All Creatures Great and Small

The sea, the sea…

We leave the town of Ilhabela, which is on the island that is also called Ilhabela – by boat. Two boats, to be precise, to transport our party of eight artist-researchers, which includes two theatre-makers from Paraladosanjos (instigators of the Pontes Integradas project), another performer-director from the renowned Lume Teatro, two film-maker/photographers, a multi-instrumental musician-composer, a producer, and me. I’ve given myself the title of project dramaturg, as that seems to best fit my role. An inside eye rather than an outside eye, but a different point of view as the only non-Brazilian in the party.

We are headed for Bonete, which, as I am told that we are travelling there by boat, I assume to be another smaller island. But no – Bonete is on the remote side of Ilhabela, an island off the coast of Sao Paulo that was ‘discovered’ by Americo Vespuccio, who christened it Ilha de São Sebastião (although at the time it was occupied by the indigenous Tupi people, who called it Ciriba, ‘tranquil place’). It is inaccessible by land  – by the likes of us, anyway – as the island is mostly made up of high, deeply forested mountains. The way in is by boat, around the coast, although I later learn that there is one mountain path that can be negotiated by the fleet-footed. But no roads, hence no cars. Apparently there was once a campaign to get a road built from Ilhabela town to Bonete. But then the tight-knit fishing community of Bonete changed track as they realised that they liked their splendid isolation, keeping control of who and what enters, rather than being inundated with visitors and their cars.

Bonete has a permanent population of just 250 people (100 of whom are from the same extended family), augmented by a moderate number of tourists. As there are no roads, just a small bay at the mouth of a river, surrounded by mountains, anything needed – from building materials to beer – has to be brought in on a motor boat, like the ones we are now travelling in. My boat is called Beatriz and the ‘captain’ is called Washington. His father, Americo, runs a bar in Bonete called Mac Bones (yes I know – the names, the names), where we will be creating a small performance-intervention cum installation that very evening.

This has been arranged by our community gatekeeper ‘Pingo’ – the director of the Pés no Chão theatre and community arts centre in Ilhabela, where we have just spent two madcap days delivering workshops in dance, theatre, and circus, with a cabaret event at the end of the process. Fifty kids, and a show to create and deliver in two days? Hell yeah! But that is now behind us, and here we are in the small, noisy, bumpy speedboats. 

The first part of the journey, as we whizz through the channel of water between the island and the mainland coast, is a funfair ride – we squeal as we ride the waves, and enjoy the race with our colleagues in the other speedboat (they are called Lancias here, presumably because that is the favoured brand). We past rock formations, and cave entrances, and note the follies built on the hillsides rising from the water – a Chinese pavilion, an Art Deco hotel with  plate-glass windows, a number of Portuguese-style colonial mansions with ornate wrought-iron balconies. On the other side of the channel, we can see the port city of São Sebastião, and the ferry terminal and big ‘bausas’ that bring cars across the seven-kilometre stretch from São Sebastião to the town of Ilhabela.  There is also an odd-looking bridge that I ask about. It’s not a bridge, I’m told, it’s an oil pipeline that runs from nearby Santos right through Brazil and up into Colombia. Thousands of kilometres long, this enormous fat pipeline, which is at times exposed and at times below ground… 

As our motorboats turn away from the Brazilian mainland, things change. There are no more houses to be seen on the Ihlabela side – just giant rocks with densely packed trees rising above, the jagged bare mountain tops above them jutting out into the jewel-blue sky. A squat red-and-white lighthouse is perched on an outcrop of black rocks. On the other side, there is nothing but the open sea. The Atlantic Ocean, that is – next stop Africa. Nothing to buffer the waves, in other words, so we are tossed like a toy boat as we ride one great surge after another. We are no longer joking and taking photos; we are sitting quietly, bracing ourselves for each enormous bump. Is this usual? I glance at Washington to see how he’s responding. He looks calm enough, so I presume we’re safe, even though it doesn’t feel it. Our clothes are wet, and I’m glad our bags are tightly wrapped in oilskin. An awareness of what a namby-pamby city girl I am will be a feature of this expedition...

