First there was a boat. Then there was a bus. Then? “We walk the rest of the way.” Today consisted of the sunrise at Port Arapari, a breakfast of fantastic potato bread and coconut cookies and a hike through the rainforest to the Asmume school at Moju. Moju is the native Amazonian word for the River of Cobras. One woman we talked to told us about cobras that ate entire cows. Needless to say we all stood closer together after that.
EIC-Asmume has six computers, and educators teach Excel, Word, and Microsoft Access. However, the mission of the school is to teach the students about pride and hope. Having computer skills and a connection to the rest of the world through the Internet helps the students to feel as if they are still a part of the world. The government of Brazil has many programs to provide money for the people so they can buy food and clothes. However, there is no future in a program such as this, according to Rosileia, the Secretary of Health of Moju and the CDI-Asmume Coordinator. She says the people are not hungry, but they have no chance to better themselves. She tells us that merely surviving through depending on the government is not an existence that anyone wants to live. As part of the municipality’s local government, Rosileia hopes to change the prospects for her people.
Elielson Sebastian de Moraes Goucalies went through the CDI school at Asmume. He has a great passion for graphic design, however, he had to drop out of high school after finishing his CDI class in order to work with his mother. He still volunteers to teach at the school as much as he can, but work requires most of his time.
He helps his mother cook in a restaurant each morning and delivers food by bicycle in the afternoon. His CDI course had a focus on recycling and separating trash, and, thus, Elielson puts all the restaurant garbage into the appropriate receptacle. As part of the recycling and sustainability course at CDI, Elielson and his classmates visited a cooperative in the Amazon Valley near their village where they learned about alternative means of recycling.
The beauty of the CDI class, Elielson told us, is that it adapted to his passion. He was encouraged to pursue graphic design any way he could. He was able to stay after class and come in on weekends to do further research. He hopes one day to attend the university in Belém to get a degree in graphic design, but it is a hard dream to have because the potential to fulfill it is so little. For now, he is proud to have computer skills and knowledge about recycling to spread to his community. Food only fills a small part of the hunger that he and his neighbors have. They are hungry for employment and opportunity. CDI has better equipped him to understand that hunger. It is not one that can be easily satisfied, but it instead grows the more he learns.
Rosileia told us that Dengue mosquitoes can only fly a meter and a half high. I’m glad I wore jeans and Dri-Fit soccer socks for extra protection. I’m keeping my eyes out for cobras, though, and am hoping that if it comes down to a foot race I will win.
-Dani