Bahia: Of Community and Cacao

by Skye Mallac (South Africa)

Making a local connection Brazil

I wake from a muggy haze, my shirt sticking to my back as the overfull bus winds its way through tropical coastal roads. I adjust my body, stiff from almost 26 hours of traveling through this expansive country and shift my gaze beyond my bleary reflection. The road is edged in coconut palms, and the tell-tale reddish leaves of cacao trees, oblong fruits hanging from wizened branches. Through gaps in the dense foliage I glimpse the ocean and I sit forward eagerly. This is Bahia. As any backpacker, or Brazilian for that matter, will tell you – this is the Brazilian state of tropical bliss. Of cacao and coconuts and capoeira. Of broad beaches and sticky Atlantic rainforest. Of lazy afternoons and cold açai and the sort of languid Portuguese which makes comprehension that much easier for the bewildered gringa with only three weeks under her belt in this country. Itacaré is destination one. A dreamy hippie surfing town, founded several hundred years ago as a small fishing village of escaped slaves. Rio de Contas spills into the ocean on its south side – broad and gracious, ebbing and flowing with the tides. A haphazard collection of fishing boats are anchored in the river mouth. By morning, the tide receded, they are tipped 45 degrees on the rippled sand. One morning we wake early and perch on the grassy verge of the beach, eat dripping mangos for breakfast and watch the fishermen, with nets slung across their bodies, push their respective boats into the lazy current and chug out of sight. Western tourists are few and far between – this is a tropical getaway for the locals of Salvador and surrounds. The hostel we have tracked down is R$15 a night and is more of a communal home than anything. We vacate early each morning, slip away to a nearby beach and lounge in the welcome sunshine – scraping a peanut butter jar clean and marveling at the converging events which led us to this rock on the Atlantic coast of Brazil. I breathe deeply. This is a country I have felt more at home in than any of the European soils I set foot on last year. There is something familiar in the earth here, in the people, in the language, the sea. It’s easy to move across the land here. So easy. I left South Africa frantic, scrambled, itching for a new journey, terrified to leave – and here all is still. Our first volunteering stint is at the nearby intentional community of Terra Preta. A cacao plantation up Rio De Contas, transformed into a thriving agroforestry system and a highly functional communal space. Things are fluid and strategic throughout our two weeks here. We rise early and begin work by 8am. Four hours later we return to the little homestead for lunch and a free afternoon. On hot days we launch ourselves off the wide jetty which juts out into the river, swimming against the current with half exhausted enthusiasm. Afternoons are spent slung in hammocks. By morning I immerse myself in the cacao process. Allowing myself to soak up the opportunity to work with with the plant from bean to bar. We trudge through the soggy agroforest, gumboots sinking into sticky mud, harvesting the yellow cacao fruit from the trees and hauling sack-fulls out of the jungle. We split the thick husks open, scooping the seeds into a bucket before spreading them to dry on a wide wooden, plastic-roofed platform. These mornings are sweet and sticky and steeped in half understood Portuguese explanation – comprehension shifting behind the semi-translucent language barrier as I slowly come to grips with aspects of the language. The following week is razor grass and machetes; narrow, overgrown garden beds and hot roasting cacao beans. We grind them in an old manual coffee grinder, then pour them into various machines which grind and crunch and roll and mix to produce cocoa butter, and creme de cacao – a delicious nutella-esque spread made from cocoa, cashews, peanuts and palm sugar. By the end of the day I am covered in a light coating of cacao dust, sticky from slyly licking spoons clean, and beaming.