Outbreaks, Couch Surfing, and a Glowing Green Church

It was one of those perfect coincidences. I was reading a post on Names Across Nations (seriously, what a blog) in which the author, a previous Watson Fellow, stumbles across a university in her German host-city with an onomastics department. A whole department dedicated to her niche topic, the study of names and naming, and she didn't even plan it! Naturally, she meets with a professor there, and they have a three-hour conversation fueled by their mutual delight that someone else in the world is obsessed with names.

I thought to myself, I should really try to meet with some professors at the Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) before I leave. So, I Googled “zoonotic disease UFMS” and e-mailed the first five names for which I found contact information: three veterinarians, an ecologist, and a medical doctor. One of these professors replied saying, “I’ll be at a zoonosis conference on the exact days you’re in town. Why don’t we just meet there?”

Talk about luck! The conference was called DIERN: Doenças Infecciosas, Emergentes, Reemergentes, e Negligenciadas. Scientific language tends to be easy to understand in Portuguese because, like in English, its words stem from Latin. The conference’s name is a cognate: Infectious, Emerging, Reemerging, and Neglected Diseases.

A poster for DIERN, the Central-Eastern Conference on Infectious, Emerging, Reemerging, and Neglected Diseases. (Don't be confused by the dates; this must be a poster from last year.)

I read the conference program with glee, sent a Facebook message to everyone I knew from Campo Grande asking for a couch to sleep on, and bought a bus ticket to the city. The one thing I failed to do was actually register for the conference. I was waiting until the last day in case my plans fell through. (It’s a tricky gamble, this waiting game. Last month I paid ahead for a 5K race in Campo Grande, and then I had to skip it because I got invited to trap marsupials.) This time, my gamble did not pay off. When I finally tried to register, a red warning streaked across the screen: “registrations closed, conference full.” Gulp. Luckily, the conference organizers responded sympathetically to my pleading e-mail and welcomed me to attend anyway.

Marmelade, my champion backpack supplied by my champion North Face employee.

On Saturday morning, I stuffed Marmalade (my turquoise backpack) to bursting, said a tearful farewell to Lygia and Duca, and spent the day vaccinating cats and dogs against rabies in the town of Corguinho (more on that later). Then I took an evening bus into Campo Grande, a city of a million people and the capital of this cattle state.

Campo Grande from a skyscaper apartment.

I stayed the first night on the couch of my friend Renata. She was very enthusiastic about the Theo’s dark chocolate bars I gave her. Brazil exports cacao but, ironically, even “dark chocolate” here is mostly sugar and milk, so 70% cacao Theo’s bars from my neighborhood of Seattle are precious.

Dark chocolate from Fremont!

Here, Renata holds a rehabilitated roadside hawk as part of the falconry class she took me to last month.

The next morning, I took an Uber to Faculdade Medica (FAMED), the university’s medical school. My driver was a little confused when his map took him through a gate, down a cobblestone road, through a narrow dirt alleyway sprouting plants, and into a parking lot surrounded by walls of rusty sheet-metal. We had arrived at FAMED!

I had signed up for an all-day mini-course called, “Investigacãos de Surtos,” investigations of outbreaks. First we defined an outbreak: a higher-than-normal incidence of a certain disease over restricted space and time. Not to be confused with endemic disease (always present in a given zone), an epidemic (widespread in space and/or time), or a pandemic (affecting multiple countries or continents).

The four outbreak professors: Dr. Larissa, Dr. Adriana Lucena, Dr. Liana Blume, and Dr. Marcelo Wada.

I was excited to realize that epidemiology is detective work. (In fourth grade, I was obsessed with solving mysteries. After reading Harriett the Spy, I founded the American Mystery Association, drafted bylaws in which “a good attitude” was mandatory, and established the headquarters in my treehouse. The AMA charged 10 cents per mystery. Bonus: if I didn’t crack your case, you didn’t pay.)

Epidemiological mysteries are far more tantalizing than the kind I tackled, which usually involved finding lost household objects. In the world of disease, the mystery asks: what is the source of disease, and how can we stop it? Outbreaks involve three kinds of clue: people, place, and time. When epidemiologists catch wind of an outbreak, usually though a medical center’s report to the federal Ministerio de Saude (Ministry of Health), they scramble to collect their equipment and get to the field, wherever the outbreak is occurring.

