoyable ride. The LBA field station is a huge wooden house/cabin/station that has a big kitchen area and upstairs a large open area with bunk beds and spaces for hammocks. That day we ventured deep into the rain forest to a research tower. A glance upward, and one is blinded by the sun before your gaze can summit the tower. 50 metres. Above the forest canopy. Sweet. Climbing up the tower was quite exhilarating. The layers of tree and fauna pass by like the layers of earth, equally as off limits to your average, two legged, non-flying human being. Atop the tower, atop the canopy: 360º of green carpet stretching to the horizon. Uneven, rolling like an ocean preparing for storm. Fabricio shows us all of the crazy-expensive equipment that adorns the tower like jewelry, all the while shaking the tower and telling us that it has not fallen over in a while. Descent. On the way back, I was walking at the back of the group, taking my time, admiring ants and such. A tree lays suspended across the path, well within jumping range. “Probably shouldn’t do this…” crosses my mind. I leapt and swung. The tree, no more than 10 cm DBH, accepted my weight as an invitation to break it’s previous engagement with the vines and, immediately following the inevitable meeting of my feet to ground, the tree trunk met my back. No serious damage. Didn’t even knock me over. Walked away. Lunch. Afternoon lecture in the forest. Went for a run at dusk with Peter and Becca. Upon return to the field station, Gustavo informed us that perhaps it is OK to run with someone, but alone one should beware of Jaguars.
Next day yielded an exercise of estimation and relativity. Interesting. Had to guess and figure ways to systematically make an educated guess of distances, heights, biomass, etc. Back feels fine. Afternoon, travel by bus two hours to Balbina. A planned town, all of its inhabitants either work at or are family members of workers of the Balbina Hydroelectric Dam. . A bit of a creepy feeling in the city. Everything was clean. That night went for a run. Had jaguars running through my mind, luckily, though, not through the streets. I found the only hill in Brasil.
The next day we visited the dam and learned how a hydroelectric dam operates. Interesting. The Balbina dam is considered an environmental tragedy, because they basically built it in a very shallow floodplain and its total energy output only supplies Manaus with 30% of the energy the city requires. Afternoon went to the animal rescue center that the dam project established to try to compensate for their environmental impact. A common practice among large, resource intensive extractive companies. Bus ride back to Manaus.
Night in Manaus, 4:30 AM flight to Santarém. 3:30 departure from hotel. Again, we fly over the Amazon Rainforest under the cover of darkness. She’ll never know we are coming… or something. Arrive in the Santarém airport, which is literally one small building next to the Amazon River. That’s a big river, let me tell you. Taxi to waterfront. Board boat. Two hours free until a PROMPT DEPARTURE AT 10AM, says Gustavo. 10AM comes and goes. Still chillin on the boat. Two hours later, we start to move, 50 metres to the gas boat to fill up. Back to the shore, where we are informed that the boat is not functioning properly. Switch boats. The second boat is better. Roomier. More colorful. Lunch. More chillin’. Finally we leave. The day was, in any case, devoted to hanging out on the boat and enjoying the ride. The ride was, indeed, wonderful. The air on the river was cool, the banks far apart and the water blue. Not much more one could ask of a river. We slept in hammocks on the boat. Had you asked me before the program what I thought I would return with, a love for sleeping and sitting in hammocks would not have been my first response. In fact, I probably would not have considered hammocks as a benefit of the program. Alas, life throws curveballs, and sometimes you make solid contact. Sailed…can not say sailed because the boat had none…Boated through the night to arrive at Porto Trombetas, situated on the Rio Trombetas, a large river that feeds into the Amazon.
Next morning bright and early we went to Trombetas, which is another planned city and run by Mineração do Rio Norte (MRN). The city is based around a gigantic Bauxite mining operation, the largest in Brasil and third largest in the world. We were driven around the city/mine sites in a nice air conditioned van with two representatives of MRN. Bauxite is strip mined (unfortunately no ventures down into the bowels of earth), which means that the Bauxite is a type of rock that composes a layer of earth about 20 metres below the topsoil. Basically what happens is that they bring in some heavy machinery, dig down to the Bauxite layer, extract that, and replace all the layers on top to yield a nice barren, red field. The Bauxite is cleaned on their site. The majority of it is shipped to China and Japan, where they synthesize it to make aluminum. The majority of the visit was devoted to learning how they restore their land after mining, because their mine is located in a National Forest. This means that the federal government owns the land, and basically leases it to the company, who, in turn must restore the vegetation to a “level equal of the forest before the land was cleared.” This is an extremely elusive idea, and the first plot to be mined (27 years ago) has still not been accepted back by the government.
The mine fields were fairly mind-blowing. We drove through rolling hills of land scraped down to its panties. The blood of an age old cause has spilled over the land, giving it an iron-red color. Everything assumes that hue. Every tree, bush, piece of machinery, tower and car has been painted red by the land. When a car drives along its surface a cloud of dust rises metres above, spreading out in every direction, the earth imitating the most mobile of its three brethren. . Looking for something better. Safer. Cleaner.
That night we went to “the center,” which was a large complex with bar, “club,” soccer fields, basketball courts, pool, and every person that lived in the town. Everyone knows everyone. The MRN dude (who came out with us) told me that the President of MRN, who owned everything (and by the transitive property, everyone) in the town was seldom seen around these parts, but he made occasional visits. He didn’t want to be in compromising situations. I couldn’t help but feel that Big Brother was watching my every move, waiting for me to slip up. Eliminate me. I got away.
Quilombolas are rural communities which were established in the mid-1800s by escaped African slaves. We spent the next afternoon in one of these communities about two hours south of Porto Trombetas. This was a very interesting experience, however I came away feeling very ambivalent, even indifferent. For this, I have no reasons or explanations. They are an extremely persecuted people in the Amazonian region, many quilombolas have been displaced by recently established biological reserves, conservation units, and resource extraction projects (a very common problem around the world with indigineous/rural populations in conservation areas). They live on virtually no income, and survive on subsistence agriculture. I came into, and out of this visit with some idea that I should feel extremely touched, moved, sympathetic, angry… something towards their situation. No luck. No reasons why, either. Just one of those things I suppose.
The community was very happy and eager to show us around. Walked to inland lake. Loaded into canoes (a dog came in mine) and paddled across a large lake to their mantioc fields. Saw women making farinha. This is a staple of the Brasilian diet. A type of flour made from the root of the mantioc plant. Eating farinha is actually very comparable to chewing on small pebbles, and equally as nutritious. Farinha production and selling is the main source of income for most rural communities, because the plant is fairly easy to grow and harvest. The process of making farinha is very labor intensive, consisting of four steps prior to cooking. The final step requires the farinha to be cooked for four hours, with continual motion. This means a woman must stand and continuously move around the farinha in a bigass pan for four hours. We walked around in their mantioc fields. Had a talk with the king and his son, of which I understood little (save for the sparse translations provided by Gustavo). Departing words, about a million pictures of little kids and we were off.
Back to Santarem. A free afternoon, which I spent at the hospital. Finally, I was going to have the candle removed from my ear. Nearly a month had elapsed since the doctor diagnosed my illness. Three weeks of itchiness and muffled sound. Coming to a close. Score.
First hospital visit: they don’t have any doctors at the time. Go to the other hospital in town, the Sagrada Familia. Upon arrival, the front desk lady informs us that the only doctor on the premeses is a general physician who “doesn’t feel comfortable assessing my situation.” Bullshit. So, she gets in touch with another doctor, who was napping at the time and would have to call back once his dreams came to a thrilling conclusion… around 3:30. Check the clock, it is 2:15. Sit. Read. Try not to itch. 3:30 comes and goes. Desklady calls Sleepy back. He’s not home. Great. Get in touch with another doctor, who will meet us at the hospital at 9:30 that night.
