Journal Archive June 10th
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Dear Friends, Family, and Colleagues:
This week is the last of my uninterrupted stay in Rio Branco. On the 13th I will have been here one month, and I plan to leave next Monday for Céu do Mapiá. Mapiá, as it is more commonly known, is a community of perhaps 600 people founded in the Amazon forest 20 years ago by a dissident of one of the ayahuasca churches in Rio Branco. It has become a sort of pilgrimage site for Brazilian and foreign adherents alike of the particular branch of Santo Daime, known by its acronym CEFLURIS, founded by Sebastião Mota de Melo. (CEFLURIS stands for “Raimundo Irineu Serra Eclectic Center of the Universal Flowing Light”.) It was in Mapiá that I spent most of my time last summer.
The last week has been full of activities here in the city.
Last Monday I tried to walk over to my friend Elizaldo’s house, both to learn the route and to drop off some laundry at the cleaners near there, but was unable to find my way. Walking down dark streets with plastic bags full of dirty clothes, I ran into a woman that I met last time I was here. She is a member of the “Barquinha” Santo Daime church, and showed me around their historical archive last time; as it turns out, she also teaches history at the university. I thought it was a nice synchronicity to run into her like that: not only did it encourage me to go and visit their church again, but right afterwards I realized where I was—pretty much right in front of the church!
I also contacted Robin Wright, an American professor from Stanford who teaches at UNICAMP, one of Brazil’s better known universities, located near São Paulo, and arranged to meet with him when I head back that way in the first week of July. I also changed my flight schedule so that I leave Rio Branco a day earlier in order to make time for that.
On Tuesday evening I went to the university and met with Prof Carlos Alberto in order to talk to his history class about my work. Just to give an idea of the prevalence of the ayahuasca churches here, out of about 15 students, four said they’d drunk ayahuasca before, and all had at least heard about the churches. One of his students is trying to develop a project about Mapiá, and gave me contact information for a professor she’s working with in Rondônia, a neighboring state, who has written what is (as far as I know) the only Ph.D. thesis thus far done on any of the ayahuasca churches.
The big highlight Wednesday was a free concert held at the amphitheater in the park by the canal. The show, featuring a singer from the Brazilian Northeast—the region most associated with the cultural influence of Africa—was part of a series sponsored by the nationwide “Commerce Social Services” organization to bring different regional styles of music to all parts of Brazil. The performer, Lia de Itamaracá, is known for the style called “ciranda,” but does other styles as well, all percussion-heavy, and some with brass, too. I recorded the show myself, and also bought her CD (only about five bucks!).
Thursday was a bit of a lazy day. I walked around and looked for presents, mainly. I’d heard from a student in Carlos Alberto’s class about an article that came out in the latest issue of a nationally-circulated adventure magazine about “the drugs of the forest” that talked about the ayahuasca churches, so I went and bought it at the newsstand. For a mainstream article, I guess it was pretty well balanced.
The weather also got cooler in the last week. From the 90s and humid it dropped into the 80s or even upper 70s. The evening of the show at the amphitheater, for example, many people had light jackets or knit caps on, as though it were really cold. And leaving there, a sort of mist hung in the air, making me wet a bit but also bringing a welcome change. Since then it has been a bit cooler, but I think it is heating back up.
On Friday I went out to the university again, meaning to visit Carlos Alberto and make photocopies of the two master’s theses I’d borrowed from him. He wasn’t in his office, but Rosana, the woman I ran into on the dark street, was in the office right next door. We had a really nice chat for over an hour, talking about the history of the “Barquinha” (“little boat”) church, especially the persecution it has faced. I had been feeling a little unmoored most of the week, and this conversation helped me feel back on track. Rosana asked me to tell the people back in the States just how dire is the situation of profs here—the whole plate, lock, and handle on her door was broken, and maintenance says they have no money to fix it, so she’s taken to carrying the handle itself in her purse and using that to close and lock the door!
Friday night I went and got my clothes from the cleaners, and later on went and watched X-Men II. If you like Patrick Stewart, aka Captain Picard, maybe you’ll find it worthwhile, but if you like intelligent stories, save your money.
