So, I have been pretty terrible at keeping up with this blog. However, I
thought I’d give an update now for anyone still reading.
The program I’m doing is titled Amazon Resource Management and Human
Ecology. Here is the basic picture I had in my head before I left: A small
group of student gallivanting through the jungle, hiking and meeting indigenous
groups and maybe even some people trying to tear down the rainforest for wood
or whatever.
Reality Check. First of all, just a random fact: the Amazon is NOT a
jungle. For some reason, rainforest and jungle have always been synonymous in
my head. This is false. The rainforest is a forest and while there is a lot of
exotic life, it is still a forest, not a jungle. Secondly, most of our time
here has been spent in cities and small towns. We’ve done a lot of talking to
people and organizations and most of them do not live in the rainforest because,
well, it’s rather hard to live in the rainforest. Also, the city we are based
in is a pretty developed city. While it’s still impossible to find American
peanut butter and the streets are filled with trash and stray dogs, it’s a
pretty developed city. During our time here, my friends and I have often taken
trips to the mall, which usually involve good food, Cairu (which is only some
of the best ice cream ever, best two flavors are Lime Torte and Kinder Egg
yum!), and sometimes a movie.
Random travel tip: If you’re ever in a foreign country and you’re a
little homesick, go see a movie in English. They usually exist with the
language of the country in subtitles and the dark room and people speaking
English will feel just like home.
Back to what I was saying… The other thing that was not what I expected
is kind of different. See, I didn’t know much about Brazil or the Amazon and
the problems surrounding it. I mean most people really don’t. Brazil is such a
mysterious place. Most people just think supermodels, beaches and jungle. In
reality, Brazil is a developing country with problems only made worse with the
burden and luxury of one of the biggest reservoir of rainforest and fresh water
in the world. Here are just a few of the problems that specifically interest
me.
As the world pushed Brazil to preserve their rainforest, because the
Amazon is “the lung of the world” and what not, the conservation units soon
made it illegal for indigenous groups AND other local communities to live
places where their families had lived for hundreds of years. So, then
indigenous people were given special rights and they could keep living there.
However, there are these people groups that were formed by runaway African
slaves, people trying to make a living during the rubber boom and military
government push to exploit the Amazon, and some random indigenous mixing. These
people make up something like a million or so people and they live off the
forest and from the river. While the indigenous became protected from losing land
due to conservation unit, these people have not gained that protection.
Problem.
Another interesting issue is the hydroelectric dams. We got to visit the
4th largest hydroelectric dam in the world in Tucurui. Now, the
engineer inside of me will be the first person to say it is INCREDIBLE; not
only the sight, but the physics, engineering, and pure manpower behind it. It
is AWESOME. However, when Tucuri was built and some land was flooded and due to
a lack of surveying and an “error in calculations” thousands of people were
displaced, their lives completely upheaved with nowhere to go. And since
companies have more power and control than the government in many cases, the
company dealt with it themselves and dealt with it rather poorly. However, even
with this issue, the dam at Tucurui provides like a quarter or Brazil’s power
and all the power for an Aluminum plant that is like the second largest
supplier of Aluminum in the world. So the problem of a few thousand displaced
people gets overlooked.
These problems are not easily solved, especially in a country that is
still struggling to have adequate infrastructure. If you think the roads in
Texas are bad, you should drive in Northern Brazil. Sheesh.
Well, that’s just a little bit about what I’ve actually been learning
while I’ve been “playing in the rainforest".
Well, I'm off to start my Independent Study Project on water for rural communities in Satarem tomorrow!!!
Tchau!!!
Sarah
