My home-base during this trip has been my grandmother´s house in São Paulo. My "Obatian" (japanese for grandmum) has been living in the same house for over 50 years. She´s now 82 (and of enviable health), but is planning to sell the place before the year is out. Despite being very independent still, it´s probably time for someone to keep a closer eye on her. She´s planning to live with one of her daughters in São Paulo. This means "Obatian´s house" might not be hers any longer on my next visit to Brazil - a sad thought for sure. Having moved around so much myself, it was nice to have a place that was always there, and relatively unchanged. A little bit of familiarity and permanence.

Whenever I´m there, I like digging up old photographs. Black and white ones of japanese ancestors. Baby photos of me and all the other grandchildren. My grandparents when they were young and handsome.


Then and now. Photos on the stairway.




My mom and grandmother. Not sure what year. Is it just me or are they two beauties?


March 2009. My grandmother and I. She´s still so cute!

Of Mangroves and Men

"Vocation is the place where your deepest joy meets the world’s deepest need”. (Friedrich Buechner)

Early March found me in the state of Bahia, in the northeast of Brazil - a region known for capoeira, typical seafood dishes, music, and amazing coastline. I went to visit some relatives there, to enjoy the beaches, and to visit another NGO working on marine and coastal issues in the southern part of the state.

I spent two short, but very intense days in Caravelas -- a little town in the midst of a relatively preserved mangrove area. The town still has much of the colonial architecture, and was one of the first to be founded when the portuguese "discovered" Brazil. It is the departure point for tourists who want to visit the Abrolhos Archipelago, the largest coral reefs off the brazilian coastline. Unfortunately, apart from some tourism (that to a large extent doesn´t benefit locals) there isn´t much else in the area other than fishing.

I visited Caravelas with an great-uncle who has been fishing there for the last 30 years. The last few he´s been going out with a local, "seu Raimundo". We stayed with seu Raimundo, his wife and two young adult children. They are very simple people who haven´t had access to much formal education, and are scraping by with a bit of fishing, since Raimundo has been unemployed for several months. It never ceases to amaze me how people who have so little are often the most hospitable. Their little house was spotless, their food delicious, their joy in having you in their home very genuine. They´re not complainers, or lamenting their situation, though they admit that things are tough.

We woke up before sunrise to go out fishing in the river (and in the midst of the mangrove) that goes out to sea . Fishing was not super successful - acording to my uncle and Raimundo, there are still days when they catch a good amount. Still, any fishermen will tell you there´s no comparison with what they use to catch a few decades ago. Stories about the area´s resources being exploited abound... Even while we were out, we caught some small fish that I thought should be returned, but the scarcity of the resource makes them hesitant to throw anything back.

It was very cool to have gone out to the mangroves, to have met Raimundo and his family. At the end of the trip I felt a little world-weary though, thinking what the Caravelas region will look like in another 30 years and what the locals (who are just squeaking by as it is) will do when the resources are even more spent. Man, there´s so much work to be done!

360 degrees of the mangrove

Praia da Barra

Fishing for shrimp. Had a chat with him after and a look at what he had caught.

Sunrise out on the "channel".

I "caught" this one, the biggest of the day. I spotted him floating stomach up. He was still alive, but had swallowed a fish too large to get down his throat and was choking. Made for an excellent fishing story!

The mangrove.