The Bonete community live entirely from fishing, with a dash of tourism. There are no shops other than the bars that also sell a few tinned or packeted provisions. We note one clothes shop which looks like it’s been shut for a long time, the dusty window display boasting a couple of forlorn looking half-dressed mannequins. There is no farming here – neither crops nor animals. Apparently there used to be some agriculture. The men would fish and the women would climb the steep hills to sow a few crops. It was a lot of effort for not much return. That was in the days when the only way in and out was by canoe – a three-hour trip to either Ilhabela city or São Sebastião on the mainland. The motorboats that almost everyone has now can do the trip in 50 minutes, so trade is easier. The community lives by selling fish to those two places, bringing in necessary provisions and/or tourists on the return trip home.

Electricity is a rationed commodity here on Bonete – you get a couple of hours in the morning, then 6 to 11pm in the evening. If you are out and about after 11pm, then it's moonlight or starlight or flashlight to see your way down the dirt paths full of trip hazards (stones, waterpipes, tree roots). I’m so unused to darkness that I feel completely disorientated and need an arm to lean on to make my way around in the dark. Yes, a city girl through and through. I’m grateful for the vagalumes (fireflies) lighting the edges of the paths.

There’s no phone signal for our mobiles – Bonete inhabitants use a public telephone outside Mac Bones to make and receive calls. We’ve been issued with this public phone’s number as our only point of contact with the outside world whilst here, should we need it. As we walk past the phone for the first time, it rings. It’s for Clara, whoever she might be. We learn just before we leave Bonete that there is also one wifi spot near to the phone. Both this and the phone connection working via satellite I presume – there is TV in some houses, which have the traditional 'broken umbrella' Brazilian satellite dishes perched on the roofs of their houses.

The children and dogs of Bonete run free, on the beach and through the dirt paths. There are no cars, so it is a safe terrain – other than the rolling waves and strong drag of the sea. I presume the children learn know how to swim and how to judge when the water is safe to swim in when they are very young. In fact, I think the dogs also learn to swim when puppies, as I see more than one dog in the water, perfectly happy. At sunset on the first day – a glorious picture-book tropical sunset – a group of dogs gather on the beach to sniff and scamper and duck and dive into the waves. The kids roam around in twos and threes, the older boys hanging out by the boats at the point where the river mouth meets the sea. When a motorboat arrives and needs to be pulled onto the beach so visitors can step out safely, they rush into the waves to help, and the dogs race in and out of the waves too. 

So boats are the normal form of transport here, there’s nothing much else. One young boy has a bicycle, but it’s the only one I see. Some of the younger fishermen have beach buggies which they also drive along the dirt tracks, pulling carts. And there are wheelbarrows. Do not underestimate the humble wheelbarrow as a form of transport – I don’t know where we would have been without the two we borrow to get our possessions, which include not only our personal effects but also computers, a projector, musical instruments, and our supply of food – up to the house we are staying in, a 15 minute walk away from the sea, uphill. Everything away from the sea is uphill here, steeply uphill. If you carry on far enough you reach an idyllic waterfall and a deep pool of clear cold water. Further still is a mirante I never made it to, but those that did feel that the long walk uphill in the intense heat was worth it for the peace and quiet and beautiful vistas. I also miss out on the midnight trip to the beach to see the glowing plankton that turn the sea into an organic display of dancing phosphorus patterns.

It’s a pre-21st century life here. Old women sit on porches. Old men gather in bars that are little more than makeshift shacks with plastic chairs and wobbly tables covered in lurid oilskin fabric. Seu Benedito, the oldest man in Bonete, (a mere 92 years old – his mother lived to be 115, so perhaps he has a few more years left in this world) takes a daily walk at the same time each day – 8.30am – from his pretty blue-and-white house to arrive in the ‘village square’ which bears a sign saying Praça da Conversa Mole (which could roughly translate as ‘the place of small talk’). The sign promises fishermen and hunters who are all big liars. There, he holds court for an hour or so before ambling back home again. When we talk to him, we ask about local music, and he mentions a song-form called Quebra-Chiquinha, a kind of fandango (called a ciranda in these parts) that has many variations amongst the ‘caiçara’ (coastdweller) communities. He also tells us about the ‘pasquim’ a local form of poem that is a succinct summary of a story or thought, rather like a limerick or a haiku, and treats us to a few examples. Seu Benedito also mentions a local dance that is a type of quadrille, but sadly doesn’t demonstrate that… 

