When I first began thinking about my LiA summer I knew I wanted to do something that would shift my perspective. I study Science, Technology and Society with an independent track in Ethnobotany, where I try to understand the relationship between people, plants, history, and land. But I knew I wanted to understand that relationship in a way that went beyond what I could learn in a classroom setting. At the same time, I volunteer through a college and career academic program where I work with students from many different backgrounds, including students who speak Portuguese. I had been studying Portuguese for about eight months, and part of my motivation for continuing was wanting to understand more of the cultural context my students came from. I wanted to be a connecting bridge for my students and this new world and language they were having to learn about. That was part of why I reached out to my Portuguese professor at Brown to ask how I could continue learning the language over the summer. She connected me with another Brazilian professor, who happened to know Alex Solorzano, a professor at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro who studies the environmental history of Brazil. Alex eventually connected me with Sinal do Vale, a regenerative and reforestation organization in Xerém, in the mountains outside Rio de Janeiro. Looking back, it feels like everything perfectly fell into place.
Before I arrived at Sinal, I wanted to understand where I was going. I audited some of Alex’s historical ecology classes because I did not want to arrive at an organization working with land without knowing anything about the history of that land. I wanted to be able to contribute instead of simply observing. One of the things that stayed with me most was Alex’s work in Tijuca National Forest, where he traced a connection between jackfruit trees and Quilombola history. Quilombolas are descendants of escaped enslaved people who formed communities in remote forests and mountains. When Alex mapped jackfruit trees in Tijuca, he found that many grew near abandoned charcoal mines and plateaued settlements that had been worked by enslaved Afro-Brazilian workers. At first, I thought of a jackfruit tree as just a tree. But the more I learned, the more complicated that became. Jackfruit is not native to Brazil. Portuguese colonizers brought it from India, and over time it became widespread throughout the Atlantic Forest around Rio. There are several possible explanations for its connection to Quilombola communities. Enslaved workers and later maroon communities may have intentionally planted and eaten jackfruit because it was a reliable food source. People may also have dropped the seeds while eating the fruit, allowing them to germinate and spread. Later, jackfruit was also used in reforestation efforts between 1861 and 1887 because it grows easily and can help repopulate forests. I started to realize that it was impossible to separate the tree from the people who moved through the landscape, the food they ate, the labor they performed, and the histories that shaped where those trees grew. Even the question of whether jackfruit should be considered native or invasive suddenly felt much less simple. I had gone to Brazil wanting to understand the nature and culture divide, and here I was realizing that the divide was not really a clear line at all. A plant could carry history.
That realization followed me to Sinal do Vale. Sinal was founded by Thais Corral in 2011 with the goal of creating a place where both land and people could heal. The organization works with regeneration, reforestation, ecotourism, and finding new ways for people to coexist with nature. One of the people who helped me understand this was Katie, one of Sinal’s head partners. I kept thinking about what Alex had taught me as I began to learn how Sinal approached the land. Jackfruit was everywhere at Sinal, and it quickly became part of my everyday life. Volunteers and staff would eat lunch together at noon, and I remember eating jackfruit lasagna and a jackfruit and sunflower sapling salad. Vicente, Sinal’s chef, worked in gastronomy and had developed ways to use almost every part of the jackfruit. Sinal also made jackfruit paste to sell and held workshops showing people different ways to use the fruit. During one event hosted by Sinal, leaders from ecotourism, camping, and regeneration organizations came together to talk about their work. The conversation eventually turned to jackfruit, and I was surprised by how divided people were about a tree I had started to see everywhere. Some community leaders saw it as a problem because it took up land that could be used for crops, grew enormous, and dropped fruit that could rot and become inconvenient. Others argued that the problem was not that there was too much jackfruit, but that people were not eating enough of it. Katie described their approach simply as “eat it to beat it.” Sinal was working on a project to connect jackfruit growers with schools so that jackfruit could become part of school meals and become less stigmatized among younger generations. I began to understand that regeneration was not always about planting something new but it was something else. Sometimes regeneration meant changing a relationship. It meant sharing knowledge, finding new uses for what was already there, and changing the way people understood abundance. That was one of the biggest shifts in my thinking because I had entered Brazil expecting environmental work to be mostly about the physical landscape. I was slowly learning that environmental work is also cultural and historical work.
I also wanted to understand that lesson through my own hands instead of only through conversations. So I put it all into practice. I spent time in the processing room making turmeric powder and jackfruit paste and talking with Rosi, who we called the mother of jackfruit, and Rosario, another volunteer who spent much of her time there. I worked in the nursery shucking palm tree seeds so they could germinate. I learned that after deforestation and habitat loss, there are not enough large mammals in some areas to spread these seeds naturally in the way that supports reforestation, which meant that something as small as preparing seeds by hand could become part of the larger process of restoring a forest. I pulled weeds, worked in the dirt, and slowly learned the rhythms of the farm. Those everyday moments ended up being just as important to me as the bigger conversations. There were little golden monkeys outside the window of the room where I slept. Sinal had cats and dogs everywhere, and the ten-minute walk between the house and the farm usually included a pack of dogs following me there and back. I became especially attached to a cat named Gatinha. Her presence was calming and sweet, and she made Sinal feel less like a place I was visiting and more like a place where I belonged. I think that mattered because I was also struggling with something much less visible.