After dinner, Gaby and I make our way back to the hospital, and to my relief and astonishment the doctor is already there. The hard part over with, I go into the exam room. She takes a look inside my ear and says (through Gaby, acting as a translator here) that she sees a “yellow secretion,” which indicates there is fungus growing in my ear-hole.
“Yeah, right” thinks my head , contained by walls a bit too thick for its own good.
She then takes a long metal deal and puts it just inside my ear. A 90º turn and she scoops out a fairly giant hunk of gray gooey fungus.
“Shit.”
She used the ear tool a few more times. Family, Friends, and Random People reading this blog: I cannot express enough how good that felt. After having this junk in my ear for three weeks, this felt at least a million times better than the greatest orgasm you can imagine. But, the best was yet to come. Next she took out a big ol’ syringe, accompanied by a sack of liquid. This is what I had been waiting for. A tray was placed under my ear to catch the water, and suspected monster that she was about to blast out. The first wash was a million times better than the million times previously expressed. The doctor was speaking while blasting my ear, Gaby translating, but I didn’t hear a word. My left eyelid slightly more closed than the right (which was about halfmast), eyes rolled back, the ecstasy of those few glorious seconds was my world.
Indeed, monster is quite an understatement. According to my memory, the ear-glob was ten inches long, a mass of ear wax and gray junk. The mind, however, drunken on pleasure generally can not be trusted. Felt like a million bucks.
Rural homestay.
The homestay was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. Piquiatuba, population 700, is situated on the Rio Tapajós (this type of community is generally referred to as a riberinho, or riverside community). I stayed with a family composed of a father, Sebastão (54 years old), mother, Maria Suzenhuda (50 years old), niece, Roseita (9), and son, Jonathas (12). Among myriad other things, Sebastao fishes every day, and tends to their mantioc fields. Maria cleans clothes and cooks. In truth, however, the most accurate description of their daily chores and lives is that they live with the land. Before IBAMA was established and imposed restrictions on their use of the forest, these people lived entirely off of the river and the forest. Now, however, they must comply with a forest use plan that is quite extensive, but basically they can now only use 10 metres of forest on either side of a road that connects their town with Santarém.
The first and third mornings, I went fishing with Sebastáo. Canoe: Jonathas paddling in back, myself sitting middle, and Sebastáo standing in the front, net in hands. Sebass’s fishing technique has been honed over 35 years in the trade. He calculatedly and swiftly gathers and holds the net in a combination of hands and mouth. When the time comes, with one graceful motion, the net is heaved through the air. The moment his hands release, and the net is relieved of the burden of his grasp, his mind takes over. The net immediately rearranges itself into a near perfect circle, crashing to the water and disappearing from view. Aesthetically pleasing. Not for the fish.
The day before I arrived, Sebastão caught 15 fish. My first day: 30 fish. Second: 47 fish. For those of you that have never seen 47 fish, that’s a lot of fish. Among the 47, there were 11 different species. After fishing came cleaning the fish. Another sight I have never seen. Dump the fish on the cleaning table. Squeeze some orange on them. Scale. Gut. Cook. I quite enjoyed the part of the cleaning process in which the knife is used to extract the gills and various surrounding giblets. The knife is inserted under the mouth, and pulls out these aforementioned goodies. As they are pulled, the fish’s mouth makes a puckering gesture. A good-bye kiss, perhaps.
On the second day, the fam and I took a walk down the road to Santarém. Under the impression that our destination was a mantioc field, where we would harvest some roots. Along the way, Sebastão and Maria (both equipped with machetes) cleared any vegetation overhanging the road that would potentially impede the bus. This struck me, quite hard. These people were taking the time to do something completely selfless, for no personal gain. Amazing. Not something you can find easily in America. We stopped at a few of their mantioc fields, along the way Roseita and the others picked me fruit, flowers and showed me various uses of plants. Sebastão stripped the bark of a specific tree, out of which Maria later wove me a section of rope.
Our destination turned out to be Maria’s brothers house. Sebastão had stayed behind to do something, and upon our arrival, there were 8 women of varying ages and sizes at the house. We sat down for coffee. Myself and 10 ladies. I spoke with Maria’s sister-in-law while the other 9 stared at me. After Maria had volunteered the information that I “LOVE tapioca” (tapioca is a product of the farinha making process, so they eat a lot of it), the sister in law went and put some in a tupperware for me to take home. Maria brought the ware to me, and tried to put it in my little plastic bag, where I had been storing pretty flowers. After a minor struggle, I finally found the words to say “Don’t break the flowers!” It turned out that the remaining eight girls were not, indeed, mute, but had been waiting for me to make an ass of myself to prove this fact with their laughter. Roseita giggle at me the whole way home. Ho Hum.
Every meal was fish. Fried fish, boiled fish, smoked fish, and dried fish. Good fish. Plus varying amounts of rice, beans and always tons of farinha. The family exhibited, by Western standards, terrible table manners. But why would they? Here is a perfect example of a Westernized idea of appearing acceptable dominates over the practicality of a situation. A meal of fairly small, bony fish is much more enjoyable, satisfactory and nutritious if one uses their hands to pick bones out of your mouth and food. Sure, the meal would never pass the standards of the Queen of England, but when’s the last time she moseyed through the rainforest, anyway? This theme of practicality and minimal waste production/ intelligent use of waste is a way of life for the people of Piquiatuba. It tends to be so when life is not driven by money.
The fruit. Was. Incredible. Tens of kinds of fruit trees within a 40 second walk of my house. The best mangos I have ever eaten (along with a new method of eating them). Fresh lemonade. Oranges. Tangerines. Acerola. Coconut. Some big thing Sebastão made me a bowl out of. More kinds.
Long entry, long trip, lots of thinking, tune in next time for another stupid conclusion to my entry.
Andrew
-Gustavo, speaking of the probable reaction of a Riberinho to the pet food section of an American grocery store
For the past two weeks I have been traveling around the Amazonian region of Brasil. The trip was long, fairly intense, and eye opening. Not necessarily eye opening in the sense that I witnessed actions, reactions and developments that I had no idea existed, but rather in my first hand experience of these things I was able to contextualize the reality and impact of them in the world. And in myself.
The tale of the Manaus/Santarem trip begins two days prior, in which, considering myself rather clever, I did all of my laundry. Went well. No extreme situations. Hung up clothes and went to school. That afternoon: rain. Damn. Here in Brasil it is so humid that the only way clothes dry is in the direct heat of the sunlight. Figured that one more day to dry would be sufficient in both drying the clothes and keeping them only mildly smelly from the mildew. Next afternoon: rain. Damn. With no other option, I packed up my damp clothes that night and set off for Manaus.
You may recall that my last post was written due to the spider the size of a Buick in my bathroom. Due to this monstrosity of arachnid demon spawn, I was unable to shower for the previous two days (I was reduced to taking a dump with my mosquito net draped over myself and the toilet that morning for fear he would sneak up on me…). So the evening of departure I showed up to the airport with a bag full of smelly clothes, myself exuding an odor equal to that of the gym sock you forgot was stuffed in your underpants for the last three days, and a hunk of wax lodged in my right ear.
However, I made a discovery at the airport that made me forget all of my woes: corn flavored ice cream. I know what you are thinking: ew. But oh, it is delicious. Imagine…well… ice cream that tastes like corn. Its good. So good in fact that the second I got my bags on the return flight to Belém I went straight to Cairu (ice cream shop) and bought myself another cone.
