‘Wait, so there’s no poop in it?’
I was amazed! Fascinated and excited. How could something smell so much like poop and not be at least partially composed of poop?
Such is the real-life mystery-science of the river Tiete, which is pronounced Chee-Eh-Tay, or, as it should perhaps be called, Shit Creek.
There’s also the Pinheiros, pronounced Peen-yay-roos, or Shit Creek 2.
These are the two rivers running through Sāo Paulo, and they look and smell like oozing poop lava.
But awe-inspiringly, as my friend was explaining that day in his car, the filth and the stink are actually not poop!
Credit is rather due to microbial microbes or something. (I missed it, I stopped listening so I could marvel at the magic non-poop.) Some small life forms that like...feed on the opposite of oxygen. Or something. ? Microscopic creatures who, at their flourishing thriving optimal best, smell like rancid farts.
There are actually tons of scientists and environmental activists working to clean up both rivers, and they've apparently had a whole bunch of triumphs in the last few years, mainly upping the percentage of treated sewage, whatever the F that means.
The poop-critters were born of environmental degradation, the degradation from pollution, the pollution from rapid city expansion over a small amount of time, and so on. I'm going to write a children's song about this soon, but not now. It's uber complex.
My friend in the car said that some of the cleanup efforts were silly, like that they paid a bunch of dudes to pull trash out of the river but those people just left the trash on the side of the river and then it rained and the trash slid back in.
He said 'like FDR's New Deal in the US, how they paid men to build things and then take them apart.'
I was about to retort 'um helLO, FDR's New Deal only got the US economy out of the Great Depression so I don't know where you get off bringing that noise up as like futility context things stuff.'
But then I realized that I didn't actually know anything about the New Deal and the only reason I thought I did was because I played an orphan in the musical Annie in middle school and in it FDR is a character and sings a song about the New Deal and it's actually the mega-uber-happy ending of the play. So why would he and the New Deal be immortalized in Annie if neither had successfully ended the Great Depression?
Sorry, back to the ghost-poop.
The most remarkable thing about it I think is that you get used to it. Mark and I wanted to walk some long distance one morning early on in our Brazil days, and this distance involved walking over one of the bridges. The stench was alarming as we got closer to the river, but I think only because your logic brain panics because it can only deduce that a Tyrannosaurus Rex just took a dump nearby and will step on you next.
But then you realize it's not danger. It's just microbial microbes or something. It's just how the river is. (Though only for now. The eco-friends are scrambling hard to make it clean and great again.) And then you kind of stop noticing. Sort of.
*Also later i found out there is some poop in it.
There are actually tons of scientists and environmental activists working to clean up both rivers, and they've apparently had a whole bunch of triumphs in the last few years, mainly upping the percentage of treated sewage, whatever the F that means.
The poop-critters were born of environmental degradation, the degradation from pollution, the pollution from rapid city expansion over a small amount of time, and so on. I'm going to write a children's song about this soon, but not now. It's uber complex.
My friend in the car said that some of the cleanup efforts were silly, like that they paid a bunch of dudes to pull trash out of the river but those people just left the trash on the side of the river and then it rained and the trash slid back in.
He said 'like FDR's New Deal in the US, how they paid men to build things and then take them apart.'
I was about to retort 'um helLO, FDR's New Deal only got the US economy out of the Great Depression so I don't know where you get off bringing that noise up as like futility context things stuff.'
But then I realized that I didn't actually know anything about the New Deal and the only reason I thought I did was because I played an orphan in the musical Annie in middle school and in it FDR is a character and sings a song about the New Deal and it's actually the mega-uber-happy ending of the play. So why would he and the New Deal be immortalized in Annie if neither had successfully ended the Great Depression?
Sorry, back to the ghost-poop.
The most remarkable thing about it I think is that you get used to it. Mark and I wanted to walk some long distance one morning early on in our Brazil days, and this distance involved walking over one of the bridges. The stench was alarming as we got closer to the river, but I think only because your logic brain panics because it can only deduce that a Tyrannosaurus Rex just took a dump nearby and will step on you next.
But then you realize it's not danger. It's just microbial microbes or something. It's just how the river is. (Though only for now. The eco-friends are scrambling hard to make it clean and great again.) And then you kind of stop noticing. Sort of.
*Also later i found out there is some poop in it.
No comments:
Post a Comment