The fishermen that gather in circles in this square or in the bars swap practical information on nets and fishing techniques, and exchange stories. It’s hard to separate truth from fiction – and of course, all the best stories in the world have truth at their heart but are embellished with each re-telling. Seu Benedito tells a story of a ship from Europe that sank filled with hundreds of cans of prime Portuguese olive oil. The Bonete fishermen got their boats out and rescued the booty from the ocean floor. In a rather more extraordinary tale, a man who is one of three brothers dies, and his body is being taken across the water to the mainland (there are no cemeteries in Bonete). Halfway across, where the sea is at its wildest point, the coffin is jostled in the boat by the rough waves, the lid comes off, and the dead man sits up. The terrified fishermen jump overboard – although it turns out that the coffin’s occupant is neither ghost nor zombie, just someone prematurely pronounced dead. There are also stories of the pirates that have turned up on the island in the past – including, apparently, one or two from Devon and Cornwall. The island was also a post for the notorious English explorer Thomas Cavendish, who made many an excursion to the beautiful island, using it as his base for raids on Spanish ships, relieving them of their bounty. 

The younger generation of fishermen are less inclined to storytelling and more interested in surfing. Surfer-fisherman is a fairly common label here. Whilst the younger men and women surf, the older fishermen patiently sort and repair the nets. The Japanese fishing method is popular here, say the men cutting and tucking and sewing their nets. Nets inside nets, that’s how it’s done. Tightly woven nets are thrown, which gather everything in to one big pool, then a net with wider gaps is used to circle the fish, the tightly woven net then whisked away, so that the baby fish can get out through the big holes but the bigger fish stay trapped. That way, you don’t deplete the fishing stock. We get to taste the fruit of their labours at every meal – fish is the only fresh food product available here, other than wild herbs, and mandioca (this root vegetable, popular across Brazil, is called tapioca when made into flour, and is eaten fried into pancakes for breakfast – it can also be baked or fried, like a potato – so a pretty versatile food). Twice a day we purchase whatever fish is available from the catch. This includes the garoupa, which is common in these waters – it’s the fish featured on the back of Brazil’s 100 reais banknote.

On the first evening we plan to go to Mac Bones, but are told it is shut (although this turns out to be a jest, as it is ‘joke day’ – April 1st). So we arrange to take our short performance-installation piece to a bar on the beach, where we are told that older people come to play cards until the 11pm electricity curfew. When we arrive at 7.30pm as arranged, there’s no one there – so we make our way back to Mac Bones which is indeed open, and Americo is very happy to have us, especially as we buy beer or pinga for everyone in the bar. 

The name of Paraladosanjos’ project, Pontes Integradas, has multiple meanings. It is, in essence, about bridging the gap between ‘caipira’ and ‘caiçara’ communities, finding what is unique and what is shared; it highlights the human communities’ relationship to water (or lack of it), whether inland or coastdweller; and also reflects the intention and action of bridging the gap between our field trips by bringing an essence or taste of one place to another. So here in this fishing community, we bring bricks, charcoal and ashes from the oleria of Bragancia, placed on each of the bar’s tables, and bowls of oranges that are cut and distributed. Plus little vignettes that combine storytelling with physical action, photos displayed in kitsch vinyl albums, and performance-to-camera film edited in with Cinéma Vérité portraits of people we met on our last big trip, including ‘red earth’ man Ademir. As is often the case with people who have very little exposure to conventional theatre, immersive and interactive work presented in a public space is not seen as ‘arty’ or ‘weird’ but just accepted as the interesting diversion that it is. The all-male audience of fishermen are delighted to sit with Raquel and I, complementing us on our finery (we are dressed in red satin and velvet evening wear, replete with fans and flowers in our hair). When Marcos and Marilia take the stage (well, floor anyway) in their tattered ‘cinders’ clothes, telling and showing tales of earth and fire and bricks and ash, they are given full attention. At one point in the piece, the whole audience happily joins us in standing on our chairs, so the bar is a mass of swaying bodies. People passing by stop to look in the open-fronted bar. Americo stands grinning behind the counter, his small granddaughter perched on the bar, also totally attentive and happy. As we end, there is a big round of applause and an invitation to come back the next night. Which we take up, returning to present the same material to the same people – but of course this is live performance so the second showing has a very different vibe, and if anything the audience are even more appreciative on second viewing, and afterwards are happy to exchange stories with us. For a crucial part of the Pontes process, which all the key collaborators have agreed on, is that this process needs to be a fair exchange. We have talked about how, in both England and Brazil, there have been numerous art projects that go into a community in order to acquire material, without giving anything back. In Pontes, we offer what we have, and we ask what they’d like to give – an object, a song, a dance, a story. ‘What would you like to leave in the fishing net?’ we ask. People in Mac Bones are keen to tell us their stories and ask us ours. 

