By SEAN McKAUGHAN
The office was small and unassuming, piled with papers and folders, a few desks, old posters on the walls. Ivar Busatto, the coordinator, received me with a cautious smile. He did not know what to make of this gringo. His organization, OPAN, worked directly with half a dozen indigenous tribes in Brazil and, on their behalf, interacted with the relevant departments of the Brazilian government. It was not often that a representative of international philanthropy arrived on his doorstep. Today Cuiabá is still somewhat off the beaten path in Brazil, but in 1998, it was more so.
I introduced myself and the organization I had recently begun working for, the Avina Foundation, a nonprofit organization created to promote sustainable development in the Americas, supporting collective social, economic, and environmental benefits. Avina was only four years old at that time, and not much known outside of international development circles. Certainly, no one had heard of Avina in Cuiabá, capital of the state of Mato Grosso, and Ivar was no exception.
Mato Grosso is a massive expanse, roughly the size of Germany, and extremely rich in biodiversity. It is divided among three key biomes: the Pantanal, the Cerrado, and the Amazon. In the south, waters flow into the Paraguay River, part of the Paraná watershed heading toward the Rio de la Plata. In the north, the waters flow into the Xingu and other river systems of the Amazon watershed. In the 1990s, it became one of the leaders of deforestation in Brazil, “worsted” only by its northern neighbor, Pará. Tropical forest and savannas were cleared, primarily for large-scale mechanized soybean farming. I did not really know that at the time, having just begun my trajectory in Avina and its still embryonic Amazon program. I was there to get to know Ivar and his organization as Avina explored the pros and cons of setting up a permanent presence in Brazil.
Ivar and OPAN would eventually become one of Avina’s first funded partners in Brazil. OPAN, Operação Amazônia Nativa, or Native Amazon Operation, is a Brazilian civil society organization, the first to work with indigenous groups, having begun its mission in 1969. One of the many initiatives that fascinated me at the time was a service whereby OPAN would meet with isolated indigenous groups when they first established contact with the rest of Brazilian society.
I found that concept amazing. Imagine a group of people living in the forest over generations, interacting in a limited way with other groups, in peace and at war, but slowly aware that their neighbors are disappearing, or being absorbed, as an unknown civilization spreads around them like an invading sea. Brazil is one of those places where there are still groups of human beings who have chosen not to join the vast, messy assemblage of interacting civilizations that we like to call “the world.” Every few years you hear of an uncharted ethnic group that wanders out of the forest or shakes a spear at a low-flying plane. The limitless green maze of the Amazon also attracts outlaws. Often it is illegal mining and drug trafficking that push such groups out of their deep forest hiding places. Brazilians, overwhelmingly urbanized with some of the largest cities in the world, for the most part watch these images on television with the same incredulity as any American or European.
Indigenous groups have protections in Brazil, and many have federally recognized land rights. Organizations like OPAN often work in tandem with the pertinent government departments, meeting with indigenous groups in the early stages of contact to advise and council them regarding the absurdly complex world they have just become a part of, and to elucidate the opportunities and dangers associated with membership. The prospect is simply stupefying. How does one explain the impossible dimensions and contradictions of modern Brazil, much less the networked chaos of global dysfunction that stretches across the planet? Following that initial conversation, I wonder, how many tribes decide, after careful reflection, to simply slip back into the forest and forget the exchange ever happened?
A speaker of a number of Amazonian indigenous languages, Ivar was a veteran of such missions. I was suitably impressed with the existentially profound nature of OPAN’s work: smoothing the assimilation process, protecting indigenous culture from the onslaught of modern media, and helping ancient communities navigate the intricacies of a perplexing new reality with its countless snares and pitfalls.
That day in Cuiabá, I was in the middle of a professional assessment of OPAN and its finances with Ivar when an adolescent wandered into the office wearing soccer shorts and plastic sandals. Bowl cut bangs in the front, long black hair in the back, a bright wide smile and a ring of feathers on his head, his energy was contagious. Our conversation paused as Ivar and his associate greeted and joked with the young man, who spoke only halting Portuguese. I never learned his name, but I have often had cause to remember him. He immediately took a liking to me, or at least was curious. I looked different in my slacks, button-down, and tie, not a frequent sight for him. I had a similar impression. Having worked at that time mainly in Latin American capitals like Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Lima, and Asunción, my contact with indigenous groups had been scant and distant.
The meeting halted as he asked about me, and we began a mediated conversation, him telling me stories and peppering me with questions. At one point, he asked about my tie, which I promptly gave him to put on. He handed me his feathers, which I donned with amused pride. That made him (and everyone else) laugh long and hard.
At one point, he told a story of his first ride on an escalator at a local shopping mall, and I was taken aback. Surely he had ridden or at least seen escalators before. No, explained Ivar, his small ethnic group had only made contact two years before, when he was 12. Until that time, he had not only never seen an escalator, but every other modern convenience was utterly unknown to him. Dusty tropical Cuiabá was for him a land of endless marvels.
I have since met people who tell similar stories, but the first time is always enchanting. The young man recounted his first entry into a tall building, his first ride on an elevator, his first impression of cars and traffic. He was now learning Portuguese and beginning to interact with computers, televisions, cell phones, and cinema.
Certainly, the sharp contrast between his first 12 years and the last two years could not have been more jarring, I thought. His smile said otherwise. This kid had one foot in an ancient culture grounded in nature that I could never understand, yet here he was already beginning to make sense of the perplexing reality of his Brazilian compatriots. The symbolic and philosophical implications flooded over me, but he just grinned and described the wonder of looking out a window of a ten-story building for the first time and seeing the sweep of Cuiabá below him. How did he not fall?, he wondered.
Over the next 18 years with Avina, I would meet a number of indigenous groups, from many different geographies and ethnicities, mostly from the Brazilian Amazon but not all. Memorably, I was at a binational Yanomami meeting in Venezuela in 2013 in the small town of Puerto Ayacucho near the border with Colombia, where leaders of the Yanomami people from both Venezuela and Brazil were discussing shared concerns of illegal mining in their vast territory, with the support of a number of Venezuelan and Brazilian civil society organizations.
It is always a tremendous privilege for me to be a fly on the wall in these exchanges. They tend to be time-consuming, as a steady sequence of thoughtful declarations and purposeful testimonies are offered and patiently discussed and translated. Time begins to move at a different pace. While I listen quietly to the proceedings, I remember fondly that first exchange in the office of OPAN, the effect it had on me as a newly minted development professional, fresh from my master’s program in Community and Regional Planning and Latin American studies at UT. It was a moment of humility, a lesson about our human ability to bridge the yawning gaps that separate us, to find joy in what we discover each day, and not take ourselves too seriously. Surely that is ancient forest wisdom we can all apply. I know I try to.
Sean McKaughan is a LLILAS alumnus with a dual degree in Community and Regional Planning (master’s, 1996). He chairs the board of directors of Fundación Avina, a Latin American philanthropic organization dedicated to sustainable development activities with 18 countries in the region. He is a member of the LLILAS Advisory Council.