Dr. Marcello explains how this map of cases in a Toxoplasmosis outbreak allowed the epidemeologists to locate the source at a water reservoir.

They start with the first clue, people, by tracking down every possible patient. Which people are getting sick? How many? Then then move to place by plotting cases on a map. The highest density of cases is the focal point, the probable source. Finally, they use a tool called an “epidemic curve” to understand time. For most diseases, we know the minimum and maximum incubation time (the shortest or longest time it can take a person to get sick after being exposed to a pathogen). By counting backward from the first and last cases of the outbreak, scientists can determine the period of time in which the disease’s source was infectious.

My attempt to estimate the time period during which an outbreak started, using an epidemic curve.

I imagine that many epidemiological mysteries are never solved, but we went through a couple case studies where the pathogen’s source was traced to a single batch of oranges at a Luau or the water reservoir of a town. In each case, the epidemiologists recommended public health actions to prevent a recurrence. How satisfying!

Outbreak students 2017!

When the mini-course ended, my day’s adventures had only just begun. I didn’t have any way to get from FAMED to the house of Giovana, a friend of Renata’s who’d agreed to host me for the next three nights. Without a SIM card or WiFi, I couldn’t call an Uber, nor could I walk three kilometers with all my earthly possessions on my back. So I asked around, and I found a friendly medical-student volunteer who agreed to give me a ride.

While I waited for him to finish cleaning, I talked with medical students and learned how different the higher-education systems are in Brazil and the United States. Here, high-schoolers take a national exam to determine which professions and universities they are qualified to enter. Many students then select the highest-ranked profession and school available to them. Theoretically, this system encourages a meritocracy by providing free college to any citizen who earns it, regardless of wealth. In reality, wealthy high-schoolers from private schools take most of the spots. The Brazilian system sounds rigid and status-driven to me, but I can’t say the United States does it any better. Another difference is that medicine is an undergraduate program in Brazil. Some of these students will be doctors by the age of 22!

Then my driver was ready, so I told him my address and we lurched through Campo Grande, his car dying at every stop sign. “It just started doing this today!” he told me, exasperated. He dropped me on the curb, restarted his poor car, and sputtered away.

I looked around to assess my situation: an iron fence, a locked gate, and curtained windows. It was after dark. I was an hour earlier than I’d told Giovana to expect me, and she obviously was not home. Across the street, a glowing green church had just started to attract people, so I walked over and asked if it was a public service. The man at the door gave me a puzzled look, but eventually I ascertained that I could attend. Turns out, it was Sunday! I sat myself down in a center pew, hiking boots dangling from Marmelade, DIERN name-tag around my neck.

The Catholic service was, in a word, Brazilian. The woman in charge had a black page-boy haircut and a microphone turned all the way up. We began by crowding outside to welcome Nossa Senhora Aparecida, the patron Mary of Brazil, who is always (in my experience) a statue wearing a long cloak. We danced and sang her onto the stage. It’s unclear if she was a new statue, or if this happens every week.

The service lasted for an hour-and-a-half of standing and kneeling, a music video, eruptions of applause, some scolding to open the word of God as often as we open our cell phones, and golden chalices. There was a ritual involving fire, holy water, and a Bible being fed to each in turn. There was singing, holding hands, and crossing across the head and shoulders.

According to one of the songs (which was in Portuguese, so take my translation with a grain of salt), Nossa Senhora Aparecida was a statue discovered in a certain Brazilian river by fishermen 300 years ago. Her name literally means “Our Lady Who Appeared.” She’s one of many worldwide “appearances of Mary” and the only official black Mary. The best parts of the service were sudden outbursts when the otherwise soft-spoken leader would blast into the microphone, “Let’s make some noise for NOSSA SENHORA APARECIDA!!!!” and we would all cheer like crazy for the statue.

After, I was approached by curious congregants. One asked, “Are you Brazilian?” but clearly knew the answer already. Another asked, “Were you at DIERN today?” Turns out, she works at the Ministry of Health with one of my classmates from the Outbreaks course. An elderly woman didn’t say anything, she just petted my hair and face and smiled at me.

Giovana greets the same  hawk Renata was holding above. I met Giovana at this falconry class, and then she let me stay at her house a month later. You never know when falconry classmate will reappaer in your life!

Giovana holds the roadside hawk.