On Saturday I wrote and read and ran, and at night went to a “session” at the main center of the UDV. While I’d gone to the big celebration there in late May, this was the first time since last year that I attended a session in their regular meeting room where I had my first UDV experience last July. It was really nice to see some familiar faces, especially that of my friend Mestre Tim. After the session I took a couple of pictures with him and his wife, and they gave me a ride home. I also asked him about “officializing” my role as researcher in the UDV. I figured that since they have a developed bureaucratic structure, it would be the right thing to do to engage it in the formulation of my project. He seemed to think it’s not a big deal, that I could just show up next year and go from there. That made me feel welcome, but not entirely at ease, particularly since his idea involved becoming a regular member, which may or may not involve delicate ethical issues, but would almost certainly compromise my ability to work with other churches, especially Dona Peregrina’s Alto Santo church.
Sunday was great. I had lunch with Cosmo, a really nice guy who is a prosecutor for the DA and is also an official in the Alto Santo church. He is serious but also youngish (mid-30s) and energetic, and nothing if not friendly. He took me to a nice restaurant where we chatted for a good long while about the history and politics of the ayahuasca churches, as well as my own project. I think he is a really important person for me to have gotten to know, not just because he is nice and important at Alto Santo, but also because he gets along with and has regular contact with similarly located persons in the UDV and Barquinha. In fact, after lunch we were walking through the “Chico Mendes Park” just outside of town when he got a phone call from Edson Lodi, a bigwig from the headquarters of the UDV in the nation’s capital. Lodi, whose name was familiar to me as a person in the UDV who spearheaded issues related to legalization, was in town and wanted to meet with Dona Peregrina, but as usual went through Cosmo to do it. I told Cosmo that I wanted to meet the fellow, and he graciously helped us arrange that, too.
So that was the big story early Monday. After a missed connection I met up with Edson Lodi. He was being driven around by some local UDV fellows, and our real conversation came when we stopped at some place in the industrial area for purposes unknown. The other two guys went inside, and Edson and I stayed in the car, talking. His view could not have been much more different than Mestre Tim’s. He says it is not unusual for them to receive requests from people wanting to do studies, and they are quite concerned to screen these requests in order to have some control over the representation of their church. He said the right thing to do was to write up a proposal and submit it to them—he even said they have a panel of professionals who are part of the UDV (including anthropologists!) who will evaluate it. Wow!
I went and had lunch with those fellows, too. I didn’t feel entirely at ease around Mr. Lodi, but people say he’s a really good person, and it was certainly nothing like the coldness with which Dona Peregrina received me the first time I met her!
Monday I was on a roll. Bia Labate, a student of Robin Wright’s at UNICAMP, had asked me to deliver a release form to Francisco Araújo—head of the main Barquinha church—for some photos she’s using in the book version of her master’s thesis. After my encounter with Rosana I had been planning to go there, and this gave me added incentive. I ended up hanging out and talking with Francisco and Rosana for several hours. I got him to sign Bia’s form, and also to help me obtain photocopies of the master’s theses and the Ph.D. dissertation that they have in their archive.
Francisco is part of a circle that includes Cosmo and Edson Lodi that meets now and again to discuss issues of the politics of the ayahuasca churches, and had met on Friday at the Federal Justice building (surprisingly, not to meet with some government official, but because one of their number is a federal judge!). For example, now the churches are exploring the possibility of attempting to realign their relationship with the government so that CONAD, the National Anti-Drug Council, no longer has any official link with their administration.
So, certainly a heady few days. I have to stop and catch my breath. Today I am planning to try to change my flight schedule yet again, so that I can spend a day in Brasília and demonstrate my goodwill and seriousness to the UDV people there. By that time Edson Lodi will be back in the capital, and it seems well worth the effort to try to meet him on his own turf. Plus, I have never been to Brasília, except in the airport!
So, best wishes to everyone in the States. In less than four weeks I’ll be back there, and in the meantime I send my hugs and good cheer. Thanks to all for your support.
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