Late night flight, arrived in Manaus, arrived at hotel late. I pulled some of my clothes out of the bag in an attempt to air them out, get rid of the smell. The smell that leapt from my bag upon opening it thought otherwise. The next morning, after a great run and a good breakfast I set out to find a lavenderia. After an hour of searching around the same four block area where people kept telling me there were these proposed lavenderias I finally found one. The clerk took a look at my two stinky sacks and said “20 reais,” 10 per sack. I tried to reason with him by arguing that I could stuff all the clothes in one sack, so it should only be 10R. Didn’t buy it. Walked around the port/market area. Had a delicious fish lunch. Chilled. Sunset. Sleep.
Sunrise. Run. This day, we drove to the LBA field station two hours north of Manaus. I rode with Lancelot…or Fabio (I can seldom remember his name, but he was a ravishing young Ph.D student) with four of my mates. We stopped off at his personal research site, where he is monitoring basically all the functions of a forest in a campina forest (sandy soil). FABRICIO was his name. Fabricio spoke English very well, made for an enjoyable ride. The LBA field station is a huge wooden house/cabin/station that has a big kitchen area and upstairs a large open area with bunk beds and spaces for hammocks. That day we ventured deep into the rain forest to a research tower. A glance upward, and one is blinded by the sun before your gaze can summit the tower. 50 metres. Above the forest canopy. Sweet. Climbing up the tower was quite exhilarating. The layers of tree and fauna pass by like the layers of earth, equally as off limits to your average, two legged, non-flying human being. Atop the tower, atop the canopy: 360º of green carpet stretching to the horizon. Uneven, rolling like an ocean preparing for storm. Fabricio shows us all of the crazy-expensive equipment that adorns the tower like jewelry, all the while shaking the tower and telling us that it has not fallen over in a while. Descent. On the way back, I was walking at the back of the group, taking my time, admiring ants and such. A tree lays suspended across the path, well within jumping range. “Probably shouldn’t do this…” crosses my mind. I leapt and swung. The tree, no more than 10 cm DBH, accepted my weight as an invitation to break it’s previous engagement with the vines and, immediately following the inevitable meeting of my feet to ground, the tree trunk met my back. No serious damage. Didn’t even knock me over. Walked away. Lunch. Afternoon lecture in the forest. Went for a run at dusk with Peter and Becca. Upon return to the field station, Gustavo informed us that perhaps it is OK to run with someone, but alone one should beware of Jaguars.
Next day yielded an exercise of estimation and relativity. Interesting. Had to guess and figure ways to systematically make an educated guess of distances, heights, biomass, etc. Back feels fine. Afternoon, travel by bus two hours to Balbina. A planned town, all of its inhabitants either work at or are family members of workers of the Balbina Hydroelectric Dam. . A bit of a creepy feeling in the city. Everything was clean. That night went for a run. Had jaguars running through my mind, luckily, though, not through the streets. I found the only hill in Brasil.
The next day we visited the dam and learned how a hydroelectric dam operates. Interesting. The Balbina dam is considered an environmental tragedy, because they basically built it in a very shallow floodplain and its total energy output only supplies Manaus with 30% of the energy the city requires. Afternoon went to the animal rescue center that the dam project established to try to compensate for their environmental impact. A common practice among large, resource intensive extractive companies. Bus ride back to Manaus.
Night in Manaus, 4:30 AM flight to Santarém. 3:30 departure from hotel. Again, we fly over the Amazon Rainforest under the cover of darkness. She’ll never know we are coming… or something. Arrive in the Santarém airport, which is literally one small building next to the Amazon River. That’s a big river, let me tell you. Taxi to waterfront. Board boat. Two hours free until a PROMPT DEPARTURE AT 10AM, says Gustavo. 10AM comes and goes. Still chillin on the boat. Two hours later, we start to move, 50 metres to the gas boat to fill up. Back to the shore, where we are informed that the boat is not functioning properly. Switch boats. The second boat is better. Roomier. More colorful. Lunch. More chillin’. Finally we leave. The day was, in any case, devoted to hanging out on the boat and enjoying the ride. The ride was, indeed, wonderful. The air on the river was cool, the banks far apart and the water blue. Not much more one could ask of a river. We slept in hammocks on the boat. Had you asked me before the program what I thought I would return with, a love for sleeping and sitting in hammocks would not have been my first response. In fact, I probably would not have considered hammocks as a benefit of the program. Alas, life throws curveballs, and sometimes you make solid contact. Sailed…can not say sailed because the boat had none…Boated through the night to arrive at Porto Trombetas, situated on the Rio Trombetas, a large river that feeds into the Amazon.
Next morning bright and early we went to Trombetas, which is another planned city and run by Mineração do Rio Norte (MRN). The city is based around a gigantic Bauxite mining operation, the largest in Brasil and third largest in the world. We were driven around the city/mine sites in a nice air conditioned van with two representatives of MRN. Bauxite is strip mined (unfortunately no ventures down into the bowels of earth), which means that the Bauxite is a type of rock that composes a layer of earth about 20 metres below the topsoil. Basically what happens is that they bring in some heavy machinery, dig down to the Bauxite layer, extract that, and replace all the layers on top to yield a nice barren, red field. The Bauxite is cleaned on their site. The majority of it is shipped to China and Japan, where they synthesize it to make aluminum. The majority of the visit was devoted to learning how they restore their land after mining, because their mine is located in a National Forest. This means that the federal government owns the land, and basically leases it to the company, who, in turn must restore the vegetation to a “level equal of the forest before the land was cleared.” This is an extremely elusive idea, and the first plot to be mined (27 years ago) has still not been accepted back by the government.
The mine fields were fairly mind-blowing. We drove through rolling hills of land scraped down to its panties. The blood of an age old cause has spilled over the land, giving it an iron-red color. Everything assumes that hue. Every tree, bush, piece of machinery, tower and car has been painted red by the land. When a car drives along its surface a cloud of dust rises metres above, spreading out in every direction, the earth imitating the most mobile of its three brethren. . Looking for something better. Safer. Cleaner.
That night we went to “the center,” which was a large complex with bar, “club,” soccer fields, basketball courts, pool, and every person that lived in the town. Everyone knows everyone. The MRN dude (who came out with us) told me that the President of MRN, who owned everything (and by the transitive property, everyone) in the town was seldom seen around these parts, but he made occasional visits. He didn’t want to be in compromising situations. I couldn’t help but feel that Big Brother was watching my every move, waiting for me to slip up. Eliminate me. I got away.
Quilombolas are rural communities which were established in the mid-1800s by escaped African slaves. We spent the next afternoon in one of these communities about two hours south of Porto Trombetas. This was a very interesting experience, however I came away feeling very ambivalent, even indifferent. For this, I have no reasons or explanations. They are an extremely persecuted people in the Amazonian region, many quilombolas have been displaced by recently established biological reserves, conservation units, and resource extraction projects (a very common problem around the world with indigineous/rural populations in conservation areas). They live on virtually no income, and survive on subsistence agriculture. I came into, and out of this visit with some idea that I should feel extremely touched, moved, sympathetic, angry… something towards their situation. No luck. No reasons why, either. Just one of those things I suppose.
