RIO BRANCO SUNDAY AT THE BEACH

In fact, Rio Branco doesn't really have a beach except during high water times when the Acre River overflows. Many folks are still displaced from the low-lying neighborhoods but for most  the high water transformed the central district into a festive Sunday at the beach.

HIGH WATER IN RIO BRANCO



[UPDATE - 14 April: Rio Branco's leading blogger Altino Machado gives an update as high water continues to displace families and Federal University professor Ecio Rodrigues notes that deforestation and the occupation of stream banks have made the situation worse.]

Following a below-average-rainfall March, April has come to Acre with the proverbial buckets of rain resulting in a very swollen Rio Acre and an emergency situation for the families living in low-lying areas.

So far about 250 families have been displaced and are receiving emergency shelter and support.

[UPDATE 13 April 2011: This morning the local media are reporting that the flooding is more widespread -- 11 neighborhoods in the city and 13 rural communities have been impacted and emergency measures are being mobilized to house, feed and care for the displaced.]





The water has risen toward the height of the bridge roadways but is not a present threat to them.



Boats have been towing the floating debris away from the bridge supports.





No one is sure how much more the river will rise so folks have been checking out the scene.






Let's hope that it all gets back to normal levels soon.

REALITY CHECK

Fuel prices per liter - Rio Branco AC Brazil - 10 April 2011

As the the wars in the Middle East cause a spike in global oil prices, gas is hovering around $4 per gallon in my old Oregon homeland. The news reports that this will slow economic "recovery" in the States. It's interesting to see how it looks from Rio Branco, the capital city of Acre state, Brazil.

Brazil has a global reputation for being self-sufficient in providing transportation fuel. This is achieved in part by regulated prices set by the national oil company Petrobras plus regional variations due to transport costs. Yesterday, the price for gasoline in Rio Branco was approximately $7.60 per gallon in a state where the per capital income (including the rural poor) is less than 15% of what it is in Oregon. In sum, it is very expensive to run a car in Acre -- about twice as much as in much richer Oregon.

Inexpensive fuel is essential to a higher standard-of-living in Oregon. To maintain the habitual levels of US consumption, wars have to be fought in places like the Middle East. Brazil doesn't have it so good materialistically and it thinks that it's wrong to intervene with bombs and missiles in faraway places.

Economic development is not inexpensive. It is always paid for somehow and somewhere.

FELIZ NATAL DO RIO BRANCO

Nightlights and colors for Christmas in Rio Branco



Christmas colors in the market

It has been said that in Rio Branco color expresses the people's will for happiness.

So let's make merry.

Boas festas para todos.

Big hugs, too.

CHICO MENDES LIVES!

On this day, 22 years ago, Chico Mendes was gunned down by ranchers who were enraged by his activism on behalf of protecting the forest and the people of Acre.

Several years ago Brazil's leading TV network O Globo presented a 55-episode mini-series that chronicled the development of Acre entitled "Amazônia: From Galvez to Chico Mendes". The story built from the earliest days of the rubber boom to the emergence of the Peoples of the Forest Movement.

During the 1980s Chico Mendes struggled relentlessly and with great courage as his comrades were harassed and killed. His leadership came to be recognized far from Acre and the Brazilian Federal Government began to respond by taking some of the land out of the hands of the ranchers and placing it into protected reserves. Understanding the threat that he had become, he gave a speech in Rio de Janeiro predicting his murder. Despite the warnings and premonitions, he returned to Acre saying:

"I do not want flowers in my burial, because I know that they are to be pulled out of the forest! I only want that my murder serves to end the impunity of the killers in Acre who, under the protection of the police force of 75, have already killed 50 people like me, seringueiro leaders, pledged to defending the Amazonian Forest and making of it an example that it is possible to progress without destroying. I go to Xapuri to the meeting with death."

And that is what happened on 22 December 1988, soon after he arrived home to be reunited with his family. At his funeral his comrades carried his coffin through the country-side reciting the prayer of the rubber-tapper which is a version of the familiar "Our Father" or Lord's Prayer:

Rubber tree who art in the jungle
Multiplied be your days
Let your milk come to us
To be made into our rubber
As well in the press as in the crate
For the support of our families
Today and for all the days
Forgive us our ingratitude
Our anger as we confront
The evil things of the boss
Help us to free ourselves
From the spikes of the shark

At the end the TV documentary Amazônia, a very beautiful song is sung. Its lyrics say:

And this sun that shines so bright
Over the forests I come with love
Filling the chests of each Acreano
With nobility, constancy and value
Invincible and giants at wars
Let's imitate the unmatchable example
Of the great river that struggles with earth
Wins and enters the sea (still) fighting
I was a star of our flag

The light of that star that was and is Chico Mendes lives on. It is celebrated in many ways -- in public monuments, in street names and, most importantly, in Acre State programs seeking to realize sustainable development.

