Opinion – Josimar Melo: The sound of the land

“The Solimões River begins to rise.”

“Rio Negro, which was at its lowest level in 17 years, appears to start flooding.”

The presenter of the TV newspaper continues talking. And I listen to this news, mesmerized and amazed to hear such close comments about the movement of nature.

Today is Tuesday, the afternoon of the 1st of November, and I am at the hotel in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas. It was not to hear this that I turned on the TV, but to follow the events after the recent elections.

In Brasília, the miscreant (and future inmate) Bolsonaro was still crying in the bathroom, without saying anything about the victory of democracy that decided to expel him from office. On the country’s roads, truck drivers lobotomized by fascist gangs interrupted traffic screaming for a military coup.

But, in the middle of the zapping, where I really stopped was at a local station, fascinated by news from the Amazon. While reporters commented on the phenomenon, the vignette, fixed at the bottom of the screen, announced: “End of the ebb? Rio Negro rose 20 cm in seven days”.

I’m just for two days in Manaus, in the urban region. But I have been countless times in the Amazon rainforest and in several countries. I have even atavistic reasons to be enchanted by the forest.

But in São Paulo, where I live, we speak of nature as something distant in time and space, unless it is hit directly by its fury, as in floods.

My fascination with TV today comes from this proximity of natural phenomena to everyday life, to the point of being on the evening news.

Yesterday, I had a conversation that to a paulistano would seem from another world. I came to Manaus to present an event on the Sabor & Arte channel that praises the work of small food producers.

Some were there; among them José Albino, who produces the unique manioc flour from Uarini. He had just returned from a journey of 570 kilometers (in a straight line), which, in the absence of roads, was made by water, over the course of 15 hours.

It took two hours by speedboat from Uarini, which is east of Manaus, to Tefé. And then another 13 hours by boat to get here. The journey time varies with the time of year: in times of flood, it is possible to take a more direct route; in the ebb, it is necessary to make detours to avoid drier areas, delaying the journey.

Therefore, once again the flood or the ebb interfere in the daily life, including those who are in the cities or on their way.

One of life’s great experiences (for locals and urbanites) is taking trips like this one by the producer from Uarini. Staying for hours in the middle of the woods, engine off, listening to the sounds of the earth, a melody that brings the peace of the moment and the encouragement that there may be a future.

And then, enter the refreshing river and listen to the murmur of the waves that move away on the surface as the body is welcomed by the waters.

The thieves who in the last four years have opened the herd to their accomplices who destroy this nature certainly prefer the noise of chainsaws, mining picks and the crackle of criminal fires.

I, on the other hand, always get emotional and vibrate every time I live or see this Amazonian national strength. Maybe even because of my origins.

I was born in the northeast, to a father from the northeast, I grew up in the southeast (first in Rio, and almost always in São Paulo); but another half of my blood came from the Amazon. My mother was not born in an Amazon city, nor on the banks of a river in the region — she was born in the middle of the river: on a boat that sailed along the Abunã River, a tributary of the Madeira, which feeds the Amazon.

It is impossible not to revere this land and these waters, nor to tolerate the bandits who destroy it.