The community was very happy and eager to show us around. Walked to inland lake. Loaded into canoes (a dog came in mine) and paddled across a large lake to their mantioc fields. Saw women making farinha. This is a staple of the Brasilian diet. A type of flour made from the root of the mantioc plant. Eating farinha is actually very comparable to chewing on small pebbles, and equally as nutritious. Farinha production and selling is the main source of income for most rural communities, because the plant is fairly easy to grow and harvest. The process of making farinha is very labor intensive, consisting of four steps prior to cooking. The final step requires the farinha to be cooked for four hours, with continual motion. This means a woman must stand and continuously move around the farinha in a bigass pan for four hours. We walked around in their mantioc fields. Had a talk with the king and his son, of which I understood little (save for the sparse translations provided by Gustavo). Departing words, about a million pictures of little kids and we were off.
Back to Santarem. A free afternoon, which I spent at the hospital. Finally, I was going to have the candle removed from my ear. Nearly a month had elapsed since the doctor diagnosed my illness. Three weeks of itchiness and muffled sound. Coming to a close. Score.
First hospital visit: they don’t have any doctors at the time. Go to the other hospital in town, the Sagrada Familia. Upon arrival, the front desk lady informs us that the only doctor on the premeses is a general physician who “doesn’t feel comfortable assessing my situation.” Bullshit. So, she gets in touch with another doctor, who was napping at the time and would have to call back once his dreams came to a thrilling conclusion… around 3:30. Check the clock, it is 2:15. Sit. Read. Try not to itch. 3:30 comes and goes. Desklady calls Sleepy back. He’s not home. Great. Get in touch with another doctor, who will meet us at the hospital at 9:30 that night.
After dinner, Gaby and I make our way back to the hospital, and to my relief and astonishment the doctor is already there. The hard part over with, I go into the exam room. She takes a look inside my ear and says (through Gaby, acting as a translator here) that she sees a “yellow secretion,” which indicates there is fungus growing in my ear-hole.
“Yeah, right” thinks my head , contained by walls a bit too thick for its own good.
She then takes a long metal deal and puts it just inside my ear. A 90º turn and she scoops out a fairly giant hunk of gray gooey fungus.
“Shit.”
She used the ear tool a few more times. Family, Friends, and Random People reading this blog: I cannot express enough how good that felt. After having this junk in my ear for three weeks, this felt at least a million times better than the greatest orgasm you can imagine. But, the best was yet to come. Next she took out a big ol’ syringe, accompanied by a sack of liquid. This is what I had been waiting for. A tray was placed under my ear to catch the water, and suspected monster that she was about to blast out. The first wash was a million times better than the million times previously expressed. The doctor was speaking while blasting my ear, Gaby translating, but I didn’t hear a word. My left eyelid slightly more closed than the right (which was about halfmast), eyes rolled back, the ecstasy of those few glorious seconds was my world.
Indeed, monster is quite an understatement. According to my memory, the ear-glob was ten inches long, a mass of ear wax and gray junk. The mind, however, drunken on pleasure generally can not be trusted. Felt like a million bucks.
Rural homestay.
The homestay was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. Piquiatuba, population 700, is situated on the Rio Tapajós (this type of community is generally referred to as a riberinho, or riverside community). I stayed with a family composed of a father, Sebastão (54 years old), mother, Maria Suzenhuda (50 years old), niece, Roseita (9), and son, Jonathas (12). Among myriad other things, Sebastao fishes every day, and tends to their mantioc fields. Maria cleans clothes and cooks. In truth, however, the most accurate description of their daily chores and lives is that they live with the land. Before IBAMA was established and imposed restrictions on their use of the forest, these people lived entirely off of the river and the forest. Now, however, they must comply with a forest use plan that is quite extensive, but basically they can now only use 10 metres of forest on either side of a road that connects their town with Santarém.
The first and third mornings, I went fishing with Sebastáo. Canoe: Jonathas paddling in back, myself sitting middle, and Sebastáo standing in the front, net in hands. Sebass’s fishing technique has been honed over 35 years in the trade. He calculatedly and swiftly gathers and holds the net in a combination of hands and mouth. When the time comes, with one graceful motion, the net is heaved through the air. The moment his hands release, and the net is relieved of the burden of his grasp, his mind takes over. The net immediately rearranges itself into a near perfect circle, crashing to the water and disappearing from view. Aesthetically pleasing. Not for the fish.
The day before I arrived, Sebastão caught 15 fish. My first day: 30 fish. Second: 47 fish. For those of you that have never seen 47 fish, that’s a lot of fish. Among the 47, there were 11 different species. After fishing came cleaning the fish. Another sight I have never seen. Dump the fish on the cleaning table. Squeeze some orange on them. Scale. Gut. Cook. I quite enjoyed the part of the cleaning process in which the knife is used to extract the gills and various surrounding giblets. The knife is inserted under the mouth, and pulls out these aforementioned goodies. As they are pulled, the fish’s mouth makes a puckering gesture. A good-bye kiss, perhaps.
On the second day, the fam and I took a walk down the road to Santarém. Under the impression that our destination was a mantioc field, where we would harvest some roots. Along the way, Sebastão and Maria (both equipped with machetes) cleared any vegetation overhanging the road that would potentially impede the bus. This struck me, quite hard. These people were taking the time to do something completely selfless, for no personal gain. Amazing. Not something you can find easily in America. We stopped at a few of their mantioc fields, along the way Roseita and the others picked me fruit, flowers and showed me various uses of plants. Sebastão stripped the bark of a specific tree, out of which Maria later wove me a section of rope.
Our destination turned out to be Maria’s brothers house. Sebastão had stayed behind to do something, and upon our arrival, there were 8 women of varying ages and sizes at the house. We sat down for coffee. Myself and 10 ladies. I spoke with Maria’s sister-in-law while the other 9 stared at me. After Maria had volunteered the information that I “LOVE tapioca” (tapioca is a product of the farinha making process, so they eat a lot of it), the sister in law went and put some in a tupperware for me to take home. Maria brought the ware to me, and tried to put it in my little plastic bag, where I had been storing pretty flowers. After a minor struggle, I finally found the words to say “Don’t break the flowers!” It turned out that the remaining eight girls were not, indeed, mute, but had been waiting for me to make an ass of myself to prove this fact with their laughter. Roseita giggle at me the whole way home. Ho Hum.
Every meal was fish. Fried fish, boiled fish, smoked fish, and dried fish. Good fish. Plus varying amounts of rice, beans and always tons of farinha. The family exhibited, by Western standards, terrible table manners. But why would they? Here is a perfect example of a Westernized idea of appearing acceptable dominates over the practicality of a situation. A meal of fairly small, bony fish is much more enjoyable, satisfactory and nutritious if one uses their hands to pick bones out of your mouth and food. Sure, the meal would never pass the standards of the Queen of England, but when’s the last time she moseyed through the rainforest, anyway? This theme of practicality and minimal waste production/ intelligent use of waste is a way of life for the people of Piquiatuba. It tends to be so when life is not driven by money.
The fruit. Was. Incredible. Tens of kinds of fruit trees within a 40 second walk of my house. The best mangos I have ever eaten (along with a new method of eating them). Fresh lemonade. Oranges. Tangerines. Acerola. Coconut. Some big thing Sebastão made me a bowl out of. More kinds.
Long entry, long trip, lots of thinking, tune in next time for another stupid conclusion to my entry.
Andrew
Friday, October 5, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Andrew: 1; Brazil: 1
*put up some pictures a few days ago*
There is an extraordinarily large spider in my bathroom right now. What better time to update you all on my life?
This past weekend, we spent northeast of Belém in São Francisco do Para, and Igarape-Açu. Departure: 0700 hours, thursday september 13th. Two loaded VW buses, fourteen students, two drivers, one Gustavo, three hours. Around 10 AM, we turned off the dirt road winding through cattle pasture onto a stretch of land that for lack of a better term I will call a road. On either side, dense tropical vegetation. Barely wide enough for the bus to drive, small streams and slight craters to drive over. Finally, a clearing opened up where the road made a left turn, however the buses did not. First stop.
