Well, they finally did it, they got me to Come to Brazil! That’s what I’m doing right now, I’m en route with four more hours to go until Sao Paolo and another six after that (~3 hr layover and ~3 hr flight) to Cuiabá, my first destination. This plane doesn’t have wifi, which I think might be normal for international flights actually but still feels like a sin. And because I very stupidly overslept and forgot to download my work files to my laptop before takeoff, I’m running out of things to do. I just watched the Harry Styles vehicle My Policeman so you know it’s getting desperate over here (by the way - never has so much gay sex been so boring. The man doesn’t have the juice.) So here we go with this blog.

I do have a slightly better sense of my schedule now which is good. Tuesday through Thursday of this week I’ll be in the ZCC (zero-conversion commodities) team retreat. That means there will be about 30 of us from all around the world working on this work stream meeting and discussing team goals and strategy. Zero-conversion is the same thing as zero-deforestation except it includes non-forested biomes (such as the Cerrado grassland where I’ll be this week) and commodities means what it sounds like - beef, soy, palm oil, cacao, etc. Most of the team is based in South America, though we also have some colleagues in China and Europe who are working on international trade policy. I think I might be the only person coming from North America, though I do have other teammates based there who support this work.

After Thursday, I will be traveling every day or so to bounce around the states of Mato Grosso and and Pará checking out different projects. None of these names mean anything to me yet, but I’ll list them anyway in case you want to know where I am at any given time:

• Mon 9/25 - Wed 9/27 - Cuiabá

• Thurs 9/28 - Sat 9/30 - Rondonópolis

• Sun 10/1 - back in Cuiabá

• Mon 10/2 - Marabá

• Tues 10/3 - Tucumã

• Wed 10/4 - São Félix do Xingu

• Thurs 10/5 - back in Marabá

• Fri 10/6 - Sat 10/7 - Altamira

• Sun 10/8 - Mon 10/9 - Belém

• Tues 10/10 - Home to Boston! I’m getting in at like 8am and will be taking the day off and crawling right back into bed when I get home.

The last few days are still a little unclear to me - I’m not 100% sure how many days we’ll be in Altamira before we go to Belém (which is the main city in Pará). But I assume at least 2. I’ll update as I learn more. 

The field trips really run the gamut, and I think there are some meetings in there as well. It’ll mostly be visits to farms practicing regenerative techniques, but those last few days in Altamira will be part of our IPLC (indigenous peoples and local communities) workstream, which I’m excited and a bit nervous about. When I was in Ecuador I went on a few trips to visit indigenous communities and was worried I was somehow putting them out with my presence. I have a hard time carrying the weight of colonialism with me in these places (I mean, who doesn’t?) I just don’t want anyone to feel like they have to host me and show me a good time if they don’t want to, and I don’t want to participate in exotic peoples tourism either. I have no reason to believe this trip will be like that, but I really hope it’s not.

Something else that’s really wild about this trip is that I happen to be in Belém during one of the biggest religious celebrations in the country. It looks just that - wild. It’s called Círio de Nazaré and seems to be a combo celebration of the Virgin Mary and Amazonian culture. Sign me up. More info can be found here if you’re interested.

I do wish my Portuguese was stronger going into this trip. Duolingo seems to think I’m doing alright but I’ll have to respectfully disagree with Big Owl.  I sort of understand the grammar and am leaning some rules, but my accent is absolutely atrocious. I know that the accent is different from Spanish, but not in a way I can identify or replicate. I am glad that there will be some Spanish speakers at this retreat, so I’ll have a chance to show I’m not totally pathetic when it comes to language. Just mostly.

It’s my goal to update this blog daily and include photos, two things that I’m historically quite bad at. I NEVER think to take photos no matter what’s happening and I think I’ll remember everything that happened without writing it down. And in that moment I’m conveniently not remembering how terrible my memory is in those moments. So I would like to do that during this trip for a change, though it depends on wifi availability. I know for sure I’ll have wifi the first week, it’s just the second week that’s unclear. Fingers crossed that they’ll at least have air conditioning the second week, because that’s unclear as well. Both Sundays (10/1 and 10/8) I’ll have a good amount of down time, so I should be able to update at least then, as well as grab a nap.

That’s all for now!