River Wild - From Rio Negro to Rio Unini

June 24
Life on a river boat is paradise. Surrounded by water and lush forest, our ferry chugged its way up Rio Negro to Rio Unini. I sat on the roof and soaked in my surroundings, feeling surprisingly at home in such a place. There are 6 of us on this boat, the cook (Joao, a happy dude with a huge belly), captain (Celio, seems like he woulda made a good linebacker), an electrician from Manaus, Dani (Celio’s nephew and 1st mate), Ignacio and myself. We are taking 7 tons worth of supplies to the Brasil Nut Factory in Patauá, a new community along Rio Unini. Originally settled on the other side of the river (now Reserva Natural Jaú and off limits for residents) they have resettled to the RESEX side of the rive (Reserva Extrativista) and FVA is helping them do so as a planned community. The Brasil Nut factory is just one of the many projects FVA has here. FAV has set up a community council to vote on decisions and has strategically mapped out the frame work for a new, eco-sustainable community. We chug upriver all night, I have no idea how the captain can see our path, with the full moon gone the river is as dark as the sky. Our poor ferry´s motor churns and churns, bogged down by tons of cement sacks, floor tiles, bricks, etc. These trips upriver can only be made when the river is high, during dry season most parts are too shallow to pass and moving supplies becomes all the more difficult. Dry season, which I will miss, is when all the beaches and swimming holes are formed. Now the river creates huge ‘igapós’ which means flooded forests what would otherwise be firm land. The river water is black as night, which makes swimming pretty scary. During dry season natural swimming holes form and everyone knows where to swim safely. When the river is flooded it becomes one huge mass of water making one always unsure of what may lie below the surface. Fishing is easier in dry season because the fish have less water to hide in, however I learned that the high PH levels of this river are not all that conducive to sustaining much wildlife, including mosquitoes. Critters have thus settled along more fertile waters, primarily further South along Rio Salimões.
On the river your mind plays tricks on you, every log looks like a ‘jacare’ (crocodile) or ‘boto (dolphin) and every snaky branch looks like a cobra. Locals can tell what kind of fish lie below merely from the bubbles they make. I wake before dawn to see the sunrise, the river is as calm and steady as a frozen winter lake. The world looks as if it sits on a mirror, the still waters reflecting every vein on every leaf, just like it always has. If you stare along the river banks long enough you lose sight of where the tree stops and the river starts. It all blends together in a perfect symphony of reflected foliage. Early morning is my favorite, the sun is docile and the breeze gives me goosebumps. The constant reassuring chug of the motor is soothing and, laying in my hammock, can rock me to sleep in an instant. We spent 2 days at Patauá, myself and 5 other strapping young men work to unload the supplies. In under five hours we unload over 7 tons of supplies, that’s over a ton each. Walking precariously along a plank from the boat to the shore, we scramble barefoot up the dirt slope with 30kg sacks of cement on our shoulders, 35kg boxes of ceramics and tiles for the factory floor. We joke that we could sure use a forklift, but someone would probably mess up and it would end up in the river…better to do it by hand. It is difficult to describe the feet of someone who has spent their life barefoot, sprinting across rocks and through jungle. They are like another set of hands, square and boxed, their toes grip the wooden plank as we file one by one from the boat to the factory for storage. My feet are.. how shall I put it…a little more delicate. Thankfully, my knee felt great and didn’t bother me at all. It felt strong and reliable. I have been doing physical therapy as often as I can for the dislocated patella and torn ligaments I sustained playing soccer. Every meal is a feast of rice, spaghetti, fried fish and farofa, which is very filling. I eat every meal as if it were my last, always sure to give the hefty chef a thumbs up between bites.