I wove through the crowd and crossed the street. Giovana’s lights welcomed me through her window, a relief. I was ready for bed.

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Vale do Bugio: Tourism as a Tool to Protect Private Ecosystems

Our weekend visit to Vale do Bugio, Valley of the Howler Monkeys, didn't yield any non-human primates. But it did get me thinking about ecotourism, the difference between private and public ecosystems, and bloated dead bats.

It all started when Duca, Lygia and I loaded into the rusty truck and bumped down two hours of red-dirt roads to arrive here at Vale do Bugio.

One reason we'd come here was because, as Duca told us, "The place is gorgeous!" The second reason was practical. Duca and Lygia were hoping to strike up a partnership with the landowner to use this primary-forest reserve as a tourism destination.

This sign, if you couldn't tell, says, "Vale do Bugio," meaning "Valley of the Howler Monkeys." We didn't see any howlers, but we did see some potential infrastructure improvements!

As a comparison, here is the well-signed entrance to Taboco, the small town near Quinta do Sol (the forest reserve where I live).

Duca and Lygia are on a mission to bring ecotourism to Taboco. Ecotourism is one of the conservation strategies championed by the Wildlife Conservation Society. When practiced by the community, with local guides and homestays, tourism provides a source of income that consumes fewer natural resources than, say, cattle ranching, the most common occupation in this region.

Ecotourism also helps build a conservation ethic by increasing the value placed on intact ecosystems by local communities. When customers will pay to see birds in the primary forest, that forest becomes more to the landowner than a waste of space where pasture could be. When tourists stay at a farm in hopes of sighting an ocelot, the farm's owner has a good reason not to shoot that ocelot, even if it does steal chickens from time to time.

An aside: during my interviews with farmers, I have heard families complain of chicken-stealing ocelots, duck-killing foxes, dog-strangling anaconda, garden-wrecking tapir, and chick-grabbing hawks. These wild species become less of an economic burden when they "pay their way" and provide an additional source of income through tourists.

The private driveway to Vale do Bugio could also use some work. Our truck lurched over high berms and listed sideways in eroded tracks. We decided that tourist groups would walk up the driveway as an introductory hike, while an intrepid driver crawled behind them in the four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Ecotourism opens the door for environmental education. Already, as outreach coordinator for WCS, Duca has spoken with dozens of families about lower-impact farming methods, non-lethal techniques for managing wildlife damage (such as electric fences to keep tapir out of manioc fields), and skills to help community-members guide tourists on hikes and host them as overnight guests.

Vale do Bugio has a few simple accommodations already in place, like this stand-alone bedroom, but it will take a huge amount of work if Duca and Lygia decide to turn the place into an ecotourism attraction. Signs, road grading, trail maintenance, handrails, maps, bedding, kitchen and bathroom improvements, and potable water are all on the list. 

During my time in Brazil, I have been struck at how precious little public land exists here. Magnificent waterfalls, towering cliffs, expansive views, ancient cave drawings, old-growth forest, and endangered-species habitat lie entirely within fenced, private land. Only a handful of state and national parks dot the massive expanse of Cerrado.

Lygia blows on a dandelion while we tour the property. I told her to make a wish, but she has a different legend for dandelions. If you blow all the seeds off in one breath, it means you're going to get married.

What's wrong with a lack of public land?

For one, nature on private land inaccessible to nearly everyone: city-dwellers, foreigners, scientists, and anyone without the means to own rural property.

For another, private nature is vulnerable to the whims of a single owner. I don't mean to imply that ecosystems on public land are secure: cattle grazing on Bureau of Land Management desert, logging in US National Forests, damming of the Colorado River, mining uranium near the Grand Canyon, and harvesting solar energy at Ivanpah are enough to dissuade me of that optimistic notion. Yet public lands are accountable to a large and slow-moving bureaucracy, with at least some measure of public input and transparency. An ecosystem on private land, on the other hand, can be extinguished overnight without making any headlines (or should I say, any Facebook statuses.)

Lygia found this grasshopper with short, sassy antennae.