Had the buses continued straight (rather than following the road to the left), they would have been swallowed whole by a lurking mass of the largest remaining intact tract of dense primary Brasilian rainforest in the state of Pará. Five minutes were allowed to adorn "forest gear" before entering the forest for our first taste of experiential learning. That morning was spent walking through the forest (Gustavo leading our expedition, machete in hand) chatting about the primary functions of a rainforest (biomass, water cycling, nutrient cycling, energy cycling). After class we had a few minutes to romp in the forest. Watched a few bugs, dodged some vines. Then, as if a light switch was flipped, rain. An intense tropical rainstorm.
That afternoon we drove to a nearby farm to learn, experientially, that it is hot in the Amazon. The lecture was on secondary succession on anthropogenically altered land (i.e. cleared for farming), but no one was listening with the midday sun beating down on our faces. Next stop: a mantioc farm. More growth than the last, more shade than the last. Last stop: 20 year old secondary growth forest. Very dense.
Friday the 14th. Earlry rise to drive to Igarape-Açu. There, we met up with a few members of EMBRAPA (a federal agricultural research agency), and continued to a farm on which they are conducting research. Out in the mantioc fields, we received a lecture from Mr. EMBRAPA about alternatives to slash and burn agriculture. He mainly spoke of a method termed "chopping and mulching." Interesting. After the lecture, we were lucky enough to see the CHOPINATOR (I dont think that is the machine's actual name. Could be) in action. Basically, imagine a tractor pushing a giant version of that toy that babies use to learn to walk, the one where the balls pop inside that little bubble of joy, except a million times bigger, and with 75 lengths of chain rotating at 500 rpm. That bad boy can take out any tree up to 20 cm in diameter. Snap. This truly was a sight to behold. Tough to watch, yet massively entertaining. After sweeping away 100 meters of 15 year old successional forest, the CHOPINATOR turned around to chop its way back to the side from which it started. Nearly back to it's starting point, with trees being crushed under its weight, the crushing stopped. Driver hops out, walks around to the "mouth," and reaches in. What he pulls out is none other than a large gray sloth, sporting adorable olive eyes and cotton ears, with a baby clutching desperately to his mother's chest. The driver nonchalantly drops the stuffed animals off in a neighboring section of the forest, climbs back in the machine, and finishes the job.
The afternoon was spent at two farms, which practice different alternatives to slash and burn. Basically, polyculture with various plants and no animals. Fairly interesting, extremely hot.
That night was spent playing soccer in São Francisco with a slew of 8-12 year old Brasilian boys. The perfect skill level for me.
Saturday: Mini ISP day. Split into groups, provided with vague topics, and set free into the forest, the day was ours. A great day it was. My group and I were to investigate forest gaps in the context of biodiversity. Piece of cake. The morning was spent tromping through the forest. Straight-up bushwacking. Nothing resembling a trail could be found... only the path sought out by some subconscious energy that tells you where to put your feet next, which is the best tree to duck. Walking in the forest is a truly incredible feeling, state of being. It is invigorating to be in the presence of such abundant life. Striding on the decomposing leaves, I might well have been shuffling through shallow puddles, with every step came a flurry of movement. Insects fleeing the destructive intent of my boot, settling back into the puddle of the forest floor too quickly for my eye to catch any singluar camouflaged figure.
Lunch. Afternoon spent carrying out the experiment that was designed in the morning. Nothing very exciting - testing if there is a correlation between leaf size and gap areas. There is. Leaves are bigger in gaps. Hooray.
Back in Belém on Saturday night. Uneventful weekend. Monday was a hell of a day. One of the worst in a while. Started out with a building pain in my ear. I had felt the presence of something for a few days...probably wax, maybe bugs. The pain led me to believe bugs. After lunch, I rode with Cleo (driver) to drop all of my peers at the site of our afternoon lecture. Drove back into the city. Passed school. Turned around. Back to school to pick up two stragglers that missed the bus. Back to lecture site. Back in to city. Finally met Gaby (the office manager/program assistant) at the ear doctor's office. 2:30 PM. Gaby tells me the doctor doesn't get back from lunch until 3:30, but its good to get there early to be the first patient. We are fifth. Good thing I have my book.
Half an hour, hour, hour and a half pass. Doctor hasn't shown yet. Four thirty, doctor shows. Slowly, the five patients preceeding myself are called in. Finally. In the office, the doctor has to enter all of my information into the computer. No office assistants here. Turns out it's just wax in there. Good news. Bad news: it is dry, he can't extract it. Good news: i can just buy one of those blue turkey baster-deals and blast that devil spawn out my ear in no time. False. Not available to civilians in Brazil. One stupid piece of plastic and some warm water that will cause me a world of trouble. All it takes is one week of drops to soften the hunk-o-wax, then I will return to the doctor. BUT, we will be in Manaus (a two hour plane ride away) for the next two weeks.
"Shit."
All that trouble for a damn candle. Don't know yet what will happen, if SIT will pay for my plane tickets, might go ahead and do it. If not...probably won't spend the money. Finally get out of the doctors office at 6:30. Bus home, make myself some dinner. Potatos and lentils are boiling away on the stove. A quick search around the kitchen reveals some savagely tasty-looking canned corn in the cupboard. I find what I'm nearly positive is a can opener, yet looks more like a quarter squished by a passing train with a triangle-shaped piece jutting out perpendicular to the rest. It was not easy going, but the top was almost free of the can's grasp. Then it happened. One momentary lapse of friction, my left hand (holding the opener) raced past the can held firm in my other. However, my wrist was not so lucky as to escape the wrath of the jagged can top. A knife slicing through frosting. In that split second of disbelief, a long, thin window opened into the mystery of the human wrist. From a half inch above the wrist on the distal side of the palm, two and a half inches diagonally down to the proximal side below the wrist, that lovely elixir of life began to flow. Heed my words: the blood did not spurt, spray, or explode out, which is a good sign. This, however is not what I was thinking at the moment. After a few moments of panicked thinking of getting it clean, severing something important...even vital, going back to the doctor's office, I ran the wound under water, cleaned it well, and applied plenty of pressure. A whole lot of pacing, and more paper towels calmed me down a bit. The blood slowed. I got out my first aid kit. Sufficiently clean, antibacterialized, gauze and tape application complete. Still shaken, but proud of my doctor skills, I sat down and scooped out some dinner made with my own blood, sweat and metaphorical tears.
For those of you who will (most likely) worry your pants off about my latest endeavour into the world of accidents (where I am a fairly established member...), my cut is fine. I took very good care, and it is now healing very nicely without a sign of an infection.
Peace.
There is an extraordinarily large spider in my bathroom right now. What better time to update you all on my life?
This past weekend, we spent northeast of Belém in São Francisco do Para, and Igarape-Açu. Departure: 0700 hours, thursday september 13th. Two loaded VW buses, fourteen students, two drivers, one Gustavo, three hours. Around 10 AM, we turned off the dirt road winding through cattle pasture onto a stretch of land that for lack of a better term I will call a road. On either side, dense tropical vegetation. Barely wide enough for the bus to drive, small streams and slight craters to drive over. Finally, a clearing opened up where the road made a left turn, however the buses did not. First stop.
