Rosenir has a story of self perseverance  we’d like to see more while travelling to remote corners of the Amazon. The urbanization of Northern Brazil has been forcing many people out of villages into town for better access to education, healthcare and supplies. That doesn’t necessarily mean getting a better life. Meanwhile many villages become smaller and smaller with all the economically active people moving into town. But some youngsters like Rozenir move to town only to come back home with a higher level of education and a more open mind. That’s when villages get a boost in their development and their kids a peaceful, though active life.

Rosenir was born in 1986 in a small fishing camp on the Xeruini called Aiçu formed by fishermen from Terra Preta. Just like most locals, his family lived off fishing, hunting, planting and collecting. After all, the Xeruini River was a place of abundance. At the age of seven “Ro” like everyone ended up calling him” started going out fishing with his grandfather, later, out on the Rio Branco with the rest of his family. In 2000 his father was invited to participate in the first attempt of building a tourism operation in that area, which resulted in Rosenir’s first contact with artificial lures. Kids from the village found it very amusing and started imitating the lures by making them from wood and bark of the Macacarecuia (Cannonball) trees. Many of the kids out there loved fishing and playing so much, school didn’t matter. Rosenir took it differently. As much as he loved being out in nature, he would make time to study hard. The result, he is among rare young men from his village with a university degree (pedagogy and theology). In 2015, though, Rosenir came back to Terra Preta where he grew up. 

In 2017, he was invited by his cousin, Neto, to be part of his operation on Lower Xeruini. Not as a guide but basically as the, do-everything-else-in-camp-position. We will call him the support manager out of respect for his hard work. This guy was amazing. If he did not have anything to do he would find something on his own. He never took a break. He would wash the outside of the boat almost daily. After the season Ro and his dad Carlos would accept the job of taking care of the the fishing liveaboard, Tupana, the fishing boats and the rest of the equipment from the operation for the next two years until the boat was taken over in the new partnership by Natan Guedes and stored in his shipyard outside Manaus. 

While spending time after college in villages like Terra Preta, Lago Grande, Canuini and Santa Maria and after having lived in larger cities, Rosenir saw the need to bring more progress to those remote places. As a hard-worker he takes any job with a smile, from cleaning the boat engine to managing the whole operation, and he is a fully-reliable guy for any kind of job.

Today Rozenir lives in Caracarai, is married and a father of a teenage girl. Rosenir worries about the future of kids and teens of  the Lower Rio Branco area and the lack of basic supplies and access to education and healthcare – this all keeps pushing families to move to town, leaving behind life in a paradise like the Xeruini River Preserve. Ro is one of the inspirations of our Care&Share program, and is now trying his muscles in politics, running for alderman to represent  the Lower Rio Branco Region. He has our support and the support of all his peers in the area. We are going to go ahead and say we are going to miss him… But just in case there is always space for him in our family and a position taking care of all of us in life.