So I guess this post won't technically be my last thoughts from Brazil, exactly, since I'm still spending almost a week on a boat in Brazil, but these are the last thoughts from Manaus.
Also, I want to say before I begin, that since I don't really know how easy it's to get across the border and how long it takes for me to find a boat onwards from the border and all that I'm not sure when my post next week will come out. Because I'm pretty sure there isn't wifi on the boat. So might be I'll write a post for Tuesday if I end up stopping at the border for a night, or maybe I'll post once I get all the way to Iquitos. I don't know yet. Either way, there will definitely be a post about my boat trip coming up some day next week. However, even if my post next week doesn't come out on Tuesday, you won't have to go a whole week without hearing from me. I've timed that extra post I promised to be posted on Saturday. So you'll get that then, at least.
I stayed in Manaus for quite exactly five months. Manaus is in the middle of a rain forest (until they chop the rain forest down, that is), quite (or very) isolated and far away from the rest of Brazil with any significant amount of people. So I was told many times that Manaus is really quite different from all other places in the country. Someone even went as far as to say that for a person from elsewhere in Brazil, going to Manaus is like going abroad. But I don't know. I haven't been elsewhere in Brazil. I don't have anything to compare to. Though I have to say, I'm still not a fan of the city. Outside the city it's really nice here (aside from the ticks). In the city it's hot and dusty and noisy and chaotic and people everywhere. Actually every single local who has commented on this has said the same thing: they don't really like the city either, but they do like the areas around the city.
So I don't mind leaving. I've actually felt for a couple of weeks that I'm starting to be pretty done with the city. Although in the last couple of days I've started to feel the weight of knowing this is the last time I'm eating at this restaurant. The last time I'm on the campus. The last time I'm going to the local grocery store. Because in the end, this was home to me for almost a half a year.
But still, I'm really starting to miss things.
I miss feeling safe. I'm not actively afraid of the city anymore, not after all this time, but I also never feel quite safe. A feeling that is apparently also shared with people who have moved here from other parts of Brazil. Because Finland is safe, very safe, compared to pretty much any place. I'm used to being able to walk a street alone in the dark with a laptop without being scared of getting robbed. I want to be in a place like that again.
I miss warmth. Ok, that sounds weird. Let me explain. So it's really warm here, and getting warmer. I think I said in some post that people keep telling me it'll get warmer as the year goes by, but that I don't notice it, because I'm used to a lot more extreme temperature changes. It turns out that's not true. I do notice it. But I notice it from much more subtle things. I notice it from the fact that there are more nights when I need to have my three-setting fan on two instead of one for it to not be too hot. I notice it from the fact that there are more evenings when I really feel like I need a shower. There are more mornings when I find myself thinking "ok, so I've literally only gotten out of bed and put on some pants, why am I already sweaty?" So the difference isn't much. But it's there. The other day I was sitting in a bus and we passed a thermometer by the road. It was completely cloudy at the moment, but the screen still said 34°C. So there's plenty of heat.
But warmth is different. (By the way, while thinking about this I realised that I love the fact that heat and warmth are separate words in English. Both Finnish and Portuguese only have one word to mean both.) Warmth is something that you never find here, because warmth, I have come to think, requires cold. It's the hot cup of tea or cocoa after biking home through snowy streets. It's being able to huddle inside in a thick blanket when it's cold and raining sleet outside. It's the wood-oven that's heated for cooking at Christmas.
As much as I hate the cold, I miss the warmth. I miss not being cold when it's cold outside. And once I realised this, I started to feel a little bit sorry for all the people who live close to the equator, because you all, you won't ever know warmth unless you leave the heat of the tropics. And warmth is one of the most wonderful things in the world.
And I miss Protu. For those of you who don't know what that is: we have this non-profit youth organization in Finland (and Sweden) that arranges summer camps for 14-15-16-year-olds. (Mostly. Though there are some camps every summer for anyone older than that too! Also in English and Swedish.) The point of the camps is to give the teenagers a safe space (this is very important) to think about themselves and their life and the world around them and how they fit into it, and how other people fit into it. Week-long camps, separated from the world, max 16 kids, with seven leaders and usually two cooks who make incredible food. And they are normally absolutely amazing. It turns out that giving teenagers the time and space to think and talk about the things that are on their minds makes a real difference in those people's lives.
I've been actively doing something in the organization ever since I went on one of those camps myself in 2010 (on one of the camps for people a bit older), so my time here has been the only time in eight years that I haven't been doing anything. (And then they went ahead and broke the record for most campers in a year without me!) And while at the end of last summer I really felt like I need a break from it, I already really miss it.
One thing we do on all of those camps is that everyone writes a note to everyone else, saying nice things about them. Because people don't tell people nice things about them nearly often enough. I've been on enough camps by now that I don't really get anything new in the notes people write to me anymore, but to the teenagers who get them for the first time they can be a really big deal. Also because I suppose teenagers often don't think too highly of themselves, so that's a great moment for other people to tell them how great they actually are.
Either way, while I was in the field it was a basically a camp. Not a Protu-camp. But a camp. The same people in the same area around the clock, doing things together, mostly isolated from the rest of the world. In the last few days of being out there in the field I noticed my mind started to automatically draft those notes with all the nice things to the people there, and I had to tell myself that no, I'm not in Protu now. I entertained the idea of writing notes to people anyway. I didn't. Maybe I should have.
Despite all this missing, it's been worth it, though. Of course it has. Mom asked me on skype a couple of weeks ago whether it was worth it, and all I could say was that in general, it's always worth going. Because there's literally no way to be in the tropics in Finland. Sure, the Mediterranean area is warm enough and quite close, but that's not really comparable in anything other than temperature. Because there are simply so many things living here. (Until they hack down half of the forest by 2050, that is. I'm not kidding. According to one of our professors, the business-as-usual scenario is that almost half of the forest will be cut down by 2050. Because they want to grow soy and cows instead of having the largest and most biodiverse forest in the world.)
Although let's be honest, I don't really know the things that live here any better than I did. For example, when it comes to trees, I can still only separate between "palm tree" and "not palm tree", which I didn't actually get right every time when I had just gotten here. And I guess I recognise a handful of the palms as "I think I've seen this one before". But honestly, that's about it.
And I've learned to almost speak Portuguese, which was my only goal aside from "see a rain forest" when I decided to come here. So I guess that went well.
I'm also going to miss all the fruits so much. Because tropical fruits are the best thing. When I get back to Finland in mid-August, everywhere is just going to be filled with apples. No more biribás or guavas or cupuaçu, or even fresh mangoes or pineapples that are actually ripe enough to eat.
I feel like I should say something more, but I can't find anything more to say. These are the things I'm thinking right now. I know this post is missing all the "I've learned so much" and "the people are amazing" and "this was the best decision of my life" that it seems to me a post like this should have. But that's not what I'm thinking. I've learned things, but I learn things in classes in Finland all the time too, though those things are different. I'm not much of a people person. I think going to Australia five years ago was a better decision than this one. Which is not to say this wasn't a good one, it's just that I really love Australia. I felt more at home there, in a way I never felt at home here.
I've really liked being here. I'm ready to leave.
~matu
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