Asakiyume mita

When we went to the Amazon in July, we took shelter from a downpour at the Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas SINCHI--the Sinchi Amazonic Institute of Scientific Research, "a nonprofit research institute of the Government of Colombia charged with carrying out scientific investigations on matters relating to the Amazon Rainforest, the Amazon River and the Amazon Region of Colombia for its better understanding and protection." There we met Dr. Clara Patricia Peña-Venegas, who gave me a copy of her extremely informative dissertation on cassava.

When I went back in March, I met with Dr. Peña and asked her what new things she was working on.

WELL. She's working on developing biodegradable, sustainable packaging alternatives to plastic for Leticia and the surrounding communities. Plastic trash is a huge problem for Leticia because (as noted in the post on the world's smallest Coca-Cola bottling plant) everything has to be shipped in and out of Leticia, but that's very expensive, so plastic trash just... piles up.

So she and other researchers at Sinchi have been working on various substitutes, using, among other things, cassava starch--and they have prototypes! These samples look a little battered, but that's because they've undergone various stress tests.

tray made from a palm leaf:



tray made from plant fibers:



Stiff-plastic substitute made from cassava starch. This could be used for things like cups:



5-second video of a flexible-plastic substitute, also from cassava starch:



She said they've tested various different types of cassava, and the starch from all of them works equally well--which is good, because it means that local farmers could keep on growing whatever they're growing now, but some of their produce could go to make these products--assuming there's a way to produce these materials affordably for local hotels and businesses. They have a test plant in the nearby town of Puerto Nariño to try to make this happen.

What's cool about this initiative is that they're not trying to find THE ONE TRUE PLASTIC SUBSTITUTE or dominate the world packaging industry: on the contrary, they're trying only to develop something that will work in this immediate region. This is important because it means it would be self-limiting: you wouldn't get people clear-cutting vast swaths of the rain forest to grow cassava for plastic substitutes, which would be a terrible unintended consequence. But if it's solely for local businesses to use, then it would provide farmers with additional income without too much damage to the forest, it would provide job for people in manufacturing, and it would provide hotels and businesses with an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic, one that would biodegrade and wouldn't clog and pollute waterways.

... On our (motorized) boat ride back from the flooded forest, we were moving through large patches of water hyacinth, and floating in the water hyacinth was... lots of trash. At one point the engine stalled out. Why? Because a plastic bag had wrapped itself around the propeller. That experience highlighted just how bad a problem plastic trash is.

I would love to see other hyper-local plastic substitutes developed. Cassava starch doesn't make much sense for my locale, but maybe potato starch? Things that can be locally produced, so there's not the pollution and expense of shipping. And things that biodegrade. (And of course they need to be produceable without huge amounts of petrochemical inputs, or that, too, defeats the purpose....)

This tweet contains a longer video from SINCHI, where Dr. Peña talks about the program (in Spanish).

In the Amazon, everything is always falling apart as soon as it's made: termites attack wood, metal rusts, roads disintegrate. And everywhere, new life is always pushing up. This is true everywhere, I realize... just slower

...Here, grass is sprouting on the canoe I was in. (Apologies to those of you who have seen this photo already on Twitter) A good image of resurrection.

I discovered I have a pair of photos that makes a good comparison of the lower water levels of the Amazon in July and the higher levels in March. Same location, different times of year! (Note: this isn't the actual Amazon, it's a little ingress--you navigate out of this and to the main river.)

Look at the difference between how much land there is between the houses on the far shore and the water. At peak water rise in most years, the water will cover the island those houses are on. (You can click through to see everything larger.)

July 2022


March 2023


What the heck, have a photo of the actual river in all its mighty mighty majesty, from a popular lookout spot in Tabatinga, Brazil:

Last year, when wakanomori and I went to Amazonas, one thing I really loved was fariña, a preparation of cassava made by grating it, then roasting it. After returning home, I found a great video on the making of it among the Tikuna (I wrote about it here; the entry had screenshots from the video). And I knew that was something I really, really wanted to participate in if I ever got the chance.

And I did get the chance, and it was (a) just like the video and (b) lovely, and (c) I made a great friend who had nearly the same name as me.

First went to a little shop in a residential part of Letícia to get rubber boots for me. Then we went by taxi to a point in the middle of apparent nowhere, and the taxi let us out. There was a tiny path leading into the landscape, and we set out on that:

( four photos: little shop, taxi, and two of the path )

All along the way there were wild fruits we could just reach out and eat. Here, granadilla, a type of passion fruit. This one isn't ripe, but we had some ripe ones.



