asakiyume: (shaft of light)
The meeting of the waters is where the Rio Negro joins the Amazon--or, as Brazilians name the upper portion of it, the Rio Solimões--at Manaus, Brazil. This happens over a thousand miles east of where I was in Leticia, Colombia. In other words, the broad, broad waters I experienced were the Rio Solimões/upper Amazon before the Rio Negro adds its waters in.

This vasty vastness is what you get where they join. For perspective, look at the size of that boat in the first few seconds (the whole video is less than a minute long). Because of the difference in what the waters are carrying, they flow side by side without mingling for a good while.

asakiyume: (feathers on the line)
On December 14 [personal profile] wakanomori shared a Guardian article with me about Joaquim Melo, the 64-year-old owner of a remarkable bookstore in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon. The bookstore, Banca do Largo,
serves as a refuge for Amazonian writers and activists alike, pushing to protect the region from exploitation.​ By promoting local literature, particularly works by Indigenous writers, Melo believes he can help spread new ideas about societal organisation and the environment that are different from the capitalistic frameworks prevalent in the west.

Photo of the bookshop, from its website:



I was delighted--I went looking for more and found this video (in Portuguese) about the place. You might click on it just to hear the ambient noise--birds, animals, people, and traffic. And you'll also get to hear Mr. Melo talking <3

I started following the bookstore's Instagram, which updated rather overwhelmingly frequently, always with pictures of Mr. Melo with his customers--locals and tourists alike.

smiling faces )

Then--nothing! I attributed that to algorithm bullshit. But then I went looking and discovered that the account had posted a death notice--Mr. Melo passed away on New Year's Day.

On the death notice was a quote from Chico Buarque (whom Wikipedia tells me is a Brazilian singer-songwriter):

Não há dor que dura para sempre!
Tudo é vário. Temporário. Efêmero.
Nunca somos, sempre estamos.

(There's no pain that lasts forever!
Everything is various. Temporary. Ephemeral.
We never are, we always are ...

I love what Spanish and Portuguese make possible linguistically by having a permanent-state verb "to be" and a temporary-state verb "to be." Because it's so true: we're never an immutable thing, we're always changing. We are dot dot dot

Sometimes you learn of a person just 18 days before they leave the world. Judging from the comments on the post of his death notice, he was well beloved. I hope his bookshop is able to continue.

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