I spent many months in a small city in the Brazilian Amazon, and
perhaps could also offer you some stories or insights. I think I will
just type for a while and see what comes out. If you have questions,
please let me know and I'll answer them as best I can.
Background, quickly: The city I lived in, Barcelos, had about 11,000
inhabitants spread out over an area as large as Massachusetts. It is
the largest Catholic archdiocese in the world. About 5,000 of those
people are concentrated in a town center, with roads, about 20 cars
and trucks, stores, restaurants and bars, a post office, a hospital,
government building, and electricity and water for almost all houses.
Electricity was often cut, and most homes had running water but no
septic system so used water was just dumped on the ground and they
used outhouses instead of flush toilets.
I think the first thing to point out is that resourcefullness might be
very differently defined in Barcelos because access to resources is so
different. I don't think they think of themselves as "resourceful,"
but they manage with an awful lot less than we have. Unlike the (few)
third world big cities I have seen, there is an abundance of
affordable food in the rainforest towns. There are 86 types of fruit
trees just within the limits of the town proper. Fish is sold in the
market every morning, it is caught from canoes in the river which the
town sits on. People pass clothes on to others, share some resources,
and generally work really hard.
A couple things that stand out in my memory:
A woman I knew who learned to weave hats out of finely rolled up
plastic from shopping bags.
A man I knew who collected Brazil nuts for a living (they fall from
trees which are VERY tall, "castanheros" follow a path covering
several acres daily during collecting season) who wove a carrying
basket from a frond from a palm like plant. It took about 10 minutes,
he did it on the spot, it carried a heavy load, and lasted one day.
it even had a strap which his young son put on his forehead and
carried the load on his back.
Machetes are used for everything - cleaning fish, tilling soil and
digging holes, hacking one's way thru the forest, cutting tree limbs,
taking the shells off of brazil nuts, cutting down banana bunches,
whatever. If it needs a tool, chances are the machete will work.
I met a man who was bitten by a poisonous snake. He canoed himself
for 2 days downriver to get to the hospital. People just do what they
have to do, no whining, no thought that they can't.
I think that things that we may think of as resourceful are things
that they think of as normal tools - palm frond roofs, cutting canoe
paddles out of a particular type of tree that grows these flat
protrusions, using spoons to eat everything so that there is no
excess/expensive flatware.
I worked for a while in a lab at the university of Manaus. I did a
lot of weighing and measuring specimens. We used a three arm balance,
not an electric scale, and a ruler marked in centimeters and
milimeters, not a finely calibrated caliper. That's what there was,
so that's what they used.
Does any of that help? If I can answer any other questions, please
feel free to ask! I love talking/thinking about my time there.
Heather
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