My biggest challenge in Brazil was not physical work or being far from home. It was getting to understand a new perspective while not always having the words to explain my own. Even though I had studied Portuguese for eight months, I did not feel fully integrated into the language when I first arrived. There were moments when I knew what I wanted to say but could not find the words, and I realized how much of my personality depended on being able to communicate easily. I felt quieter than I normally am. Sometimes I worried that this was stunting my ability to grow with the community because I was holding back simply because I did not know how to express myself. Slowly, though, I started talking more. I made mistakes, listened, tried again, and allowed myself to sound imperfect. Because I was surrounded by Portuguese every day, my language improved drastically. More importantly, I began to understand what it feels like to enter a new environment without immediately knowing how to participate in it. That experience made me think differently about my own students. I often want to help them feel comfortable and confident as they enter new academic spaces, but in Brazil I experienced what it feels like to be the person who does not have all the words. I realized that sometimes being a bridge means understanding what it feels like to stand on the other side first. I did not need to be the person who always knew what to say. Sometimes I needed to listen.
That was also where humility became more real to me. I had gone to Brazil with goals and ideas about what I wanted to learn, but Sinal quickly reminded me that I was entering a place with its own knowledge, history, and relationships that existed long before I arrived. I was not the expert on the land, and I was not the expert on the language. There were times when my role was to listen, times when it was to work physically, and times when it was simply to be willing to make a mistake and keep trying. Talking individually with Alex and Katie helped me understand that the divide between nature and culture is something that continues to be negotiated, and that helping people understand these relationships takes time. It is slow work. I think that was one of the most important things I learned about leadership. Leadership does not always mean arriving with an answer. Sometimes it means recognizing that you do not have the answer yet and being willing to learn from the people around you.
Throughout my time at Sinal, I started thinking about what I could leave behind when I eventually returned home. I worked with Safa Mohammed, a recent graduate from Ohio University, and together we developed an idea for creating a way for volunteer groups from other academic institutions to visit Sinal, help with its work, and provide support so that the organization could continue growing. I went through possible volunteer sites, created tour guides and schedules for future volunteers, and helped create a fully established pitch for the program. We worked with Katie to ensure that the ideas that Sinal had were always incorporated while also acknowledging our roles as volunteers gave us access to the exact wants of volunteers. This was one of the moments when I realized that leadership could be something very practical. I did not have to create something enormous to make a contribution. I could notice a need, work with someone else to develop an idea, and create something that could continue after I left. I have since checked in with Sinal, and knowing that the relationship can continue beyond my two months in Brazil made the work feel much more meaningful. This experience connected directly to UNSDG 17, Partnerships for the Goals, because the project was built around creating a relationship between Sinal and students from other academic institutions rather than treating my summer as a one-time experience. It also connected to UNSDG 15, Life on Land, because the partnership is ultimately meant to bring more people into the work of regeneration and reforestation.
When I think about the goals I set before leaving, I can see how much they changed once I was actually there. I had two main goals for my two months in Brazil. I wanted to develop a clearer understanding of the nature and culture divide in Brazil, and I wanted to help an organization through volunteer work while taking on a leadership role in a project. Both goals were specific enough that I could recognize when I was making progress. I spent the summer learning from Alex and Katie, working directly with the land and the people at Sinal, and developing a deeper understanding of how history and culture shape environmental work. I also completed the volunteer program project with Safa, created the materials needed to make it possible, presented it to Sinal, and continued communicating with them after returning home. My Portuguese also improved through constant use, which was not something I could have measured perfectly before leaving but became one of the clearest signs of my growth. I had two months, and within those two months I was able to accomplish the goals I had set while also realizing that the questions I came with were much bigger than I originally understood.
The experience also changed how I think about my future. My interest in ethnobotany is no longer just about studying plants. I am interested in the stories that surround them, the people who use them, the histories that determine where they grow, and the ways communities understand their relationship with the land. That is what I mean when I think about transcendence. I want to be able to move beyond the boundaries between subjects and see how history, anthropology, ecology, language, and human stories connect. In Brazil, a jackfruit tree could tell me something about colonialism and migration. A meal could tell me something about sustainability. A language could become a bridge between people. A volunteer project could become a long-term partnership. I began the summer wanting to understand the relationship between people and nature, and I left understanding that there may never be a simple separation between the two.
My last day at Sinal is the moment I think about most. Before leaving, I climbed onto the roof of the house where I had been staying and looked out at the forest around me. I sat there and journaled, and eventually I started crying. I had only been there for two months, but somehow the place had felt like it had put so many pieces of me back together. I thought about everything I had learned, but I also thought about the things that could never really be written into a list of accomplishments. I thought about my Sinal sisters, Rosario and Safa. I thought about the people who had taught me how to work the land, how to eat jackfruit differently, how to listen, and how to be comfortable not knowing everything. Then Gatinha came onto the roof and curled up on my lap. For a moment, it felt like the entire world had stopped. I remember thinking that if I moved even an inch, the illusion that I could stay there forever might disappear. Eventually, I knew it was time to go back. I knew I had more to learn, more students to work with, more Portuguese to practice, and more questions to ask. But I also knew that Sinal had become a part of me in a way that would not disappear just because I left Brazil.
I went to Brazil hoping to understand a divide between nature and culture, but I left with a much more complicated understanding of both. I learned that leadership can be slow, collaborative, and sometimes quiet. I learned that humility can mean listening when you do not have the words, and that transcendence can mean allowing one subject to lead you into another until the boundaries between them begin to disappear. Most of all, I learned that the work of regeneration is not only about restoring land. It can also mean restoring relationships between people, communities, plants, and places. I hope to carry that understanding with me as I continue my work at Brown, with my students, and through ethnobotany. And I hope that the partnerships I helped begin at Sinal continue to grow long after my summer there ended. Sinal will always stay with me, along with my Sinal sisters Rosario and Safa, and my little Gatinha.