Now, there is one saving grace for the semi-deciduous forests of the Cerrado. By federal law, Brazil mandates that a minimum of 20% of every parcel of land in this region must be covered by forest. Some landowners, like Duca, choose to retain nearly 100% of their land in forest cover. The more ambitious cattlemen tend to deforest right down to the 20% limit. The leftover fragments of forest are called reservas, reserves. There is some political push to have the law eliminated. From the other side, Duca and other local scientists have lobbied the government to increase the reserve percentage to 100%, effectively outlawing further deforestation in the Cerrado. Unsurprisingly, neither side has made headway, and the limit remains 20%.

Duca and Lygia cross a creek to begin hiking the Trilha da Fenda, the Gap Trail. You'll see why it's called that in a moment.

Community-based ecotourism is Duca and Lygia's vision for opening the Cerrado to the world, and opening the minds of local landowners to conservation.

Last week, Lygia was invited to a private meeting with the mayor of Corguinho (arranged over a piece of beef at the Lasso Club Party, where else?) about making the municipality more inviting for tourism. Her pitch was so successful, she was then invited to discuss benefits and needs with the state tourism secretary in the capital, Campo Grande. These things move slowly, and only thanks to a lot of hard work by everyone involved, but it seems that Duca and Lygia may be making history here in this corner of the Cerrado -- for both wild organisms and human livelihoods.

Enticing botanical oddities lined the steep, slippery path. Unfortunately, a handrail did not. (But now, thanks to Lygia's lobbying, a plan is in the works.)

Enough abstract scheming. Let me take you to the Fenda, the Gap, the most magical slot-canyon I have ever experienced. (And if you know slot canyons, you know they are a magical bunch.)

The stunning, moss-coated slot canyon at the end of the trail.

From my journal entry:

Saturday, August 5, 2017. This morning we hiked along a clear mountain stream that led us back into a water-carved, sandstone canyon. The walls glistened with eerie moss, all the way up. I estimate 50 feet. In the spirit of Humboldt, I eyeballed some measurements. It took 18 seconds for a fluttering leaf to fall from the top edge of the canyon to the bottom, and only 2 seconds for a fat droplet of rain.

The canyon soon stooped underwater. We swam up to our necks, scrambled over boulders, and noted the odor of bat droppings. "The stream begins in a cave full of bat poop," Duca told us. "Don't drink the water!" As if I was tempted? 

The canyon floor soon dipped underwater, but that didn't stop us.

Then Lygia, who was leading us, came sloshing back and whooping in fear. "A very, very, very, very, very, very--" a very what? we thought as she yelled --"very, very, very, big, big, big SNAKE!" (I realized in this moment the advantage of Portuguese, a language in which the noun comes before the adjective.) We craned our necks around a bend in the canyon to see a massive rattlesnake curled on a cool, damp rock. Unlike Lygia, the snake was calm. She didn't rattle or raise her head. I estimate she was 4.5 feet long and 4 inches in diameter. Needless to say, we turned back. There is something about being wedged deep in a slot that makes fooling with a venomous snake even less appealing than usual.

As we swam back with some urgency, Lygia noticed a decomposing lump on the rock ledge. "Is this a dead bat?" she asked. I peered at the bloated ball and confirmed. I'd noticed similar lumps and suspected they might be carcasses, but in the dim light I'd dismissed them as leaves. Now that I paid closer attention, I counted seven dead bats in all. Some were bleached skeletons, discernable by the five slender bones fanning outward to support a long-gone wing. Others were bloated and floating bodies. We were all grossed out, knowing bats carry such lovely zoonoses as ebola, rabies, nipah, and hendra.

We rinsed off in the clean stream at the trailhead and applied Purell to our open cuts. Not exactly Biohazard Level 3, but it was all we could do before a picnic lunch in the bed of the truck.

Back at the truck, we hung most of our clothes on branches to dry out while we ate a picnic lunch of oranges, sweet rolls, white cheese, and the ubiquitous terere (communal yerba-mate tea with ice water).

A tatu, or armadillo, eyed us warily from the roadside grass. The creature is a ball of armor with legs.

For a ball of armor, it sure has a cute face!

Mom's Daily Bird

White woodpecker. Pica-pay-branco. Notice that sky-blue eye in the yellow face patch. If you think animals don't make art, consider the plumage of a male bird, meticulously crafted over millennia by the aesthetic tastes of females.

Dad's Daily Bug

It's a fly! It's a moth! It's a wrought-iron window pane with antennae! (Honestly, I have no idea what it is. But it's pretty, and it landed on Duca's hat.)

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