30 August 2001

Today is my first day on board of Commandante Savio. I stayed in Tefe, a small port town along the Amazon, last night and this morning the crew from Greenpeace Amazon picked me up. It was exciting to step on the ship because it took me such a long trip to come here.

The first thing I learned today was that things in the Amazon are huge. My first breakfast was big, the watermelon was the biggest I have seen in my life, and of course the river and forest are enormous too.

The work we need to do and the goal to be accomplished are a heavy weight as well.

While we are sailing on the river, along the forest which never ends, and seeing dolphins jumping out of the water here and there, it is easy to forget the harsh work we will need to do and feel very relaxed.

The meetings and training we are having on board will make sure that we step into the forest with extreme caution and we will be well prepared.

This morning we had a long meeting in which the Greenpeace staff and doctors briefed us about the worst things to expect in the Amazon, such as the snakes, spiders, malaria, and all sorts of dangers. In case we are lost, we also need to know how to survive in the forest, at least for a short period and how to get to a safe place.

In the afternoon, I tried to learn how to use the Global Positioning System and later Bryan, the ship engineer on board, took me out on a small boat and taught me how to drive it. All in all, it was a rich day packed with different kinds of training. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I also learned how to set up my own hammock and slept on it. It is easy to get romantic about these things, but my bed at home is definitely more comfortable.

Lightning struck over the Amazon sky in the evening. We watched the silent lightning for hours until we felt sleepy, and went to "bed"(should I say went to "hammock"?) in awe and peace.

31 August 2001

The beauty of the river and forest could never be captured by words, nor by pictures, because the subtle differences of colors, the mixture of sounds from known and unknown sources, are only possible to be grasped when you are here. This is my second day on board, and I am beginning to wonder: could someone ever get bored of the river and the forest here, if they really opened their eyes and ears?

Tim drinking filtered water from an Amazon trunk

We have been sailing on the Rio Jurua since early this morning. The river is getting narrower as the sound of the forest gets louder and the dolphins appear more frequently.

I saw the legendary pink dolphin and the deadly crocodile today. We are moving in the heart of the Amazon, but still, I cannot imagine how we are going to walk and work in the forest!

The forest is so thick that it seems impossible to penetrate for outsiders. In fact, since the colonisers
'discovered' the Amazon, there have been incessant attempts to penetrate the forest, and they either ended in tragic failure, or disaster for nature.

With bulldozers, the modern day loggers find it much easier to penetrate the forest in search of commercially valuable timber. And this is what demarcation is really about: closing off destructive attempts to penetrate areas of the forest that are home to people who live with nature. If all Indian lands in the Amazon are demarcated, 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest would be off limits for loggers.

1 September 2001

I woke up before sunrise again today. The ship stopped last night while we were sleeping. We started the day watching about a dozen dolphins swimming and chasing after fish. There were two pink dolphins swimming right next to the ship. They move slowly, rise above the water with elegance. What better way to start your day?

After the peaceful beauty we experienced early in the morning, we had more training and preparation the rest of the day for the tough job we are going todo. Bryan, Merel and me took the boat for a practical exercise on how to use the Global Positioning System. Since this was the first time we really used the device, it did not go as smoothly as we thought. But in the end, we all felt like more comfortable using it.

In the afternoon, we took out all our gear and equipment that we will bring into the forest, and tried to figure out how we could carry all of it.

The amount of the stuff we have to bring looked scary at first sight. There are two solar panels, electrical generators, communications equipment, cooking utensils, food for 15 people, tents, hammocks and more.

Then we began to think seriously about what kind of stuff we really need and decided to leave behind some less useful things. We also tried to imagine what the first days would be like so we could bring the stuff into the field later. After that it did not look so scary because we have a sense now of how we are going to carry the load into the forest.

A large part of the training and preparation is really to prepare ourselves psychologically for the uncertainties of working in the unknown environment and what to expect.

According to Chinese Lunar calendar, yesterday was 15th of July, which means we will have a full moon tonight. The moon brightened up the sky and the river, and made beautiful silhouette of the canopy of trees. Manuel told us a famous legend about the river dolphin.

It is believed by the people living in the Amazon that during full moon nights, the dolphins transform into handsome men and they go to the villages to seduce women. Manuel said that this legend is shared by almost all people living along the river, from Belem at the mouth of the Amazon river in Brazil, to spring where the river begins in Peru.

Looking at the beauty of the moon and the river, I can understand why people living so far apart would share the same legends. After all, our cultures are shaped by the environment, and how we feel and live with it.

I did not see dolphins transform into mortals last night, but the real story is that last night was my mother's birthday. Happy birthday mom, and my best wishes from the Amazon!

Sze Pang

TAKE ACTION: Add your voice in support for indigenous land rights by writing to the President of Brazil supporting the demarcation of all indigenous territory.

Read the statement from the Deni to the Brazilian government

Read more about the Deni and their struggle to protect their lands from logging. Send a Deni ecard to a friend.

Download the pdf version of the Deni letter in Portuguese.