My Father's Archives #12

At the age of six the happiest years of my childhood ended as I was sent to a boarding school for missionary kids in Belém, the capital of the state of Pará in the Amazon region, a city about 1500 miles from where my parents lived and worked (I have written a little bit about that experience here). The contrast between the two regions could not have been bigger. It was like moving to another country.
Whereas the Sertão was very dry and the lack of water represented the biggest threat to life, there was an excess of water in the Amazon region. Daily rainfalls combined with very high humidity and temperatures of 27 - 32ºC year round provided perfect conditions for lush and abundant nature. Everything was green. Everything grew at incredible speed. Even in a city as big as Belém the diversity of animals was something that fascinated me as a child. 
Yet, as a six year old, a felt much more threatened by nature in the Amazon than in the Sertão. Death was everywhere. Something (leaves, plants, animals) was always decomposing or decaying, the air was heavy with the putrid smell the circle of life leaves behind when it turns too fast. 
Nature was visibly abundant not only in its beauty and richness (fruits grew everywhere at any time of the year) but also in its threats to human life. In the 1970s, child mortality in the Amazon region was around 10%, a bit lower than in the Sertão.
In retrospect, I believe that my first negative impressions of the Amazon as a hostile world were the result of my separation from my parents, which was a traumatic experience for me. In the Sertão,  the predominant experience had been abundance in scarcity. Now, I was about to discover that the opposite also existed. 
As you can see, it still isn't easy to talk about this period of my life because it had longlasting effects on my worldview and on the way I experienced spirituality. The texts won't always be as upbeat and positive as my blips normally are, and if you don't want to read something a bit more indigestible, just enjoy the photographs from my father's archives. They are overwhelmingly beautiful.