If cranes are the sign of a growing city, then surely `Coming Soon´ is the sign of an embryonic one. The visual litter along Slavador highways is something terrible; billboards and flags, leaflets and banner-bearing bums assault the eye the entire length of major roads. They shriek New Developement! They yell of office blocks and resort towns. The names of these new locales plug the Anglo attraction shamelessly. One can live the high life in ´Manhattan Square´, seize the opportunity for a holiday house at ´CarpeDiem´ or enter a brave, new world at `Alphaville´.
These developments are still mere dreams, nothing more than one or two suited salespersons, a model miniature and deforested land. Where giant tualangs once grew, scaffolding now reaches for the sky. The course of the mighty Amazon's tributaries now plots future highways and parkways. The ground lies bare, bald, ugly.
Bahia is famed for ´The Interior´ — the impregnable barrier guarding the riches of the Amazon. Once the bane of explorers and prospectors, it now lies violated, ripped asunder. Instead of vines as thick as a man's thigh and poison tipped spears, now one must be wary of tangled electricity cables and pesticide. The all powerful dollar has conquered the final frontier: Bahia is the largest producer of soybeans, a major source of corn and a top ten international supplier of wheat. In a shockingly uneven exchange she no longer produces pau rosa (used in Chanel 05) or the Spix's Macaw, cannot host the Amazon River Dolphin nor feed the Phrynomedusa fimbriata.
Enjoy the view from `GreenAppleAcres´!