And there were garden patches and fields all along the way, too, but blending right in to the riot of other growing things. Here, pineapples:



There was also sugarcane, bananas, and... cassava! Here's a bunch which even I could see was a grouped planting (you can see some small bananas in there too, though):



At last we came to the place where the fariña roasting was happening. You can see the machine used for grating the cassava--just like in the video! But they were past that stage. The big roasting pans are also just the same! And the paddles for turning it. They graciously let me take a turn. My new friend Francy and her mom are feeling the fariña to see if it's still damp, or if it's dry. If it's dry, it's done.

You can see that the fariña is being roasted over a fire that's contained by a wall of corrugated metal that's then insulated with a mud-grass mixture. Very cool.

( the roasting area--three photos )

When it's done, it gets strained to take out the large lumps, the quiebra muelas, or tooth breakers. But one of my guides likes snacking on those, and they can be good if you soak them in something, like açai juice. Açai was in season, and people were selling the juice (actually somewhere between a juice and a puree) everywhere. People like to have it mixed with ordinary fariña (not the tooth breakers) and a little sugar--wonderful.

You can see that the sieve is handmade. Beautiful.

And then it's ready to be put into a sack to take home. Francy used a scoop made from a gourd to put it in the sack, a beautiful item. On another occasion I had cassava beer, which we drank out of gourds like that, coated on the inside with a local resin. They filled a 50-lb sack with fresh-made fariña. They also had buckets of cassava starch (used to make that beer, among other things).

( straining the fariña, scooping it, plus the starch (three photos) )

At some point before we left, we took a little walk around, looking at the fields. When the cassava is grown, you can walk underneath it, like in the first picture. They told me that it's ready to harvest when all but the top leaves have fallen off.

One of my guides was asking about different types of cassava, trying to correctly identify ones that were sweet (don't need to soak to remove the cyanide) from the ones that are bitter (that do need to soak). They looked at things like the leaves to be able to tell, and I was reminded of the dissertation by Clara Patricia Peña-Venegas that I've been reading, which has this diagram of all the places indigenous people look to make distinctions between types.

In her disssertation, she also said that special landraces (local cultivars) get given special names, and I saw this! "Does this one have a special name?" my guide asked of one plant, and Francy's father said, "pajarito."

Under the cut is the diagram, and also: a cleared area for farming, some stems of cassava, which are used for planting (each one is cut into smaller sections for planting), an example of one of those in the ground, and what it's like under a canopy of cassava.

( cassava agriculture (five photos) )

When we were finished, we waited for a long time for transport to come. Francy's parents had huge loads: her dad carried the 50-lb bag of fariña, and her mon was carrying a similar amount of firewood. The mom, Mateas, and the bag of fariña went off with one motorcycle taxi, and the dad, the firewood, and Francy went off on another (I think: memory hazy, now). Francy's boyfriend (brother of one of my guides) and my guides and I went back in ... I can't remember now if it was a taxi or a tuk tuk!

Waiting

I have so much in my head that the words pile up behind... my mouth? or my typing fingers? jostling to be first to come out. So before I try to say anything, I'll just share two clusters of photos, first an assortment of four I shared on Facebook (but you guys here get more context!)

( The Facebook Four )

And here is a lower-water, higher-water comparison. The first photo is one I took in July, when we went when the water was low, but not as low as it gets. The second is a photo in the same spot that I took this trip. I thought March was the highest-level time, but it turn out that's in April. So this is high--but not as high as it gets!

( lower and higher )

More to come ... and slowly slowly I will also be reading entries I've missed while away (though probably not all...)

This is one thing I want to go back to the Amazon for: to join in in this (if there was a community that wouldn't mind that). The screenshots here are taken from a gorgeous 21-minute video made by the Department of Intangible Heritage of Peru's Ministry of Culture (the Tikuna/Ticuna/Magüta people's ancestral lands encompass portions of Peru, Colombia, and Brazil).

Here's a link to that video: Uí, preparación y vigencia de la fariña entre los ticuna

It starts by situating us in relation to the forest, to the trees and plants. An anthropologist says that for the Tikuna, "plants are the beings that possess all knowledge ... they are the most intelligent beings there are." I like it better when people are allowed to speak for themselves, and fortunately that's the case in the rest of the film. But I like this idea, and at least I could feel warmth and respect from this woman toward the Tikuna, and toward their respect for plants.

( screenshots of the flooded forest and a solo tree against the clouds )

It starts in a field, digging up the cassava tubers. You can see what the cassava plant looks like on the right, and you can get a sense of how big those tubers are! Coincidentally, in the story by Nando I'm currently (very slowly) translating from Tetun, a husband and wife are digging up a kind of yam, and it's a lot of work, and looking at this video, I can see the how and why of that.



Some peeling happens right out in the field. I took this screenshot because I was admiring the little kid, who, though it's not clear in the picture, is wielding a knife of his own: helping!



And I liked this image of everyone coming back to the community with the tubers they'd dug up because of the boy playing the drum and cradling a tuber like a phone between his shoulder and head.



