快猫短视频

Miguel Rocha was brought up in the Amazonian forest but went to school in Manaus, the only one of 19 brothers and sisters to get an education. He worked in business and became an expert in speedboat motors before turning to eco-tourism. In the mid-1990s he set up a charitable foundation in Novo Air茫o, near Manaus, to help rural caboclos get education and work. He lives in Manaus but, he says, his heart is with the forest

Tell me about your caboclo roots? Where did your family come from?

My grandfather crossed the Atlantic from Portugal in the 1880s and settled down as a farmer in Pernambuco state in the north-east of Brazil, the nearest point to Africa. My father was born there in 1889. He had very white skin, a typical European descendant. My grandmother was a native American Indian.

How did they end up in the Amazon?

Near the end of the 19th century there were many years of drought. It killed trees, animals and people. My grandfather lost his cattle and his crops. My grandmother died. Desperate, my grandfather decided to move to the unknown Amazon. He was attracted by the rubber boom. He left his only daughter Julia at the monastery in Olinda, and with his three boys Jos茅, Jo茫o and Malaquias, my father, he crossed the desert by foot to catch a boat from Fortaleza to Bel茅m and then to Manaus. They had to cross the desert on foot because the drought had sapped the horses of their energy. When they reached Manaus, the Portuguese Society helped him to settle down in the middle Solim玫es river region as a seringalista 鈥� the boss of a group of rubber tappers.

But then my grandfather shot a man who was locally important. He thought he had killed him and was frightened of the police. So he went by canoe 100 kilometres to Manaus, hiding in the forest by day and paddling at night. Then he returned to Portugal. He never came back. His sons were abandoned in the forest. They had to learn how to survive in the jungle and they became seringueiros, rubber tappers, themselves. My father, who was the youngest of the three, met my mother, Almerinda, in Coari. She was a cabocla, but she was almost pure Indian. They got married when they were very young. They lived as seringueiros and had their own crops and a few animals.

What is a caboclo, and how are they different from indigenous Amerindians?

A caboclo has mixed white and Indian ancestry. They traditionally live in the forest, but in small clusters rather than in tribal groups like Amerindians. My parents were both caboclos, and they had a hard life. Like the caboclos who live in the forest today, they got their food by collecting fruits from the forest or by catching fish or harvesting their crops. They grew cassava, sweet potatoes, bananas, plantain and papaya. They also hunted for forest mammals such as peccary, tapir, monkey and agouti. They lived in remote areas of the jungle with no communications, no health assistance, no access to education. My father had to deliver his own children 鈥� he had 19 鈥� and teach them to read and write. He himself had only a few months鈥� schooling, but he read everything about medicine and became doctor to his family and his neighbours. My mother could not read or write.

Why are you campaigning for caboclo rights?

The tragedy is that we have nobody to defend our rights. The Indians have many people and organisations helping them, and they are allowed to use the forest as they want. But us caboclos are not permitted to cut down a tree or to hunt and we can fish only in certain areas. We are left in the middle. Nobody cares about us. A monkey or a turtle seems to have more rights than a caboclo. Both animals and Indians are very well protected by law, but the caboclos only get noticed at election time.

Ironically, I believe almost everyone in the Amazon is a caboclo 鈥� their ancestry is some kind of a mixture of Indians and whites. But no one likes the label. It offends them. They feel that caboclo is somehow lower in standing to Indian or European.

Do the discrimination and lack of rights make it hard to live in the forest?

Many caboclos have been forced out. They were taken from the national parks and moved to the city. Many of them had never experienced a city before. I feel very upset about the way they were treated. When you release, say, a captive monkey into the wild, you expose it over time, let it get used to its new life, its possibilities, its dangers. But the caboclos who were moved from the national parks were treated worse than this and were never given an opportunity to learn about the city before being forced to live there.

鈥淭he caboclos who were forced to move to the city were treated worse than captive monkeys released into the wild鈥�

In the city you need money for everything and they are not used to this. To earn money they must work, but what can they do? The children mostly hang around in the street instead of going to school and the girls get into prostitution. Can you imagine how difficult it is for a father to eat bread that he knows has been bought with money his daughter earned from spending time with somebody? It would be very difficult to swallow this piece of bread.

What was your childhood like?