Had the buses continued straight (rather than following the road to the left), they would have been swallowed whole by a lurking mass of the largest remaining intact tract of dense primary Brasilian rainforest in the state of Pará. Five minutes were allowed to adorn "forest gear" before entering the forest for our first taste of experiential learning. That morning was spent walking through the forest (Gustavo leading our expedition, machete in hand) chatting about the primary functions of a rainforest (biomass, water cycling, nutrient cycling, energy cycling). After class we had a few minutes to romp in the forest. Watched a few bugs, dodged some vines. Then, as if a light switch was flipped, rain. An intense tropical rainstorm.
That afternoon we drove to a nearby farm to learn, experientially, that it is hot in the Amazon. The lecture was on secondary succession on anthropogenically altered land (i.e. cleared for farming), but no one was listening with the midday sun beating down on our faces. Next stop: a mantioc farm. More growth than the last, more shade than the last. Last stop: 20 year old secondary growth forest. Very dense.
Friday the 14th. Earlry rise to drive to Igarape-Açu. There, we met up with a few members of EMBRAPA (a federal agricultural research agency), and continued to a farm on which they are conducting research. Out in the mantioc fields, we received a lecture from Mr. EMBRAPA about alternatives to slash and burn agriculture. He mainly spoke of a method termed "chopping and mulching." Interesting. After the lecture, we were lucky enough to see the CHOPINATOR (I dont think that is the machine's actual name. Could be) in action. Basically, imagine a tractor pushing a giant version of that toy that babies use to learn to walk, the one where the balls pop inside that little bubble of joy, except a million times bigger, and with 75 lengths of chain rotating at 500 rpm. That bad boy can take out any tree up to 20 cm in diameter. Snap. This truly was a sight to behold. Tough to watch, yet massively entertaining. After sweeping away 100 meters of 15 year old successional forest, the CHOPINATOR turned around to chop its way back to the side from which it started. Nearly back to it's starting point, with trees being crushed under its weight, the crushing stopped. Driver hops out, walks around to the "mouth," and reaches in. What he pulls out is none other than a large gray sloth, sporting adorable olive eyes and cotton ears, with a baby clutching desperately to his mother's chest. The driver nonchalantly drops the stuffed animals off in a neighboring section of the forest, climbs back in the machine, and finishes the job.
The afternoon was spent at two farms, which practice different alternatives to slash and burn. Basically, polyculture with various plants and no animals. Fairly interesting, extremely hot.
That night was spent playing soccer in São Francisco with a slew of 8-12 year old Brasilian boys. The perfect skill level for me.
Saturday: Mini ISP day. Split into groups, provided with vague topics, and set free into the forest, the day was ours. A great day it was. My group and I were to investigate forest gaps in the context of biodiversity. Piece of cake. The morning was spent tromping through the forest. Straight-up bushwacking. Nothing resembling a trail could be found... only the path sought out by some subconscious energy that tells you where to put your feet next, which is the best tree to duck. Walking in the forest is a truly incredible feeling, state of being. It is invigorating to be in the presence of such abundant life. Striding on the decomposing leaves, I might well have been shuffling through shallow puddles, with every step came a flurry of movement. Insects fleeing the destructive intent of my boot, settling back into the puddle of the forest floor too quickly for my eye to catch any singluar camouflaged figure.
Lunch. Afternoon spent carrying out the experiment that was designed in the morning. Nothing very exciting - testing if there is a correlation between leaf size and gap areas. There is. Leaves are bigger in gaps. Hooray.
Back in Belém on Saturday night. Uneventful weekend. Monday was a hell of a day. One of the worst in a while. Started out with a building pain in my ear. I had felt the presence of something for a few days...probably wax, maybe bugs. The pain led me to believe bugs. After lunch, I rode with Cleo (driver) to drop all of my peers at the site of our afternoon lecture. Drove back into the city. Passed school. Turned around. Back to school to pick up two stragglers that missed the bus. Back to lecture site. Back in to city. Finally met Gaby (the office manager/program assistant) at the ear doctor's office. 2:30 PM. Gaby tells me the doctor doesn't get back from lunch until 3:30, but its good to get there early to be the first patient. We are fifth. Good thing I have my book.
Half an hour, hour, hour and a half pass. Doctor hasn't shown yet. Four thirty, doctor shows. Slowly, the five patients preceeding myself are called in. Finally. In the office, the doctor has to enter all of my information into the computer. No office assistants here. Turns out it's just wax in there. Good news. Bad news: it is dry, he can't extract it. Good news: i can just buy one of those blue turkey baster-deals and blast that devil spawn out my ear in no time. False. Not available to civilians in Brazil. One stupid piece of plastic and some warm water that will cause me a world of trouble. All it takes is one week of drops to soften the hunk-o-wax, then I will return to the doctor. BUT, we will be in Manaus (a two hour plane ride away) for the next two weeks.
"Shit."
All that trouble for a damn candle. Don't know yet what will happen, if SIT will pay for my plane tickets, might go ahead and do it. If not...probably won't spend the money. Finally get out of the doctors office at 6:30. Bus home, make myself some dinner. Potatos and lentils are boiling away on the stove. A quick search around the kitchen reveals some savagely tasty-looking canned corn in the cupboard. I find what I'm nearly positive is a can opener, yet looks more like a quarter squished by a passing train with a triangle-shaped piece jutting out perpendicular to the rest. It was not easy going, but the top was almost free of the can's grasp. Then it happened. One momentary lapse of friction, my left hand (holding the opener) raced past the can held firm in my other. However, my wrist was not so lucky as to escape the wrath of the jagged can top. A knife slicing through frosting. In that split second of disbelief, a long, thin window opened into the mystery of the human wrist. From a half inch above the wrist on the distal side of the palm, two and a half inches diagonally down to the proximal side below the wrist, that lovely elixir of life began to flow. Heed my words: the blood did not spurt, spray, or explode out, which is a good sign. This, however is not what I was thinking at the moment. After a few moments of panicked thinking of getting it clean, severing something important...even vital, going back to the doctor's office, I ran the wound under water, cleaned it well, and applied plenty of pressure. A whole lot of pacing, and more paper towels calmed me down a bit. The blood slowed. I got out my first aid kit. Sufficiently clean, antibacterialized, gauze and tape application complete. Still shaken, but proud of my doctor skills, I sat down and scooped out some dinner made with my own blood, sweat and metaphorical tears.
For those of you who will (most likely) worry your pants off about my latest endeavour into the world of accidents (where I am a fairly established member...), my cut is fine. I took very good care, and it is now healing very nicely without a sign of an infection.
Peace.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Andrew:1 ; Brazil: 0
It is very tough to put into a few words what my life has been like these past few days.
Portuguese, while structurally is similar to Spanish...is nothing like Spanish. It is pretty hot here, although not too humid. Currently it is the "less humid" of the two seasons (the other, of course is the "more humid" season). There are 13 other students on the trip, and they are all interesting people and fun to hang out with. I know it has only been a bit more than a week, but I think it says something that I do not want to kill any of them yet. We spent 6 days on Gustavo's sitio (little farm). We slept in hammocks, had cooks prepare our meals, and went through all the boring and important orientation material and lectures. The sitio was about an hours drive from the airport, and only 45 minutes from the place where we hold classes in Belém.
The trip down to Brazil and the following day was one of the more confusing and interesting of my life. There were several stages to it, each a little more unknown and unfamiliar. The lone flight to Miami, the 5 hour layover there with 13 strangers that I would be spending the next 3 and a half months with, the 6 hour flight to Manaus, the 3 hour flight to Belém (which arrived at 4:30 am local time). We then piled into the two large white VW Buses (which served as our transportation throughout the orientation period). and drove to the sitio. The day (or several days) seemed to flow without any sense of time or space. It was quite odd.