Half of the peeled cassava is left in water to "ripen," and the other half is immediately grated (and then left to ripen... both portions are going to be mixed together in the end, and it all ends up grated, so I'm not understanding this step, but I'm sure there's a good reason for it).

In the community where this video was made, they have a machine for grating the cassava:





(Some cassava is also pounded. Again, not clear on how this figures in to the process. I thought I was understanding the Spanish fairly well, but I could have missed something.)
( strong arms )

The video also shows women making the sieves that will be used to strain the grated cassava, and also making the tipiti, a long, woven tube into which the grated cassava is packed.



Once the cassava's packed, the tipiti is hung from a tree and a heavy stick is inserted at the bottom of the tube. Then someone sits on it, and the tube contracts and the moisture is squeezed out of the mash!



The person speaking says if you don't want to sit on the stick, you can just use one that's very heavy that'll do the squeezing for you.

And beneath the cut you can see the mash coming out of the tipiti and being strained:

( three photos )

Next comes toasting it. You start early in the morning and go through into the afternoon, or even, if you want, to the following day:



"If there's no fish, there's fariña. What's important is to never lose the cultivation of cassava because in it is the people's way of life,” says one man.



( two photos of fariña in meals )

¡Gracias por acompañarme en esta história de fariña!

I really enjoyed the Netflix documentary A Última Floresta (The Last Forest), directed by Luiz Bolognesi and cowritten by him and Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, about the present-day situation of the Yanomami people in Amazonian Brazil and Venezuela. Davi Kopenawa Yanomami is a Yanomami activist who helped get a law passed to protect Yanomami land after gold mining predations in the 1980s led to a fifth of the population dying from mercury poisoning and other sicknesses. The presidency of Jair Bolsonaro has made their situation precarious again.

--But the documentary isn't heavy. It was made in consultation with Davi Kopenawa Yanomami's village; they got to decide what things they wanted to show, and one thing they chose was a reenactment of the coming together of the original ancestors of the Yanomami people. It was SO SWEET.

Originally there was just Omama and his brother, Yoasi--no women. Yoasi managed to copulate with his own leg and produce a baby, but with no mother to nurse it, the baby cried and cried. Omama went off to look for a woman. He tossed a fishing line in the water...



And out came Thuëyoma!



How surprised Omama was!



Thuëyoma gives him her best smile ^_^



They sit together in a hammock, chatting. "Do you have a boyfriend or husband in the water world?" Omama asks diffidently.



"I don't have a boyfriend or any suitors," she replies.

"How do you feel about that?" he asks.

"When I lived in the underwater forest, I felt alone until you found me," she says. "I was very happy when you fished me out."

--She looked happy, didn't she! And now he looks very happy too:







MOST SWEET ANCESTORS EVER.

I've been reading folktales from Amazonia. This beautiful picture book, The Great Snake: Stories from the Amazon, has block-print-style illustrations by Fernando Vilela, whom I now have the impression is Brazil's foremost illustrator, as he also illustrated a different Brazil-related picture book that Amazon (the company this time, not the region/river) recommended to me some time ago.




I love this image of manioc/cassava plants, how it's achieved by repeating the print.



But what I really love about this book is the care with which the storyteller, Sean Taylor, situates the stories. He explains his own journey up the river, who he's staying with, and who shared each story he's sharing. At the end of the book he says, "These are not the stories from the Amazon. They are just a handful of stories I have come across while traveling through a small part of the huge forest. I found some of them in books and heard others told by storytellers. I have rewritten them in my language and in my own way." (And in his notes he documents the provenance of each story more carefully--pretty good for a picture book.)

Along the way he also offers the sort of facts about the Amazon--the superlatives--that fill you with awe: "[The Amazon] contains one-fifth of all the fresh water on our planet. So much water floods out of the mouth of the River Amazon that it stains the Atlantic Ocean brown over a hundred miles out to sea." And this about the rain forest that surrounds it: "Scientists know more about the moon than they do about parts of the Amazon."

One day I hope to go there.

--Oh and the stories? Charming! There's a humorous one about a sloth. He takes so long climbing up a tree to collect the three not-yet-ripe fruits he's after that they ripen and fall to the ground:

"Oh for goodness sake!" puffed Three-Toed Sloth, looking at the three taperebá fruits lying on the ground. "If I hadn't come racing up here in such a mad rush, everything would have been all right."

(That story was told to the writer in Belém. He was visiting the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development, and one of the secretaries, Dona Maria, shared it).

The other stories are great too, featuring monsters, origin stories, dolphin shapeshifters, and more.

And I learned a great Portuguese phrase: Está chovendo canivetes--It's raining penknives.

I had other reading to report--some more trenchant quotes from The Souls of Black Fok, etc., but I'll save it for another week.