The Essence of Beans and Rice

Wow.
I have been here for... what, just over a week?... and already it feels like a lifetime. Everyday is filled with so many activities, reading, writing, hiking, lectures, tracking, journaling, eating, cooking, hanging out... Everyday is filled with so much! Where do I even begin to tell you? Let me try to describe just a single day...

I wake up in the morning sometime between 7-7:30 am in the bunkhouse and climb out from under my cozy blankets into the crisp and chilly air. Stepping out to go to the bathroom, I can see a heavy mist, so that I can only see about 4 meters around me. Showers here tend to be of the hot/cold/hot/cold/warm/cold variety so I am wide awake when I am finished. After dressing I step out for some quiet time on our balcony and watch the scene around me unfold. First I can see the peaks around me slowly emerge, like a tall fortress. Then the lower mountains peak out and now I feel like we are living on a floating mountain, disconnected to the land and totally inside a cloud. Slowly... slowly the farthest most peaks emerge, and I can see straight into the valley, then look past to the sharpest and tallest mountain in the distance that forms the boundary of my sight. The sharp contrast it makes with the sky is so vastly different from the rolling horizon I am used to in the midwest...

The birds are singing, and I can see all different colored hummingbirds flying about. That is right- we are staying on Montanha Beja-Flor, Hummingbird Mountain! I have also seen several toucans calling abnoxiously in the canopy. The main house is run by our host, Layla, the kindest and most loving woman I have ever met. Her and her friend cook fresh, amazing meals for us; most of which is grown right on her property. We eat a variety of beans, rice, manioc, squash, pumpkin, salad, eggplant, zuccini, palmito,cuscus, and home-made bread and coffee cakes every day. Coffee and fresh juice abounds on the table.

During the day we listen to lectures on the Atlantic Coastal Rainforst (where we are) and learn about the mammals, birds, amphibians and plants that are present. The saddest thing I have learned and continue to learn here, is how quickly this ecosystem has dissapeard. This area once had more biodiversity than the rainforst (!!!!!) but has been reduced to only 7% of its original size. Looking at the beauty that is always around me here, it is hard to imagine it being gone. But someday it might. No better wake up call has ever happened to me- opening my eyes to the horrible consumerism and want that makes up society. The wonderfully simple way of life we live here is so happy and joyful.... Late at night we dance and talk together, learning portuguese and samba and reading to the baby that is visiting with Laylas neice. There is absolutely so much to say but no time- literally, I have to leave RIGHT NOW.

If you can take away anything from this right now though- let it be this. Want a little less, use a little less, and be happier with what you have. It is so much more than what you actually need.


all my love from Brasil