I Might Be Wrong

We spent the rest of the weekend at the town of Iporanga, near the Petar (Parque Estadual Tur

June 19-22 was a holiday weekend. On Thursday the 19th, Laurel, Raul, and I, along with Raul’s friends Tatiana and Pablo, loaded up his jeep and headed for the interior of Sao Paulo state. I was excited — it was my first journey of any significant distance away from the coast and the major cities.

It was a beautiful drive, as we headed into mountains covered by mata atlantica (Atlantic rainforest). We spent most of the day at Ivaporunduva, a Quilombo (”key-loam-bo”) community. The Quilombos are the descendants of escaped and freed slaves who founded their communities centuries ago. Here’s a shot of Ivaporunduva. The church in the photo is 250 years old:

“Quilombo_Village”

We rode in a small motor boat across the river. A group of a dozen or so Quilombos were hanging out and talking about the previous night’s futebol (soccer) match. They were happy to see Raul and chatted with him for a while.  A lot of my preconceptions about the Quilombos were immediately shattered. They dress and look like millions of other Afro-Brazilians. Their village has electricity, and I even saw several satellite dishes (note: these are all over Brazil in rural areas). In short, nothing overly exotic.

Raul’s a lawyer for Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), an NGO that addresses social and environmental issues jointly, viewing them as being inextricably linked. ISA is working on a project with the Quilombos to grow and sell organic bananas. The methods used help preserve mata atlantica. Organic bananas command a higher price than conventional bananas, and the Quilombos save money on pesticides (which one villager told me cost $20/liter). As I understand it, agriculture is one of the few activities the Quilombos in that region can perform due to environmental restrictions. Raul gave a class to representatives of various Quilombo communities about the types of legal association in Brazil (associations, foundations, cooperatives, corporations), describing which ones would be good for the Quilombos’ political activities and which for their economic activities.

The Quilombos I met were deeply savvy. We had a beer with a leader of the movement (aaargh! I’ve forgotten his name) opposing the building of a dam that could flood their valley. He’s been all over Brazil and abroad in pursuit of the cause. I hope he succeeds.

The big question I had was why so many people I’ve met in Brazil – people I deeply respect – express such admiration and support for the Quilombos. My best answer is community. Almost all of the people I spoke to in the village spoke of rising or falling together. I asked one guy, really smart, a little younger than me, why he stayed rather than head for the city. He replied that he knew there was no chance of making a lot of money in the village. But heading for a favela was like a lottery: a few people got jobs and did well, while the rest lived in squalor. He’d rather live with the community, grow with them, make his living with them. It was uncannily like Duncan Kennedy’s description in Law & Development of why urban slums exploded in developing countries: a 1 in 100 chance of making 1000 times the income made it a rational choice for many villagers to leave for industrializing cities. But looking around the village and comparing it to favelas I’ve seen, I think the Quilombos made the right choice.

I don’t want to over-romanticize their way of life. They are materially poor. There were buildings in the village made of bamboo and dried earth (though most were made of brick or cement blocks). The church had no pews, only loose desks and chairs. The school was literally one room. But their communities represent a centuries-old, self-sufficient alternative to the way most of Brazil’s poor live. A better alternative, in my view.

I’ll admit I’m biased. Ivaporunduva is the only place I’ve been where people actally like lawyers. I said “Oi” (hi) to a toddler, and her mother said, “Diga oi ao advogado” (say hi to the lawyer). Mostly due to the efforts of folks like Raul (whose class was excellent, btw).

Addendum (July 19, 2003): Ivaporunduva is more prosperous than Quilombo communities in less fertile parts of Brazil, where the villagers often don

Rose, a friend from law school who’s working in Brasilia this summer, came to visit in Rio. She, Laurel, and I went to the beach resort of Buzios for a couple of days. Buzios is sort of a combination of Cape Cod (a small peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic, the getaway for many folks in Rio) and South Beach (lots of expensive, posh boutiques and restaurants in downtown which only open at night). On Saturday, we walked to Praia Tartaruga (”Turtle Beach”), which Lonely Planet described as “quiet and pretty.” Oops:

“Praia_Tartaruga”

At high tide, the beach chairs were sitting in six inches of water.

But there were some big rocks on the far side, and when I climbed them, I came across a hidden strip of pink sand beach. Really beautiful. I also saw this:

“Tartaruga_Red_Stuff”

I initally assumed the red stuff was blood or some kind of dye. But it wasn’t. Waves didn’t wash it away. When I tried to grasp it, it tore with some resistance, almost like a membrane. If anyone has any idea what this could be, please comment below.

We found a cooler beach, Praia Brava, the next day. Great waves; there were a lot of kids with surfboards there. I also had an enormous lunch of fish, rice, beans, salad, and french fries. In Brazil, always ask whether the meal is for one or two.

Random observation: one-hour photo places in Brazil advertise “revela

I was working in Justi

Last weekend, we went with Raul and his friend/colleague Pilar to S

A couple of weekends ago, Laurel, her brother Asa, and I went to Ubatuba, a beach resort a few hours from Sao Paulo. Ubatuba is surrounded by dozens of beaches; we stayed at one called Fortaleza. We hiked for half an hour through forest to another beach which could only be reached by foot or by boat. Here’s a shot taken from the trail:

“Ubatuba”

Asa wanted to go to Fortaleza to boulder. Here he is:

“Asa_Bouldering”

I was in S

Today I went to Dave Winer’s Thursday meeting for bloggers. I asked a lot of “how to” questions; Dave was amazingly patient and answered all of them. Major props to Dave and Jake for the new features, especially the Wiki Blogroll Editor. Interesting discussion at the end about how weblogs might change Presidential campaigning, maybe as soon as this year.

The highlight of the evening was meeting Philip Greenspun, and his dog, Alex, authors of Philip and Alex’s Guide to Web Publishing. I read Philip’s book back in early 1999. It was the best “how to” book I’ve ever read about the Web. Philip has an ability few people possess: to put aside received wisdom (in this case, about how a website ought to be constructed) and think hard in order to reach his own conclusions about the matter at hand. As a result, he’s able to justify his conclusions eminently well. Few people in the late 90’s were out there making the case for using Tcl and AOLServer to build dynamic websites. Philip did, and to my mind, he did so convincingly.

By happy chance, Philip and I were sidetracked into the Legal Aid Bureau by my friend Susan, who wanted to play with Alex. From there, Philip, Dan (a 3L in Legal Aid), and I headed to Three Aces, and then down to the Legal Aid kitchen, where we talked about software company management, cycles in the computer industry, Ira Rennert, the impending ice age, dying of old age vs. cancer, and more that I shouldn’t forget.

Harvard Law School: where to go meet the computer programmers you’ve always wanted to meet.