Two days (and one Portugues class) later, we had what they called "Drop Off Day." This involved driving two hours northeast to a peninsula that faces the Atlantic Ocean and dropping each student off on his or her own in an unfamiliar town/place with a specific task. I was dropped on a riverbank and told to take a ferry across the river, and talk to people to find out about the fishing scene in town.
"Shit."
Armed with 5 Real (the currency, translates to about $2 and some change) and my phrasebook, I found my way across the river. Walking down the long dock towards town, I repeated the phrases I remembered from our worksheet of initial interactions
"Oi! licença" (excuse me), and "Vocé pode me ajudar" (can you help me?). Too nervous to initiate conversation with anyone, I took a stroll down the street as nonchalantly as possible, surveying the town. One dirt road, a few people walking, and a few hanging out in front of their houses.
I sat on the steps of a deserted house and gathered the courage to ask a man my questions. When I opened my mouth, something resembling POrtuguese came out. Words slightly shaking, and my toungue and lips fumbling over each other, I talked to a stone faced Brasilian. Sensing his desire to help me as nonexistent, I asked if he had time to help me. Promptly, he answered "Não" and walked away.
Crushed, I sat on the steps once again. Precisely 22 of my allotted 150 minutes had elapsed.
"Shit."
Ready to try again, I seeked outa man and two women carving spoons on their front steps. I gave them my shpiel, and one of the women smiled. To follow the smile, she retreated into the house, at which time the other woman smiled and said something to me in a patronizing tone. She left too. Mr. Spooncarver and I stood in silence. After a nice, long period of no words I slowly and quietly walked away.
After a few more failed interactions, I struck up a conversation (if it can be called that) with a resting fisherman on the dock. When all was said and done, it helped me out.
The next day we went on an excursion to a section of the largest mangrove area in the world. Here Gustavo gave us a short lecture while standing in knee deep mud, which smells of delicious sulfur. The boat guide taught me how to catch crabs, as well. Basically, you locate a hole the size of a baseball, jam your hand into it (usually your arm will go in all the way to the shoulder) and grab the crab before it has time to burrow deeper once it senses your presence. It took many tries (one in which I finally got my fingers on the crab, but in my excitement I pulled to soon and came up with a handful of legs. Dont tell Gustavo.
There are so many other exciting and interesting things that have been going on here... unfortunately it is impossible to both type and convey them all. However, there is one more...ocurrence which was quite interesting indeed I feel fit to share.
Yesterday 6 of my friends and I went to exchange our travelers checks and cash for Real. I brought 200 USD, figuring the exchange rate to be about 3:1. Having to register with the police is going to set me back R190, I figured this would leave me sufficient funds for whatever I needed them for. It turned out that the rate they were going to give us was 1.6:1 for travelers checks, and 1.8:1 for cash. I was going to get much less spending money than I thought. In addition to my checks, I had some cash to exchange for a friend. I went to the window, went through the motions (twice, once for the checks, once for the cash)got my two receipts and sat down to wait for my money to arrive. Investigating the receipts I got, Becca gave me $169 cash and would get R345, whereas I had 200 in checks and would get R320.
Finally, a dumpy Brasilian man waddled out of the door leading to the money pile and headed my way. He plopped the two wads in front of my.
"Obrigado" I said, yet he remained hovering over my shoulder. I chanced another glance at his eyes, hoping an unspoken agreement would be confirmed that he could now leave me alone. He did not.
"Obrigado," I mumbled again. No response. Realizing that he was waiting for me to count my money, I cursed him. How did he know I was too lazy to count, and would just trust them to give me the right amount. So I counted.
My wad first: 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300........320....340...400....500....600! My heart and mind raced. Perhaps he had put both mine and Beccas wads together. Then what was the second delicious heap of Real next to my other hand?
Another glance at dumpy McGee to see whether this was some kind of moral or ethical test, and he was staring blankly at the wall, arms folded gently atop his belly. What if the Brasilian government set this up? What if they need to meet a quota of gringo arrests and organized this simple, yet diabolical scheme to nail me and throw me in the slammer with the other "innocent" tourists?
"Calm down, Andrew," my generally nonexistentvoice of reason said. "Count the other wad." And I did.
My careful and hurried addition yielded exactly R345.80, the very same numbers printed on the receipt.
"Yes."
I tidied the two piles of Real that had been mildly scattered by my hands, quivering with suppressed excitement.
"Tudo bem," I acknowledged to my portly watchman. He gave me a slight nod, yet remained standing in his position. His gaze returned to the wall.
"Shit."
After a very momentary silent and internal spaz attack in which I offered the watchman the rubber band that came wrapped around the bills to see if he would go away. I realized he was just chillin'. Havent we all enjoyed that moment in our lives, when we enjoy a moment to ourselves beyond the sight of our bosses.
Big Boy was merely enjoying this moment, and as I realized, I relaxed. Now to play it cool.
We had to wait for the rest of the people to exchange money, which took a while. Finally, after years of small talk and table football we got up to leave. A glance towards the door yielded my final obstacle: a guard at the door letting people out through the anti-theft chamber. I know, it sounds intense...and it is. One quarter of a revolving door, in which the door only opens in one direction ensures that only one person can pass at a time. Waiting for the guard's eyes to light up upon smelling my extra cash, I passed through the door.
Finally, in the safety of the Volkswagen did I: 1. tell my friends what happened, and 2. carefully and with the help of the seven others recount my money and make sure that I had, indeed successfully allowed Brasil to give me a gift of R300.
Andrew
Portuguese, while structurally is similar to Spanish...is nothing like Spanish. It is pretty hot here, although not too humid. Currently it is the "less humid" of the two seasons (the other, of course is the "more humid" season). There are 13 other students on the trip, and they are all interesting people and fun to hang out with. I know it has only been a bit more than a week, but I think it says something that I do not want to kill any of them yet. We spent 6 days on Gustavo's sitio (little farm). We slept in hammocks, had cooks prepare our meals, and went through all the boring and important orientation material and lectures. The sitio was about an hours drive from the airport, and only 45 minutes from the place where we hold classes in Belém.
The trip down to Brazil and the following day was one of the more confusing and interesting of my life. There were several stages to it, each a little more unknown and unfamiliar. The lone flight to Miami, the 5 hour layover there with 13 strangers that I would be spending the next 3 and a half months with, the 6 hour flight to Manaus, the 3 hour flight to Belém (which arrived at 4:30 am local time). We then piled into the two large white VW Buses (which served as our transportation throughout the orientation period). and drove to the sitio. The day (or several days) seemed to flow without any sense of time or space. It was quite odd.
Two days (and one Portugues class) later, we had what they called "Drop Off Day." This involved driving two hours northeast to a peninsula that faces the Atlantic Ocean and dropping each student off on his or her own in an unfamiliar town/place with a specific task. I was dropped on a riverbank and told to take a ferry across the river, and talk to people to find out about the fishing scene in town.
"Shit."
Armed with 5 Real (the currency, translates to about $2 and some change) and my phrasebook, I found my way across the river. Walking down the long dock towards town, I repeated the phrases I remembered from our worksheet of initial interactions
"Oi! licença" (excuse me), and "Vocé pode me ajudar" (can you help me?). Too nervous to initiate conversation with anyone, I took a stroll down the street as nonchalantly as possible, surveying the town. One dirt road, a few people walking, and a few hanging out in front of their houses.
I sat on the steps of a deserted house and gathered the courage to ask a man my questions. When I opened my mouth, something resembling POrtuguese came out. Words slightly shaking, and my toungue and lips fumbling over each other, I talked to a stone faced Brasilian. Sensing his desire to help me as nonexistent, I asked if he had time to help me. Promptly, he answered "Não" and walked away.
