We are: COMMUNITY

by Patricia Goes Miranda (Peru)

I didn't expect to find Brazil

A couple of backpacks were waiting by the side of the highway for our first ride. But before that scene happened, I only realized that the trip was really going to happen when I saw Tito's eyes in the gaps of my temporary house gate. I will never forget those curious eyes and at the same time not being sure that we were really leaving everything behind. Tito and I went to Bahia from the heart of Brazil: Chapada dos veadeiros in Goiás. We met at the waterfalls and on the third day, we decided to travel, living from "now" after "now", hitchhiking after hitchhiking. We collected nothing more than 50 dollars, donated some clothes, books and went with what we needed, our tent, a quena and work materials: paintings for ceramics and herbs for natural products. The first night we camped on the highway, we realized that we really had no idea what was going to happen. We began to spend our days with the following motto: one life a day. On the road, crossing small villages, listening to the difference between words and accents, we were welcomed in the most diverse ways. We applied Freeganism in almost all regions. This practice consists in reducing the waste of food around the world by asking for leftovers in restaurants, bakeries and fruit shops. Our daily measl were in this way. We talked and made friendships with the most unusual people: truck drivers, street artists, housewives, Christians and atheists, showing that the human plurality and our things in common are greater than any possible divergence. In essence we are: COMMUNITY, we have the same fears, traumas and similar desires and most importantly, within ourselves, everyone wants peace and moments of full happiness. In this madness and pleasure of travelling, what was supposed to be only a month on the road, have become eight. Eight incredible months. We crossed Brazil's northeast starting by Bahia. Ah! And how do you explain the sensation of arriving in a completely strange place, where you don't know any friends in common and you have no idea if you start walking to the right or left? The heart beats with fear and hope in which adventure you will arrive! I love that feeling! In the meantime, we worked with our handicraft, exchanged paintings in guesthouses for accommodation. We gave and received affection without expecting anything in return. It was us, our tent and also a lot of reflection about us as protagonists of our lives. There were days when we felt like real gods and others who seemed to fit into a children's shoe box. In moments of anxiety, I learned to relax and when I felt insecure, I learned to trust that everything would work out. And it worked, in its time, in its rhythm, as it had to. In the middle of the woods, we started to understand the plants and even communicate sometimes, without great romanticism and pseudo-mysticism. In the cities, we came across popular rituals, beliefs, mysticisms, dances and fights that mark a symbol of a cultural resistance that touches and contagious. Seeing all this up close, sometimes as a spectator, sometimes as members of the group; I realized how beautiful Brazil is! It is natural beauty, beauty of people. Fact is that since we left, I didn't expect to see and feel so many things. As we passed through the North, we reached the Amazon River and lived it, with its layers in consistency and color of homemade milk jam. We met the "ribeirinhos", simple people who live by the river and who, since childhood, row over their canoes in the middle of that infinite river. All this without counting the amount of native species, birds that flied over our heads so that we could enjoy their freedom and beauty at the same moment that the tucuxi dolphins danced behind and around the boat lurking for the fish that were around there too. In the end, believing or not, we arrived in Cusco (Peru)! This is the story of two artisans, hitchhiking for the surprises of the world.