We started off our day trip like we’ve started most days during this trip, congregating at the church and loading into a charter vehicle to head to our destination for the day. On the way to our first stop, we picked up our tour guide for the day, Simone, before hitting the road and heading to our first stop. After picking up our new friend, we left our urban paradise and headed to the country side. As we passed rolling forested hills, grazing livestock, and men riding their horses down the highway median, Simone educated us on topics from race relations to environmental health. I learned about the recent emergence of bamboo and eucalyptus as a cash crop in the Bahian countryside, and how this process has been harmful to native Baihanos and wildlife alike. Both species of crops are invasive and non-native to the state, meaning they grow very rapidly and steal nutrients from native crops that locals used to depend on for survival. This is bad for wildlife because many native species of animals can’t depend on plants that they weren’t evolved to pollinate or feed on. Simone explained that it has become very difficult for locals to grow personal crops which in the past reduced produce costs for individual families in the area. Bamboo is used for the production of cardboard, the raw material is sent to factories to be converted into shipping boxes and such. This is a very lucrative business, and the locals who are affected see very little of the profit. I also learned on the ride that the amount of Brazilians that self declare as black has skyrocketed in recent decades. On the Brazilian census, people are given the opportunity to declare themselves as white (branco), brown/mixed race (pardo), black (preto), indigenous or eastern asian (amarelo). Because of internalized racism as a result of colorism and systemic oppression of black people in Brazil, most people who would now be considered preto would chose to declare themselves as pardo. Nowadays, more Brazilians are starting to express their blackness.
Our first stop of the day was an open air market in the small city of Santo Amaro. Here I saw everything from live crabs to knock off designer clothing. I actually bought myself a Lacoste hat for 25 reais because I had forgotten my cap at home. I also bought the best tasting mango I’ve ever had in my life, which I ate as we walked through the stalls. The African influence in the market was even more evident than it is in Salvador, in the products that were being sold, the people selling them, and the feel of the market. I saw items such as cassava root and palm oil, both products of Western Africa. After walking through the market, we stopped to get refreshments. I sat with a local man named Luis. He, like many older Brazilians when I tell them my name, mentioned Tayrone Cigano, a singer from Cachoeira, and did a suave little dance. He told me that he’s been living in Santo Amaro all his life, and advised that we visit the church, and to hold my valuables tight because thieves are becoming more common in the area. He said they take your stuff and take off running, so I buttoned up my pockets after our convo. After our little break at the cafe, we took a group picture at the city sign and headed to our next destination.
The next stop on our trip was Cachoeira, a city that Simone told us used to be a slow paced city for old folks and children as all the young people fled to other cities because of the lack of economic opportunity, but has undergone somewhat of a Renaissance since the founding of the federal university in 2005. Which brought a youthful air to the old city. Right as we got off the bus we stopped and Simone diverted our attention to an old church, she told us that slaves were forced to worship outside of the church during colonial times. Although they were forced into the religion, they were still not allowed to worship alongside their white counterparts. This sort of discrimination might be an example of the history of institutionalised racism that caused many people to refrain from identifying themselves as black centuries later. Next, we walked down to the bank of the Paraguaçu river, which gave the city of Cachoeira its economic importance. The name means big sea in an indigenous language, an indication of the size of the river. The river can be taken all the way to the bay, from which they could conduct trade with Salvador. She also told us about a damn built upon the river to control to heavy floods of the rainy season, which increased the prosperity and living conditions of the city. Next we met a traditional wood carver who’s a friend of Simone, who convinced me to purchase a small statue of Exu, who he described as the Orixa of peace and protector of paths. I bought it as a good omen to keep me safe on the rest of the trip, but now I’m starting to think that he’s just a pretty good salesman. Anyhow, the statue will look nice in my room. After, we crossed the big sea and rode up the hill to have some lunch at one of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve ever dined at. On the way to the restaurant, Simone told us the story of Caramaru, who was the first Portuguese man to make contact with the Tupinamba people. Caramaru arrived to shore in a wrecked ship, and because of this long white hair and beard, white skin, and probably sorry condition, the Tumpinamba people assumed that he was some sort of sea creature. Which is why he is known as Caramaru, meaning eel, instead of as Diogo Alvares Correia, his Portuguese name. He went on to marry the daughter of the chief, also name Paraguaçu, and become the first Christian couple to be officially marry in Brasil. At the restaurant, I had a lunch of steak, chicken, rice and beans, and veggies. With mango sorbet and coffee as dessert. After the entree I walked down to the grass with Carolina to admire the view and walk off some of the meal we just ate. While standing under the big old tree on the hill overlooking the two cities below. We stuck up a conversation with two other diners at the restaurant, who were there eating with their Harley Davidson club. They told us about a 5 month journey that a few of them went on from Salvador to Milwaukee where they hold a Harley convention every 5 years. The man also told us that they recorded a documentary and he wrote a book about their experience!
The last leg of our busy day involved a lecture given by Xavier Vatin. A professor of socio-anthropology at the Federal University of Reconcavo da Bahia. I thoroughly enjoyed his lecture, and it shifted the way I view Brazilian Socio-politics completely. One of my favorite takeaways was that the Serra de Capivara region in Brazil is home to the oldest recorded presence of man in the Americas, and the notion that the region was a culturally and ethnically diverse place before the arrival of the Portuguese. The second was the comparison made between the Gullah Geechee culture of the Southern Coastal Region of America and the culture of Afro-Brazilians, as well as learning about Lorenzo Turner. The Black American researcher responsible for discovering the connection of the two cultures, and declaring the Gullah Geechee language as an official creole derived from English and West African languages, instead of a broken version of English. Another big takeaway I got from the lecture is learning about truly how detrimental the Bolsonaro era was to the forward progress of the country. I had a very minimal understanding of life in Brazil during Bolsonaro before my time in Brazil. I had heard him being compared to Donald Trump, the storming of the Brazilian capital, and the overwhelming victory of Lula in the recent election. So I had an idea of the situation, but the lecture gave me more background to why these things were happening. For example, the fact that he allowed or supported the invasion of protected indigenous lands, the poisoning of rivers, and direct killings of indigenous people because of his ties to the Agrobusiness and mining industries. As well as allowed missionaries into the region during the pandemic, introducing a deadly disease to formerly isolated population which killed a third of the already heavily depleted population. Such violence and negligence really surprised, and made me feel deeply for the people of Brazil, and hopeful for the progress than can be done and restored with Lula back in office.