Crushed, I sat on the steps once again. Precisely 22 of my allotted 150 minutes had elapsed.
"Shit."
Ready to try again, I seeked outa man and two women carving spoons on their front steps. I gave them my shpiel, and one of the women smiled. To follow the smile, she retreated into the house, at which time the other woman smiled and said something to me in a patronizing tone. She left too. Mr. Spooncarver and I stood in silence. After a nice, long period of no words I slowly and quietly walked away.
After a few more failed interactions, I struck up a conversation (if it can be called that) with a resting fisherman on the dock. When all was said and done, it helped me out.
The next day we went on an excursion to a section of the largest mangrove area in the world. Here Gustavo gave us a short lecture while standing in knee deep mud, which smells of delicious sulfur. The boat guide taught me how to catch crabs, as well. Basically, you locate a hole the size of a baseball, jam your hand into it (usually your arm will go in all the way to the shoulder) and grab the crab before it has time to burrow deeper once it senses your presence. It took many tries (one in which I finally got my fingers on the crab, but in my excitement I pulled to soon and came up with a handful of legs. Dont tell Gustavo.
There are so many other exciting and interesting things that have been going on here... unfortunately it is impossible to both type and convey them all. However, there is one more...ocurrence which was quite interesting indeed I feel fit to share.
Yesterday 6 of my friends and I went to exchange our travelers checks and cash for Real. I brought 200 USD, figuring the exchange rate to be about 3:1. Having to register with the police is going to set me back R190, I figured this would leave me sufficient funds for whatever I needed them for. It turned out that the rate they were going to give us was 1.6:1 for travelers checks, and 1.8:1 for cash. I was going to get much less spending money than I thought. In addition to my checks, I had some cash to exchange for a friend. I went to the window, went through the motions (twice, once for the checks, once for the cash)got my two receipts and sat down to wait for my money to arrive. Investigating the receipts I got, Becca gave me $169 cash and would get R345, whereas I had 200 in checks and would get R320.
Finally, a dumpy Brasilian man waddled out of the door leading to the money pile and headed my way. He plopped the two wads in front of my.
"Obrigado" I said, yet he remained hovering over my shoulder. I chanced another glance at his eyes, hoping an unspoken agreement would be confirmed that he could now leave me alone. He did not.
"Obrigado," I mumbled again. No response. Realizing that he was waiting for me to count my money, I cursed him. How did he know I was too lazy to count, and would just trust them to give me the right amount. So I counted.
My wad first: 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300........320....340...400....500....600! My heart and mind raced. Perhaps he had put both mine and Beccas wads together. Then what was the second delicious heap of Real next to my other hand?
Another glance at dumpy McGee to see whether this was some kind of moral or ethical test, and he was staring blankly at the wall, arms folded gently atop his belly. What if the Brasilian government set this up? What if they need to meet a quota of gringo arrests and organized this simple, yet diabolical scheme to nail me and throw me in the slammer with the other "innocent" tourists?
"Calm down, Andrew," my generally nonexistentvoice of reason said. "Count the other wad." And I did.
My careful and hurried addition yielded exactly R345.80, the very same numbers printed on the receipt.
"Yes."
I tidied the two piles of Real that had been mildly scattered by my hands, quivering with suppressed excitement.
"Tudo bem," I acknowledged to my portly watchman. He gave me a slight nod, yet remained standing in his position. His gaze returned to the wall.
"Shit."
After a very momentary silent and internal spaz attack in which I offered the watchman the rubber band that came wrapped around the bills to see if he would go away. I realized he was just chillin'. Havent we all enjoyed that moment in our lives, when we enjoy a moment to ourselves beyond the sight of our bosses.
Big Boy was merely enjoying this moment, and as I realized, I relaxed. Now to play it cool.
We had to wait for the rest of the people to exchange money, which took a while. Finally, after years of small talk and table football we got up to leave. A glance towards the door yielded my final obstacle: a guard at the door letting people out through the anti-theft chamber. I know, it sounds intense...and it is. One quarter of a revolving door, in which the door only opens in one direction ensures that only one person can pass at a time. Waiting for the guard's eyes to light up upon smelling my extra cash, I passed through the door.
Finally, in the safety of the Volkswagen did I: 1. tell my friends what happened, and 2. carefully and with the help of the seven others recount my money and make sure that I had, indeed successfully allowed Brasil to give me a gift of R300.
Andrew
Friday, August 24, 2007
Photos
I now have a web page to put up some of the photos I have been taking.
Check it out at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewplotsky
Check it out at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewplotsky
Monday, August 13, 2007
Stuck In America
"The entire Amazon basin spreads for 2.5 million square miles - larger than the size of the continental United States west of the Mississippi. No one could reasonably claim to know the French Quarter in New Orleans after spending a week in Boise, or San Diego after skiing in Aspen; the wildlife in Yosemite Park differs remarkably from that in downtown Minneapolis. That's the breadth of the Amazon."
- Mark London and Brian Kelly
Hello to anyone who cares enough about my life to view this blog. I will be keeping an account of my travels through Brazil for my semester abroad (woo).
I am participating in a Resource Management program run by the School for International Training (SIT). The program is approved by the Skidmore College Office of International Programs, and as such I will receive credits toward graduation, but my grades will not transfer to my transcript.
I will be staying in a homestay for the first 5-6 weeks of the program in Belém, the capital of the northern state of Pará (population 1.5 - 2 million). In Belém, and for the first two months of the program I will take three classes: an intensive language study of Portuguese, a Resource Management Seminar, and a Fieldwork seminar. Both seminars are based upon guest lecturers ranging from government officials to college professors. The fieldwork seminar mainly deals with culturally appropriate means of conducting research (i.e. how to interview a citizen without ending up with a black eye). During the final month of the program I will carry out an independent research project which I will have designed. Currently, I have very little idea what I will research, but I would like it to involve the economics of agriculture and various pressures on farms of varying size... Although I am sure that my ideas will slammed to the ground and reshapen in a manner completely foreign (zing!) to me throughout the next two months.
This is the nature of my trip, and I am indescribably excited, yet nervous seeing as I do not speak the native language. Such is life, taking on greater challenges than one is accustomed to are generally good for the soul. Bring it on
Andrew
p.s. if you caught the post-title reference, you win.
- Mark London and Brian Kelly
Hello to anyone who cares enough about my life to view this blog. I will be keeping an account of my travels through Brazil for my semester abroad (woo).
I am participating in a Resource Management program run by the School for International Training (SIT). The program is approved by the Skidmore College Office of International Programs, and as such I will receive credits toward graduation, but my grades will not transfer to my transcript.
I will be staying in a homestay for the first 5-6 weeks of the program in Belém, the capital of the northern state of Pará (population 1.5 - 2 million). In Belém, and for the first two months of the program I will take three classes: an intensive language study of Portuguese, a Resource Management Seminar, and a Fieldwork seminar. Both seminars are based upon guest lecturers ranging from government officials to college professors. The fieldwork seminar mainly deals with culturally appropriate means of conducting research (i.e. how to interview a citizen without ending up with a black eye). During the final month of the program I will carry out an independent research project which I will have designed. Currently, I have very little idea what I will research, but I would like it to involve the economics of agriculture and various pressures on farms of varying size... Although I am sure that my ideas will slammed to the ground and reshapen in a manner completely foreign (zing!) to me throughout the next two months.
This is the nature of my trip, and I am indescribably excited, yet nervous seeing as I do not speak the native language. Such is life, taking on greater challenges than one is accustomed to are generally good for the soul. Bring it on
Andrew
p.s. if you caught the post-title reference, you win.
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