We learn that Americo’s family are long-established on Bonete, and that his father used to be the messenger who ran the 20 kilometres through the mountain pass to get emergency medical help. There is still no doctor in Bonete: 'if a snake gets you we'll have to get an air ambulance' someone tells me. Still, at least that’s one up from a desperate run through the mountains to get help. People use natural plant remedies, and often live to be 110 or more. They seem to drink a lot, and smoke, and there's no sign of any fresh green veg anywhere. Just saying. Seu Benedito’s grandson Marcio is typical of a trend here: as a young man he went off to find construction work on the mainland (at the time there was no schooling beyond age 14). He lived away from Bonete for many years, but has now come back, to continue the family tradition of working as a fisherman. 

I am starting to worry slightly that all the stories we are hearing are from the men of Bonete, particularly the village elders like Seu Benedito. What about the women, I wonder. They are harder to find a way in to, as they are mostly home-based. But in answer to our wishes comes an introduction to Dona Rosaria, who lives in a beautiful green-and-blue house on the beach. She is married to Seu Paxion, a second marriage for both of them. She was widowed in her sixties and met him then – she lived on the mainland, and he took her to Bonete and showed her the pretty house on the beach. Whose house is that, she asked. It’s yours, he replied – and they have been together there ever since, 25 years. As we talk to Dona Rosario, Seu Paxion leaves us to go and prepare lunch. We sit on the porch, which boasts an assortment of chairs, a faded Persian rug, and a table with a Christmas tablecloth – the design of red Santas and cheery snowmen looking surreally out of place here on this tropical beach. Through the window, a large TV screen blasts out a football match. On the wall, a crucifix and a shrine to the Virgin Mary. Dona Rosaria tells us about all the local fish – most of which, other than the atum (tuna) and the previously-mentioned garoupa have names I can’t even begin to recognise or translate. She talks about her grandchildren – she and Paxion have 19 between them – and says that her only sorrow is that with her advancing age has come a failing of her sight. She can’t tell one grandchild from another, she says, and that makes her sad. But her life on Bonete has been blessed. Her home, the pretty little house with the picket fence, facing the almost-deserted beach, with the boats bobbing on the water, and the mountains rising above, is idyllic, a paradise.

But even paradise has its dark side! For a start, there are leeches in the waterfall pools, and millions of nasty insects, the dreaded silent borrachudos – a type of highly aggressive gnat that adores human flesh and blood. People born and bred here seem to be immune to them – everyone else is bitten to pieces. When we arrive we notice a number of women in tights and long-sleeved dresses, despite the heat, and men wearing socks with their sandals. How odd, we thought – but by the next morning, as we nursed our inflamed bites, we dug around for clothes that could cover our exposed skin – marking ourselves as outsiders.

To be honest, I find Bonete slightly spooky. This, I know, is the city girl speaking. For a start, it is a tightly closed community, with almost everyone related to everyone else in some way, which feels a little scary. There are some people here who have lived their whole life on the island, and have never even visited the Brazilian mainland. In bleaker moments, I imagine it as a kind of Dogville that is kind on the surface but which could turn nasty. How would it be to be born on Bonete and to grow up gay, or vegetarian, or atheist, I wonder? Religion is big on Bonete. This tiny community now has three churches with two new money-grabbing Evangelical churches (the new missionaries) arriving to rival the small Catholic church. Some of the older fisherman tell us that their sons have turned to the Evangelists, but that they are resisting.

There is a feeling of being hemmed in – literally, as there are impenetrable, deeply-forested mountains all around, and the wild waves of the South Atlantic to negotiate to get away. At least they now have motor boats – until relatively recently it was just canoes between here and the rest of the world. But with no roads, it is the Bonete community who choose who gets ferried here on those boats. 

There is a strong resistance to outsiders invading the community – which  on one level is fair enough, as much of Brazil’s coastline and idylllic islands have been taken over by rich foreigners (or rich Brazilians) in what I’ve heard described as ‘the new colonialism’. On the other hand, you feel a bit of outside influence from someone other than the Evangelists wouldn’t be a bad thing.

The islanders attitude to the dreaded borrachudos sums things up nicely:  Imagine Bonete without them, they say – they guard us. They keep people away.