Cachoeiras
A cidade onde nasci e passava minhas férias de verão, Pesqueira, a 212 km de Recife, fica cercada pela Serra do Ororubá. Nunca entendi o nome da cidade, Pesqueira. Sempre me perguntaram se o nome era porque a principal atividade da cidade seria a pesca. Nem perto. A cidade é conhecida pela fabricação de doces e renda. Atualmente apenas a renda, diga-se de passagem, porque todas as fábricas de doces foram fechadas.
A maior parte da Serra do Ororubá, senão toda ela, atualmente é terra de demarcação indígena, tribo dos Xukurus. Nem sempre foi assim. Quando eu tinha meus 11 anos de idade, mais ou menos, era costume todas as férias fazermos trilhas e caminhadas, eu e meus amigos, serra adentro (e acima). Um bando de guris, sem nenhum senso de direção ou perigo, caminhando no meio do cerrado, se sentido verdadeiros desbravadores!
Ao longo de toda a Serra corre um rio. Na verdade a nascente do Rio Ipanema. Foi então que quatro crianças ociosas e desbravadores tiveram a brilhante idéia de descer o rio em um bote inflável! Claro que nenhum de nós lembrou que no meio daquele trecho que planejávamos navegar, havia uma pequena queda d'água, algo em torno de 3 metros, mas que para uma criança de 11 anos era bastante alta.
Chegamos ao ponto de origem e colocamos o bote lá. Subimos os quatro. Eu, Eduardo, Luiz e Raimundo. Não tínhamos a menor noção de segurança. Sem coletes salva-vidas, sem capacetes ou remos. Apenas nossa excitação e ansiedade nos guiando. Colocamos o bote na água, subimos os quatro e começamos nossa aventura.
Foi quando lá à frente alguém viu que o rio não seguia um plano reto. Uma depressão seguia-se e logo mais abaixo o rio continuava. Era a cachoeira. "Fudeu" - Alguém falou. Não íamos tão rápido, mas não sei por que cargas d'água demoramos tanto para fazer algo a respeito.
Não conseguíamos descer todos ao mesmo tempo. Primeiro foi por não sabermos a profundidade que estávamos e esperamos o primeiro cobaia cair dentro pra constatarmos. Depois, por algum motivo, achamos que não conseguiríamos descer todos ao mesmo tempo. Ora raios, se aquilo não era uma porta não entendi qual a dificuldade de pular todos.
Primeiro pulou o Eduardo. A água nem estava muito funda. Batia abaixo do seu joelho. Depois pulou o Raimundo. Olhamos eu e o Luiz um para o outro na expectativa de quem seria o próximo. Tarde demais. Quando demos por conta estávamos desabando queda abaixo. Os 3 metros mais altos que já desci.
O bote caiu emborcado. Eu e o Luiz sentado no leito do rio olhando um para o outro e rindo. Rindo do susto, da situação e da cara de assustados do Eduardo e do Raimundo. Voltamos pra casa molhados, sujos e felizes, como se tivéssemos acabado de descer as corredeiras do Niágara. Levamos uma bronca dos meus pais ao chegarmos em casa, mas é o diabinho que vive em todos nós que faz com que o bem que temos por dentro venha a tona!
"A vida pode ser uma ousada aventura ou nada. Segurança não existe na natureza, nem as crianças dos homens estarão totalmente seguras. Evitar os perigos é tão seguro em nossa vida quando expuser-se-se a eles" - Helen Keller
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The city where I was born and used to spend my summer vacations, Pesqueira, 212km from Recife, is surrounded by the Ororubá Mounts. I never understood the city name, Pesqueira (something similar to fishing in Portuguese). People asked me if the name comes because the main business activity from the city was fishing. Not even close. The city were once knew because of the factories of sugary and laceworks. Nowadays they just have the lacework, because all sugary factories were closed.
Most part of the Ororubá Mounts, or all of that, actually is indian land, Xukurus tribe. But wasn't like that all those time. When I was 11 years old, more or less, I and some friends used to go trekking deep (and up) in mounts. A group of kids, with no sense of dangerous or direction, in the middle of meadow, feeling like truly pioneering.
On this mounts there’s a river. In fact is where the Ipanema River born. So it happened. Four idle and pioneering kids had the brilliant idea of going down the river into a inflatable boat! Sure, none of us remembered that in that river that we were planning to sail, there was a little waterfall, 3 meters high more or less, but for an 11 years old kid it was high enough.
We get to the start point and placed the boat. All four came into the boat. I, Eduardo, Luis and Raimundo. We had no idea of security. No life jacket, helmets or oar. Only excitation and anxiety guiding us. We placed the boat into the water, got in and started our adventure.
So, there forward someone saw that the river didn't follow a straight curse. There was a point of depression and just after above the river continued. It was the waterfall. "Fuck" - someone screamed. We weren't in a high speed, but I don't know how the hell why we took so long to take some decision.
We couldn't go out all at the same time. First because we didn't know how deep was so we were waiting some of us trying first. Besides that, for some reason, we thought that we couldn't go out at the same time for some reason. What a hell... If that was not a door, I didn't understand why it would be hard to go out all four at same time.
Eduardo jumped first. The water was not so high. It was under his knees. After that jumped Raimundo. I and Luis were looking one each other waiting who would be the next. Too late. When we noticed we were going down the waterfall. The highest three meters that I ever felt.
The boat felt overturned. I and Luis sat at the water, looking each other and laughing. Laughing of the fright, of the situation and of the scared faces that had Eduardo and Raimundo. We came back home all wetted, dirty and happy, as we just had sail down the Niagara Falls. My parents were not so happy when we arrived home, but is the little devil that lives inside each of us that made us to free the good inside us.
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure." - Helen Keller
Yes, we can legally keep parrots here, but mostly keeping wild caught and endangered birds is generally frowned upon and in some cases illegal, as are species such as Quaker Parrots who supposedly escape and nest in inconvenient places such as power lines. Speaking of grammar, they are more clever than it looks like (not cleaver, a cleaver is a large knife that one uses for cooking purposes). Mine are especially clever, and yet they either don't like my hat or they can't recognize me when I have it on. I can understand why one might put restrictions on the keeping of birds as pets. We used to have two species of native parrot here in the continental U.S. Now one of them, the Carolina Conure, has gone extinct, part of it was the pet trade. They lived in Ohio to the Gulf, of all places, the last place I would think of for a wild parrot to live.
ResponderExcluirYou have reminded me of a place east of town where I live. I used to go there more often but as I have gotten older I have grown more attuned to the risks of swimming alone as well as the types of people that sometimes hang out there. It is a place along a river, just past a bridge that I have thought of doing a cannonball off of at times. There is a rope swing where my cousins and I used to swing off and scare each other with stories of leeches and stray fishing hooks just waiting to find and unsuspecting young foot. Neither event ever happened, although I did get a fair amount of bruises playing in the fast water just downstream. Also, I got to see what clay looks like while it is still in the earth, an odd experience where glacial soil means that much of the earth is sand. That is what childhood is meant to be. You build your brain by playing.