People who make their own path

by Anne Rolim (United States of America)

Making a local connection Brazil

The professor sat both me and my sister down in the sandy shores of the Amazon River. It was five in the morning as we had decided to watch the sunrise, the only three people awake in miles of forest. The sun was hot and the air was getting humid preparing for a rainforest storm, sweat that I had become used to for the past days was beginning to appear again. The professor smiled a lot, she was a local and it seemed her mind sped through a thousand stories, I was in awe with her passion for her home. She said that a few months back she was leading a session for a community of youth deep in the Amazon Forest, she often had workshops with them to gather ideas of how to make a sustainable income in a place where most people won’t go and where environmental laws prohibited the traditional hunting and farming ways of subsistence. She’d noticed there was no incentive from the government and young members of native tribes were disillusioned with their current way of life, thus putting a soon end to unique and ancient customs. On that session, the professor told us it got to a point that there were no ideas left and an eerie uncertainty settled in, intrepidly she told them that any idea works, even if they thought it stupid. To inspire the community seated in old school chairs, she told them the story of a factory in the state’s capital that used newspaper as wrapping for its products, but the production line often got delayed because workers started to become interested in the stories and would read them instead. In the quest for a solution, the manager asked the workers for productivity ideas and one suddenly blurted out: “Pierce their eyes!” – a terrible idea at first, but one that kicked off a successful hiring program for visually impaired individuals. “Anything helps!” she told us with conviction. Just the day before, my sister and I were on the way of a 10km trek amid the jungle, where one of the natives, Baru, 70 years-old and our only guide introduced us to the forest’s medicinal plants. Where we saw only green, he could see a whole pharmacy. His wisdom was unsurmountable, but most notable was his dedication to the girl with us, who was also a native, but much younger and inexperienced. He wished to impart to her his knowledge so that one day she could be part of their community and help grow their tourism-based idea that came from the professor’s session. That is where we came in, we were their first guests. The first to stay in Brenda’s humble home and hear about her fight for a better life, making sure her daughter was the first to go to university and her wish for her son Marcelo, who had a mental disability, to have an independent life. Brenda made sweets made of local tropical fruits, but had to give up her kitchen to the regional school, so she is thinking of other income alternatives. Marcelo, who was more excited about the visitors, was fast in holding our hands and taking us to his favorite place in the small land, the neighborhood’s water-well that was only 5 years-old. Baru told us the water-well was a donation from the Japanese and forever changed their lives. Back in the trek, my sister suddenly stopped, she pointed to the ground and called out: “Is that… a snake?” Baru quickly assessed it as a venomous viper, he urged us to leave and fast. I was cautiously looking at my steps from that moment on, but soon after the adrenaline slowed, I thought of the talks with the natives the night before. I remembered the stories of their families who went on the same trek years ago, the history we shared got me to push through the fear. After we finished the trek and said our good-byes, I could see in Baru’s happy eyes the pride of a first project well done, but I also saw the fear of being forgotten, hoping that next month others would be interested in the paths they were making.