It is amazing to see the influences of the age of the internet. From Manaus to the far reaches of the jungle, from young to adult everyone has asked, Justin? As in Justin Beiber? How the heck do they even know who that is! The far reaches of the internet are impressive. 5 years ago in El Progreso it was Justin Timberlake, now its Beiber. I joke that I wish Justin were the name of some amazing football player, and not some dancing teenybopper. Most agree that the youth here are at a crossroads between overexposure to the commercial world and maintaining traditional ways of life. In the thick of the amazon I saw bellybutton rings, chin studs, tall Mohawks bleached blond (imitating the most recent Santos futebol phenomenon Neymar) and cameraphones with radio speakers. Im told that in Barcelos, further up the river, there have been a string of suicides (hangings) among teenagers. No one knows why but convos I´ve had have led me to believe that it is due to their insecurity, being exposed to the grips of the glamour and glitz of the commercial world yet finding themselves feeling trapped and very far removed from a world they know very little about.
One thing remains a constant, no matter where I travel in Brasil, futebol dominates. Flamengo and Vasco (rio de janeiro) and Santos and Corinthians (sao Paulo) flags and attire abound. I myself am a Corinthiano and engage in lively debates about why Corinthians has never fared well in the Copa Libertadores or why scandal always seems to follow Flamengo´s club. If you can talk Brasilian futebol, you can manage anywhere.
We accompanied a documentary crew from Rio de Janeiro all the way to Lago das Pedras, a 10 family community about 2 hours from Pataua. We left at 5am and I woke to fetch some coffee and sat on the roof to catch the sunrise.
Nothing clears your head like a sunrise.
Im off to take a dive into the river off the rooftop. Until next time.

Novo Airão - Small city with big dreams

June 18th
Safety used to be a problem in Novo Airão. Some of the neighborhoods were considered dangerous and hard to get to. My buddy Chacrinha told me that once the moto-taxis came to town, all that changed. If a mototaxi was anywhere near an ‘asalto’ or theft he would radio his buddies and within minutes a brigade of confrontational and pissed mototaxi riders would arrive. Chacrinha, a short solid guy with fists the size of bearclaws, told me that at first ‘os bandidos’ resisted and there would be epic fights resulting in broken bones, split foreheads…legend has it that one guy is still in a coma as a result of one of these ‘brigas.’ Today, Novo Airão is safe. People can go where they please, you can leave your bike laying around and no one touches it, people rarely lock their doors (a habit that is always hard for me to break).
Novo Airão is living a transcendental moment right now. Globalization has hit with an unexpected force. As I sit at a bar with my new friends, smartphones litter the table while vibrations and beeps momentarily distract as owners check their buzzing little gadgets, ‘aparelhos.’ Funny because no matter where we may be, when they respond the answer is always, ´i´m down the street!´
A new bridge has been built in the capital city of Manaus crossing the mighty river and finally gives the bustling metropolitan city access to the only road to Novo Airão. The fear among old timers and purists alike is that expansion is inevitable and Novo Airão will eventually become a suburb of Manaus. By road it is only a 2hr ride, along the winding river it takes 10 hrs! Within a decade, or is it already too late!, Novo Airão will lose its fading culture as a new generation aspires for mega-consumption and WI-FI. The only sign of branding here is the VIVO cell phone store about the size of a shoebox and a small bank. All that will inevitably change over the next few years. As I discussed my concerns and condemnation of the new bridge and its inevitable effects on this community, a local raised a valid point. Why should THEY have development and growth and not us? Why should we not have internet? We all want those things, are we doomed to live in a leafy stone age while the world around us passes us by? The world is changing, we must as well. The other side of the argument views this growth and expansion as opportunity, jobs, and new services. I talk with Erivaldo, my best friend here and caretakers of the indigenous artisan AANA offices, about maintaining balance. Finding a way to merge development with environmental protection, the difficulties in creating an eco-development synergy which preserve the very culture he represents. Erivaldo has traveled to Rio, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais as an ambassador representing the artists, craftwork and culture of his region. At dinner last night he told me, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would visit Rio. It was beautiful, just like in the telenovelas. A sly smile across his face, his eyes squint, ´but I prefer here´. I think we both know that once the flood gates of expansion get a strangle hold on Novo Airão there won´t be much anyone can do. Shopping centers and air-conditioned grocery stores are inevitable. And why shouldn’t they be? You think only people in the city like walking around in air-conditioned comfort?
