Dear Katya,
I hope you will excuse the length of time it has taken me to write this letter, and no doubt the time which has elapsed since it was first posted, which may be several weeks. Things here are moving slowly; I fear they are moving more slowly than they have ever done before. You can understand why I have not had reason, or the resources, to write to you; the only stories I have to tell being the smaller intricacies of my work (or, the small things whose satisfactions are reserved principally for me), stories which - as you well know - are never quite as captivating when put into the written word, if indeed they ever were captivating in the first place. Even now, there is little cause to write; I have however been given my first supply of paper in several weeks by Ura’coe and made him a fair promise to use it if I were to take it. Considering that my distance from you has kept me awake on some ocassions - even now that I have adapted to the humidity - I write purely to write to you, and also to tell you of the several disturbing events which have taken place since my arrival.
You will remember my first trip to Brazil, this country of blurred horizons and stubborn colours. In truth, only you would know the full extent of my fondness - how could I ever claim otherwise, to you? Yes, yes, I have mellowed - but even I remember how passionately I used to ramble in those early letters. What it was, to discover such unrelenting life! Goodness! And you must find this talk so stale. Though I have not lost that sense of passion, of irresistibility. I always (and still) think of T.R. Hannock’s verse:
Even after I have flown
Over the mountain’s ridge
I begin my descent
With feet that led me
To the top, I am
Dragged back down again
To where she grows.
There always was that unstoppable force here - that thick smell of humid regeneration. It is still here, but it is slowing, or showing signs of slowing that we ourselves are too fleeting to fully interpret. The water is of course receding, this year in correlation with the others, and during these summer months we are all but stranded. Do not worry for me; I am well looked-after by Haximu and his boys. It is in fact them for whom you ought to feel concern. Ura’mu celebrated his seventh summer this week, an event traditionally marked by a long ride on the fish-raft. This was of course not possible, which put Haximu in a sour mood; only his first son came of age in a summer with enough water to hold the boat or, better still, house any fish. Ura’mu, the little boy himself, did not appear to mind too much, running between the cassava and honey-baskets with apparent delight. He seemed the only one among us who still valued, or was capable of, wholehearted celebration.
But that afternoon, I saw him stood at the edges of the shoreline, his head hung loosely down towards the mud, and arms completely still at his sides. I stopped to make sure it was Ura’mu, but there was no mistaking it, from his choppy hair and crooked elbows. I called out to him from the clearing, but received no response, even after calling twice.
This incident marked the beginning of a much more sinister feeling in my soul, which has stirred on more than one occasion since, the first of which, my words permitting, I will relay to you in utmost detail now…
___
(to be continued)
read the original story (BBC News):
Amazon drought: Stranded boats and dead fish - BBC News
The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the author. The stories themselves are based on imagined events. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is fictitious and should not be taken as representative.
A milestone piece. 🇧🇷
I did not read the original story as it shall be all doom and gloom mixed with lies from the MSM. If you go to the coast and head north and turn a few corners and keep going you shall come to Panama! In 1985 I lived there and a friend whom I used to speak to me told me that with the deforestation was putting the Panama Canal in danger as the lakes that feed the canal were drying up. He was from Panama and that was in 1985!? Since then god only knows how much more deforestation has taken place an dthey have widened and deepened the canal in places!? Back in the 80s etc ships had to wait for a couple of days to get through but now you can add on 20 days to that and at times more as there is a lack of water to feed the canal!? Some ships now even go down and round the bottom of South America. Oh it is climate change they say!? A little bonus here also---You know your GREEN BIOMAS ----Some of the trees are cut down in Eastern Canada and shipped to UK etc. Now does that not take the pi$$ out of GREEN!!?