Day Tres: A green sea of foliage

The men in Brasil like tocos, according to the veterinarian Antonio Messias Costa at the Museu Paraense Emilio Goelde, a zoobotanical park. Tocos, means butt. Why were talking about butts and boobs with this park vet is only a small glimpse of the fascination Brasilian men have for women — and not in the American sense. Not to say crimes against women don’t happen here, love and relationships seem much simpler than in the states, and they are much more respectful too. People even take not only the last name of their father, but of their mother, making it a two-word last name standard.

You also must kiss on both cheeks before saying goodbye, if you don’t, then you must not like this person and it is a sign of possible disgust. Hugs don’t happen that often, but personal boundaries in general are much closer here than in Estados Unidos. I like this cheek-kissing thing, except for when the old-man vet almost kissed me on the lips before I could turn my cheek just slightly before they landed. I wasn’t sure what to make of this, nor anyone else who saw. I think he enjoyed the fact that I am an anthropology major—who knows — but he likes tocos that is for sure.

The Amazon produces some of the most beautiful vegetation. At this conservatory-type museu (museum), where spider monkeys, jaguars (one of which had a very sad obsession with masturbating because of a human training it do so before the museu retrieved the abused animal) and a giant otter bask in the humid Amazonian air, amongst many other Amazon animalia.

The most impressive to me was the greenery. While only a small portion of the Amazon exists today because of deforestation and the biodiversity there decreases, at quick glance it seems 10 times more diverse than forests, say, in the Sierra-Nevadas. Maybe it is only because all of these plant species are new to my eyes and therefore it seems like a lot, but either way they beauty of the environment here is without words.

It is sad to say not much is done, or at least enforced/mandated to keep the Amazon’s allure intact. There is support in the northeastern part of Brazil, but as Messias Costa, outside of this area there is not a lot of support because many of the indigenous and impoverished families utilize the Amazon not only as resources but as economic stability. Because so many places are extremely hard to get to, it is hard to regulate what goes on there. How do you control a jungle?