The soles of my feet are perpetually blackened by dirt. No matter how hard I scrub, dirt is already embedded into the fabric of my skin. Back when I was applying to grad schools, and finally chose the only Ivy League that accepted me, I never fathomed my summer internship would allow me the luxury of walking around the office barefoot. I love it. The roads here were made to be very wide, thankfully because traffic here is at an all time high. Like Utila island in Honduras, the main drag has become stomping grounds for any and all wanting to feel the roar of their motor… and force its blaring screeches on the rest of us and our ears. It´s funny how similar some things here are to Progreso…or simply put, any small developing city. Walking home past midnight, dogs guarding their yards egg one another on and seem to compete over which one can bark at you most. Since there is only one channel available, GLOBO, you can hear the blare of the TV in every house clearly all watching the same show. When you walk into a room at night, don’t turn on the light, it wakes and attracts mosquitoes and they’ll probably follow you to bed. Why do mosquitoes buzz in people´s ears? Electricity goes in and out, and the appliance always missed the most is the fan. A swaying hammock always serves as an efficient substitute for cooling off.
Last week I went with Lenne to the municipal gymnasium. I walked in and couldn’t help but feel a little jealous as I recalled afternoons training with the El Progreso basketball team in our municipal gym back in Honduras. Who ever heard of potholes INSIDE a gym?! It amazes me how organized and structured they are here. Really puts into contrast the inescapable poverty and corruption that continues to plague countries like Honduras. I sat at the sign up table and every person that walked in signed their name, along with the neighborhood they were representing and were given three index cards; green, yellow and red. Green = Satisfactory Yellow = Average Red = Unsatisfactory. A projector with an interactive powerpoint showing the night’s agenda was on display for all to see. There was a mic with speakers, a videocamera for documention purposes, a whitewash board with the rules (respect for others opinions, etc) and free popcorn and refreshments. One by one community members arrived, ON TIME!, and took their seats. Topics discussed included trash collection, noise pollution, education, park maintenance and environmental protection. Those in attendance expressed their opinions in a roundtable fashion and voted (using their index cards) on whether a topic was worthy of taking up with the municipality. As people spoke, Clarisse (who happens to be the Secretary of Env.) documented all ideas and suggestions for all to see on the live powerpoint. The entire process was extremely well organized, concise, and effective. Needless to say, I was very impressed.



June 20th
When I envisioned coming here, I thought I would be walking around along muddy roads with not much to do during my down time. That has certainly not been the case. To give an example, the very next night, in the very same gymnasium, there was a UFC fight organized by the Brasilian MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) association. I paid my 10reals, along with about 1000 other spectators, and walked into what seemed like a Las Vegas type production. An octagon at midcourt, spectators, camera crews, disco lights and a heavy humid blanket filled the air as a DJ blasted music. Families and kids of all ages filled the stands, ready to take in another night of bloody combat. There are no babysitter clubs or daycares here. Families seem pretty united and go everywhere together. If dad wants to go drink at the bar with the fellas, he takes his kid. Not many other options. There were 11 bouts, as each victor screamed and rejoiced in his victory, the crowd erupted in delight. I sat next to one mother whose son Bruno must have been fighting on the Jiu-Jitsu category because she was a mess!! “Tira ele Bruno!” Get him off of you,! she howled. Poor Bruno lost. The fights finally ended and we all went to dance forro, similar to salsa and danced everywhere , mostly across the Northern and northeastern Brasil. I broke my flip-flop dancing with a woman whose thighs alone probably outweighed me.
I have started giving English classes, specializing topics based on what people need to know. In one class, with Erivaldo, Lenne and Klarisia, I’m teaching them the English they need to manage their artisan center when tour buses arrive. They have always depended on tour guides to translate, all that is going to change soon. “How much does this cost?” and “This is a hat made from reed fibers” are some of the things I’m teaching. They tell me I’m a great teacher because I can explain to them in Portuguese what letters are supposed to sound like in english. For example, In teaching the alphabet, I’ll write below each letter A, B, C (ai, bi, ci) or twenty (tuenti). “Eu cobro rapaz!” I’m tuff because I make everyone prove to me they can say it right before moving on.
