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
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