Return to the Rainforest: A Son’s Search for His Amazonian Mother
David Good’s parents come from different countries - hardly unusual in the US where he was raised. But the 25-year-old’s family is far from ordinary - while his father is American, his mother is a tribeswoman living in a remote part of the Amazon. Two decades after she left, David realised he had to find her.
It had been two decades, but David recognised his mother.
“I knew it was her right away,” he says. “I stood up and approached her. And then it just hit me - what do I do? Everything in me just wanted to hold her, to hug her, but that’s not the Yanomami way of greeting people.
“So it was just this awkward encounter. I put my hand on her shoulder and she started trembling and crying. And I looked into her eyes and I just couldn’t help but start crying myself.”
“There was a silence,” says Hortensia Caballero, who had come upriver with David. “What I remember was a silence. It was a very beautiful, intense moment. Of course all the women in the village, including me, found we had tears on our cheeks.”
David started to speak softly in English. He said “I’m here, I’m finally here,” and “I made it, I’m back” and “It’s been so long”.
Fascinating long read from the BBC.
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