I eat fresh fish everyday. One of the perks of living here. Pirarucu, jaraqui and tucunare are some of my faves. Tacaca is a soup, made from the mandioca root and leaves, that leaves your tongue numb. A very strange sensation which at first made me worry I was allergic to it. Vatapa de camarão is also really good, a deep fried ball of dough stuffed with any and everything.
I am off tomorrow upriver to Rio Unini to visit the Brasil nut factory FVA sponsors. They are picking me up in the company boat on their way from Manaus and from here its about a day and a half ride. We are taking tons of supplies (tiles, machinery, etc) to put the finishing touches on the factory which will do everything from processing to packaging. My work here it to develop a new program recently initiated called AJURI (an indigenous word that kinda means community help). I had a meeting today with all the heads of the foundations and contributors to AJURI (AANA, ICMBio, IBAMA, IPE…and I thought Columbia Univ was heavy on acronyms) and proposed some ideas I had for growing this initiative. A youth Eco-walkathon with Olympic style races and prizes, a recycling program at the schools, building and painting recycling bins and trashcans to post strategically throughout the city, a city wide treasure hunt for students to teach them about local eco-movements, etc. The meeting went well and we´re all to reconvene in a week so we can let ideas marinate for a while. I have already been recruited to dance in a festival next week and will have to get some quick practice in when I get back from Uniní. The stars here are glorious, on most nights the Milky Way is quite visible and my neck gets sore from staring up at the endless night sky. For now I am reading a Garcia Marquez book in my down time, Memórias de minhas putas tristes, and listening to lots of MPB music on my little laptop. Tomorrow the river awaits and Im back to sleeping on a boat, only this time Im riding in style. I just tried to post a pic of the boat…see if it worked.
Ate mais. Boa noite.

Minha primeira semana - My first week in the Amazon

June 6-13
Arriving to the Amazonian metropolis of Manaus by airplane , one cant help but feel like a fraud. A city of 2 million dropped smack dab in the middle of a 7 million square kilometer tropical jungle, the only true and genuine way of arriving to Manaus is by river. There are no roads connecting the city to the rest of Brasil, thus everyone and everything arrived by boat…until the airport was built.
As I gazed down from above the clouds, I was immediately confronted with the sheer magnitude of the Amazon river. From the sky its massive reach is truly humbling, the river swirls and weaves its way through lush jungle as far as the eye can see. It is hard to fathom the enormity of this river until you hover above it, feeling like a fish in the sea… or in this case, a fish in a river. In the horizon signs of civilization begin to rear its ugly face as buildings, bridges and a river port come into view. Held speechless by the vast expanse of the dense jungle I couldn’t help but think; all our skyscrapers, telephone towers and highways are nothing. We are but a mere inconvenience to mothernature, a bunch of pesky renters who party all night and certainly will not be getting our security deposit back. We seem to be over staying our welcome and Nature can’t wait to chew us up and spit us out. The Amazon river has an average water discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined, and that’s not including the massive Amazonian rivers Rio Negro and Madeira. I flew over one part of the river that seemed more like an ocean, no shores in site.
I arrive to Manaus and immediately felt at home. Manaus is steeped in history. The colonial powers of Portugal and Spain quickly killed off or enslave the many local indigenous communities along the river, which were soon turned into bioextractive operations due initially to the emergence of the rubber (borracha) trade. Seringais, or rubber production sites, became the norm and regatões, river merchants, made sure that communities received just enough food and supplies to remain endebted and therefore forced to keep working.
