Frog Calls

I was trawling through some folders and found this recording I made over a year ago - frogs chorusing in a ditch near my lodgings in Belem in Brazil. I was attending the World Social Forum last January, and a Jesuit meeting on the environment (see earlier posts - and ignore the horrible comments from spammers which I can't get rid of!).

The frogs remind me of hot nights, hummingbirds in the garden, the smell of charcoal cooking, bright lights glittering beyond the dark ditch where the frogs carried on chorusing, despite the motorbikes, cars and lorries on the main road at the end of the lane.

They are still there, despite the urban sprawl, singing reminders of how Belem used to be - the edge of a rainforest on the shores of a mighty river.

This is a picture that captures where I was exactly - the frogs were in a side alley off the main road.

The picture is from Nowtopian blog by Chris Carlsson from the US - he was also at the WSF and heard the frogs while waiting for a bus. He wrote:

Another Traffic Jam is Possible!

Did you hear the frogs along the roads in Belem as you were waiting for traffic to clear (so you could reach UFPA or UFRA)? Could you turn around and talk to the people behind you? It’s a shame that a gathering of 100,000 people seeking to create another world continues to depend on the same transit technology that is destroying the planet. Some of us have experienced a different kind of “traffic jam” and we want you to know it is a great improvement! We hear the frogs and talk to strangers, and experience the city and traffic in an entirely new way.

Thanks Chris - great blog by the way.