Spiritual traditions such as the Santo Daime musical doctrine (explained here and here) continue to deliver messages from the spirit world about the mission of Chico Mendes. Here is a hymn received by Solon Brito who is a son of Master Counselor and Santo Daime Storyteller Luiz Mendes.




The hymn says:

GOOD NEWS

Here he comes, here he comes
here he comes, there he is coming
Slowly approaching
And following our Master

Chico rei, Chico rei
Chico rei has arrived
Chico rei here on earth
He was a martyr and made history

Chico rei, Chico rei
You are here with joy
Chico rei here on earth
He is the patron of ecology

Let's all my brothers
Believe the good news
What is bad within itself destroys itself
What is good is always renewing

This is the new time
The new announcement
Of Divine Holy Spirit
Queen of the Forest
Be warned my brothers

This is the new time
Of the plant world
Be warned my brothers
And deliver us from all evil

This is the new time
Of the plant world
I say goodbye to my brothers
My name is IAOP
In the spiritual life

It has been said and is said
The Santo Daime in everything adds up
Long live the new era
And the mystery of the Amazon
This and the new era

Let's change the consciousness
This is serious
The warning singing
Now is science

CHICO MENDES VIVE!

VIVA! CHICO REI VIVA!

RIO BRANCO: A GRINGO'S VIEW

(Stormy Colors)

Riding the bus home into a darkened sky from an approaching storm, the sun behind me lit the colors brilliantly.

RIO BRANCO: A GRINGO'S VIEW
(Colors that are worn.)






I'll add more from time to time.

RIO BRANCO: A GRINGO'S VIEW

(Graffiti and Wall Art)

Note: This collection evolves as I add to it from time to time.

RIO BRANCO: A GRINGO'S VIEW

("Dirty" Colors)

"Eternity is in love with the productions of time"
-- William Blake


There's a very special patina that is the product of time, weather and the dance of the elements.

10-10-10 WORK PARTY  in 
RIO BRANCO AC, BRAZIL 
and BEYOND

On October 10, 2010 people at more than 7347 events in 188 countries got to work to take on the climate crisis. Here's how the days events unfolded at Uninorte City University in Rio Branco AC, Brazil.

Vera Reis welcomed a group of about 75 people who turned up early on a Sunday morning. Vera and the students in her environmental studies class, conceived and organized the day's events.





Federal University of Acre ecology professor and Woods Hole Research Center scientist Foster Brown made an eloquent plea for citizen action to counter the trends in global warming, saying the time is running out.


 

After reviewing the current scientific understanding of climate change, he spoke of the 350.org movement and how it is making the abstractions of science and the invisible workings of the atmosphere visible to people around the world.




The audience watched with concern, wondering what might be done to alter the dangerous trajectory that humans have been taking on earth. How might real change begin? Here?



 
Foster told the inspiring story of Acre's own Frei Heitor who once imagined:

Imagine, he said, that he and Father Andre, another Italian missionary, convinced each other how to live in harmony with the earth and with each other. On the next day, Friar Heitor and Father Andre convinced two others. On the third day the four of them convinced four more, and so on for subsequent days. How many days would it take to convince the world’s population to live in harmony? Friar Heitor worked out this calculation during a canoe trip up the Acre River in April.

“Thirty-three days!” He exclaimed, banging his fist on my knee. “We can change the world, in a month, if we want to!”

Everyone headed outside to create a human 350 icon and show off the tree seedlings that they intend to plant, a performance leading to action.




Then Flavio Encarnação told the story of the fertile Amazon soils called Terra Preta de Índios and how modern day pyrolysis could make biochar from agricultural or organic wastes and be used to sequester carbon in the soil and increase plant productivity, offering partial solutions for both global warming and hunger.



Which led to further conversations with Marta about the possibility that biochar might be used to restore a forest on degraded land adjacent to the Chico Mendes Park, right here in Rio Branco.



 
And so it goes. First there's a good idea like the 350.org movement or the International Biochar Initiative. Then a conversation gets started. And then comes local action. It might not happen in the 33 days of Frei Heitor but surely this is how the world can be changed.

Here are some early highlights of how it is starting to happen around the world.



 
Many thanks to Vera, Foster, Flavio and all the other volunteers who made 10/10/10 DIA GLOBAL DE SOLUÇÕES CLIMÁTICS in Rio Branco a most successful day.