I was born in the jungle. I feel blessed to have been born in the jungle. My childhood was full of richness and good experiences. My backyard was the rainforest. My front garden was Manaquiri lake with fields of grass floating on the water and waving when the wind was blowing. I could listen to the birds during the daytime and the howler monkeys and owls at night. The earth, the jungle and the river provided us with everything we could need. I didn鈥檛 know what richness or poverty were. I knew nothing else beyond the forest. Today I know we were rich because we had more than we needed and so could give to others.

Why did you move to the city?

My parents wanted me to get an education. A cousin who was living in Manaus offered to bring me to the city and help me get into a school. That was 1948. I travelled there in a very small and primitive steamboat.

What were your first impressions?

Manaus at that time had only about 60,000 inhabitants, but for me it was the biggest city in the world. It was very shocking. However, I was very impressed with the ice cream my cousin bought for me. After all these years I can still remember that taste. I鈥檇 had nothing like it before. The electric street cars also caught my attention. Riding on them was an amazing adventure, and they travelled at 30 kilometres per hour, which seemed incredible.

What did you do when you left school?

First, I did military service. Then I worked in several companies as a salesman and then at the Bank of London and South America. Then I became an expert in outboard and marine engines for speedboats. In 1981 I started in the tourism business. It was the way I found to be closer to nature and share the beauty of my country with people from all over the world. Eco-tourism is a good way of improving the quality of life for people living along the rivers here.

Tell me about the foundation you run for helping caboclos.

Rural people will not care about looking after the forest if they do not have enough resources to sustain themselves. If you have to choose between letting your children starve and cutting down a tree to sell the wood, there is no contest. So it is necessary to do something to help these people for their sake and for the sake of the forest.

I had the idea for the foundation while I was on one of my tourist trips. I met a caboclo who used to work as a guide for me. It was June or July and it was very cold. He was wearing three T-shirts, one over the other, and each one had many holes. I was looking at this poor guy and thinking, 鈥淏razil is not a rich country, but this is not right. No one should suffer this.鈥� I started the foundation and based it in Novo Air茫o, a small town close to Manaus. Many caboclo people come to work with us there. The foundation officially opened in January 2000. It is called the Almerinda Malaquias Foundation, after my parents, who spent most of their lives helping others in the countryside.

鈥淚f you have to choose between letting your children starve and cutting down a tree to sell the wood there is no contest鈥�

What kind of projects do you run for them?

We are teaching them to turn driftwood, dead trees and wood scraps from the local logging industry into handicrafts. Our products are sold in 32 countries as souvenirs of the best quality. This has significantly contributed to the quality of life of those people who would otherwise be out on the streets or destroying the forest. Our newest project is teaching 14 people to make good-quality furniture. We have a well at the foundation from which we distribute free water for those who cannot afford piped water. We teach basic healthcare, mathematics, design and geometry as well as the need to care for the environment. Another important project is monitoring the manatees in the Anavilhanas Archipelago with the non-governmental group Instituto de Pesquisa Ecologicas (Institute for Ecological Research) and the local government environmental protection board. One of our friends has offered a two-seat airplane for that purpose.

Where does the money come from?

We get grants from the Swiss government and from the Association Ailleurs Aussi in Villeneuve, Switzerland, that receives money from private organisations and from many charitable people. Our budget for the next 12 months is $92,000. Unfortunately we get no help from the Brazilian government. The land where our foundation is based, which is 150 metres by 55 metres, is the only donation we got from the county of Novo Air茫o. I also use my own money and we reinvest the money from the handicrafts projects. We need to find new supporters so we can expand our work.

Have you had any failures?

Yes. I have fallen many times. Many times I got up again. I never gave up. I understood that poverty was the worst punishment that someone could get simply for having been born of poor parents who had no chance to choose their course in life. There is no vaccine for poverty. But I don鈥檛 believe we have to cross our arms and wait. Instead we can go to school and work hard to change things.

What happened to your brothers and sisters? Do they still live as caboclos?

My brothers did not have access to good schools but my father taught them to read and write. Today we are only four sisters and three brothers, all living in Manaus. My children went to good schools. One is a geographer, the other a lawyer. Some of my brothers鈥� children also went to university and are now in North America, Germany, Switzerland, France, Colombia and South Korea, as well as Brazil.

What are your plans for the future?

I want to slow down in the tourism business and get more involved with the foundation. I am sure it will be a rewarding experience. Today we have many candidates applying for training. I plan to look for more funds. That is a big project. I think my mother would be very happy to know that I was giving other children opportunities that they otherwise would not have. My parents worked so hard to get me a little money. I am paying them back now.