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