My work here with an environmental ngo (Fundação Vitoria Amazonica) will take me West along Rio Negro toward Rio Unini. After a 10hour ferry ride upriver I will be living in a city/community of about 15000 called Novo Airão helping develop the ngo’s youth outreach efforts (called AJURI). There exist many negative connotations associated with ngos and many regional conflicts between indigenous communities, governments, and ngos. During the Brasilian dictatorship the government decided to draw lines on a map defining national reserves, never considering that thousands of people lived within the regions. Now communities are being forced to adapt to new laws which limit the amount of bio resources they can use, forcing many to abandon their communities for unknown and difficult lives in the city of Manaus. Among many other initiatives, FVA works closely with the indigenous communities to help them manage resources, produce sustainable products (Brasil Nuts, açai, mandioca, arts n crafts, etc), and teach a younger generation to continue growing while coping with increasing government environmental regulations. One of the main programs we’ll be focusing on is a Brasil Nut factory FVA has built deep in the jungle (Unini) which should help a community remain where they are without surrendering to urbanization and fleeing their land to find work in the city.
Adventures lie around every river bend, up every tree and at the pit of every new and exotic fruit. . Até logo. Valeu!!



June 16th
I board an old 3 story barge-like boat to make the overnight treck to Novo Airao, the Amazonian community where I will be living and working. I get there early to find a good spot to hang my hammock. A few hours later the entire boat will become a web of hammocks stuffed with slumbering bodies, as the boat chugs at a snail’s pace upriver. It is a full moon tonight and the night sky it lit up by its shimmering glow. I am to meet my coordinator, Lenne, at 7am the next morning at the Novo Airao port. I doze in and out of sleep, comforted by the purr of the engine and the sound of its wake crashing on shore. I wake momentarily, forgetting for an instant where I am, and only snap back to reality when I try to move and realize I am surrounded by people wrapped in hammock-cocoons.
Its 5am and Im at the hul of the boat watching the sun peak through the clouds. Novo Airão is a sleepy Amazonian city, all of its movement and traffic is concentrated on an L-shaped main drag, or `Avenida Principal.´ Lenne, my coordinator, has her husband pick me up on his motorcycle and I am wisked away to meet my new home, the FVA office and research center. The city is surprisingly developed, a few hostals, mom-n-pop restaurants and juice stands speckle la Avenida Principal. There is a huge plaza central which has sand soccer fields, volleyball courts, and for some reason a huge replica of a brontosorous dinasour. Apparently, a while back they found some fossils around here and some politician thought it would be a good idea to ship in this giant, ugly, out of place replica. Ive asked around, no one really knows what the heck its doing there. I am given the keys to my new home, a sizeable wooden house, which doubles as an office. I am told a woman is staying here for the week caring for 2 infants. In a horrible explosion, a familys house burned to the ground, with members being badly burned. The sister is here caring for the infant while the family relocates to Manaus to seek treatment and aid. FVA, like many NGOs operating in underdeveloped regions, inevitably becomes a human aid service when called upon. NGOs often do this because they are the only ones with cars, boats, health supplies and spare housing. During hurricane Felix in 2005, OYE in Honduras became a search and rescue operation as our Mitsubishi truck was called upon to deliver supplies to churches and rescue families trapped up on the mountain side.
My first day was a dose of Amazonian ngo reality. Coming from the Columbia grad school world where every single minute of everyday MUST be taken advantage of, life here moves at a drastically different pace. To my delight, I was given a bike for transport, great for my recovering knee injury and essential to my mental sanity. I spent the entire afternoon chatting or ´batendo um papo´ with Erivaldo, director of AANA (Asociação dos Artesinatos do Novo Airão). AANA supports all the local indigenous communities by selling their art work, bags, hats, rugs, lamps and more made from reeds and seeds.
Erivaldo is my age and we got along famously. While we traded stories and talked about how we can begin growing the program Im here for (AJURI) I basically met every other NGO director in the community. Since his warehouse/art and craft headquarters is located on the Avenida Principal, everyone stops by to say hi, ´dar um oizinho.´ There is much to be done, fortunantely I am surrounded here by ppl with big hearts and a passion for what they do. More good things to come.