This past week, I made good on a promise to return to an isolated peninsula on the coast of Brazil with a computer, and to begin to show my host community how to use it. It's not the first computer there, nor is everyone there new to computers; there are at least eight people and businesses with satelite Internet connections. Still, I'm offering this new computer and some informal training and spending a few months in an idyllic setting, at the heart of a very warm and loving family and community. I'm giving of myself and partaking in an experience that money cannot buy.
Brazil is radically different from the United States in some surprising ways. Although there is violence in the major cities, Brazil is not at war with anybody and not subject to fear of terrorist attack. I guess that makes many Brazilians very wealthy in a way that most Americans can hardly remember. In the little hamlet where I will spend many days in the coming months, everyone knows my host family by name and no one is the source of fear.
From this peninsula where I will be visiting, there is no motorized traffic whatsoever; virtually all travel involves the water - by river, on the ocean or both - so we travel when the tides and currents permit. Otherwise, we sit and watch the river and talk with neighbors, with the entire village. In moments of leisure, we fish for crabs and then eat fresh crab jambalaya at dinner time.
Yesterday, I had a discussion with the head of the household about the US's announced intention to share airport bomb sniffers with the Brazilian government. I tried with some success to explain that in a country that had never had an airport terror attack, that gift of sniffers must be more related to domestic US politics and the coming elections than to any threat present in Brazil.
(When I lived in the United States, as a Black man I was always much more afraid of my encounters with the state and local police than I was of any foreign terrorists. Today, when I think of returning to the United States, I am far more afraid of being renditioned by the US Government for my opinions expressed at DailyKos than I am of any sort of terrorist attack.)
For some reason, the best experiences for me are often tied to the worst dreams. On my first day at the island, I dreamt that my manic depressive older brother attacked me, so I sliced him literally in half with an industrial kitchen butcher knife. I dreamt that my mother's car was rolling backward and downhill, with me in the driver's seat, unable to get the car in gear. I dreamt I was attacked by dogs, but I punched them and over-powered them and then tore them limb from limb and threw them out the window into the street.
My dreams were so scary on that first night in paradise that I nearly packed up everything I'd brought and fled back to . . . insufferable boredom and depression. But the warmth of my host family with the coming of daylight convinced me to live for the wonders of the day, rather than be guided by the horrors of my inner nights.
Today, I am back at home for Father's Day, for the hugs of my daughters and the caring of my wife. I share my unspeakable dreams with her. (People on the island believe that dreams are predictive, so dreams such as mine are terribly frightening.) But my wife and I discuss these dreams and then mostly forget about them.
Although the city in which I am my family live is small by US standards, I am anxious to return to the peninsula which is immeasureably smaller. By now, I know myself well enough to realize that the peninsula attracts me in part because it is novel, unexplored. When I've "been there and done that", I'll almost certainly and unpredictably want and need to move on. But for now it's magical. Although I haven't stopped seeing my psychiatrist and taking the antidepressants, yet this new experience renews my sense of wonder and enjoyment in a way that medicine and drugs cannot.
I e-mailed the attached pictures to a friend in the United States who is aware of my struggles with feelings of depression, low self-esteem and failure, having abandoned my legal career for a different lifestyle that defies explanation and description He said, "The photos are fantasic,....it makes this place up here seem so small , crowded, and unhappy...and the people uphere so isolated and scared....the beauty of the surroundings and the people there must really be great....you have accomplished more than anyone I know...keep up the good work."
I've figured out how to post the photographs, so please visit this diary again over the next few minutes. I haven't included any pictures of people in order to respect their privacy.