A Story Born in the Heart of the Amazon

I was born in a small indigenous village in the Amazon, almost a thousand kilometers from Manaus. As a child, I moved to Europe — I grew up far from the forest, not knowing that a part of my story had been left behind.

At 9 years old, I learned the truth: I had a family in Brazil I had never met.

At 18, I went back. I traveled up the river by boat, and for the first time, saw the waters, the forest and the pink river dolphins up close. I didn’t need anything else to know: this was my place.

Not long after, I lost my mother — and decided to leave everything behind to return for good. I lived for five years as a riverside native, without electricity, learning to fish, hunt and use the forest as medicine, the way my family had always known how.