Thoughts as we Leave Manaus

Arrived Belem last night, to new group of nice families. But a few more thoughts about Manaus. Economy of Manaus dominated by 500 or so factories in the Free Trade Zone (Zona Franca), which have created thousands of jobs. Toured bicycle factory that was busy, despite somewhat slower economy. Same company builds motorcycles too, and they had just closed it for 30 days. Folks can apparently still afford bikes, but moto's are a bit out of reach. Manaus folks say that government policy for Amazonas is to create high tech jobs that do not require much land, so that the state has only cut down about 2% of it's forests, compared to 10% in Acre (Rio Branco), 20% in Rondonia (Porto Velho) and 40% in Para (Belem).

Many Japanese in Manaus--Alton stayed with Gerson Aoki, whose son and daughter spoke decent English. Gerson spoke English well too, but none of his family could speak Japanese. They are third generation, from Sao Paulo in south. Kind of strange to hear educated Japanese speaking primarily Portuguese--aculturation seems complete. Most of the successful Rotarians we meet in the Amazon seem to have some connection to the south, especially Sao Paulo. Paulo, a Japanese Rotarian working in logistics in Manaus (warehousing, trucking) said that most products leaving the Amazon pass through Belem to the south, so that Belem is more of an intermediary city, without the strong manufacturing base that Manaus has.

On Saturday we drove about 100 km to Presidente Figueredo, with younger Roteract members; saw several nice water falls, swam, then got rained out , so skipped caves/hike because of muito lama, or mud, which we have seen a lot of. That night Alton and Everett had enough energy to go to a big spectacle called Boi-Bumba in the Sambadromo--thousands of folks, with folkloric dancing and very loud music. On Friday we took a Rotarian's rather large yacht to see the meeting of the waters--Rio Negro and Amazon meet, mixing cooler, darker acidic water with warmer muddy water, that mix slowly--touristy but interesting. Jose Roberto and Airton (both single and scouting) started us early with caipirinhas; stopped for lunch at a floating restaurant, with tourist gifties, but with nice wooden trail back to see Victoria Regia, or big water lillies. All returned sun burned.

Attended pleasant party of Rotarians, their families and our host families for a Japanese/Brazilian meal, with sushi. Live music, Everett stayed latest. Earlier, also attended Rotaract meeting, with 10 or so teenagers (or slightly older); mostly children of Rotarians; Rotaract seems to be more active here than in the States.

Spent too much time in car in Manaus, with motorista Rinaldo. Rotarians had hired him to pick us up and return us to our houses, which meant 2-3 hours per day in the car. Everett seemed to get the worst of it, Alton got dragged out (?) once or twice at night to clubs by our driver Rinaldo, who became our good friend. Good driver, and we'll remember his plaintiff call to temptation-- Jeennny, Aleesun, danca forro...

Back to Belem, for Rotary meeting tonight, the first of several.