I leave Brazil an optimist

Goldman Sachs was right when, earlier this century, its chief economist came up with the concept of the BRIC economies…these were the big economies likely to make it into the top league in the first part of the 21st century: Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Some questioned whether Brazil should be there. After my first visit and a lot of ferreting and talking and traveling I certainly emerge convinced that this is a big country with a burgeoning economy, huge human capacity and much potential.

Sure, there are the problems – poverty, and the rain forest, but all in all there is a dependable if at times corrupt system of government.

The armed forces are in their barracks. Business is booming. Many rich Brazilians are investing in Brazil and many outsiders too. Growth is on track for more than five per cent next year.

So I leave Brazil an optimist. I awoke in the Amazon this morning to the sound of rain on my tin roof. Rain. This thirsty droughty land had waited an overdue month for them. By day break a watery sun greeted the day.

The monkeys scampered about, their feet rattling where the rain had fallen on the tin roofs. A speed boat dash across the 10 miles of Amazon to Manaus.

A quick pause at the opera house where the vast voiced Marcia Siqueira was in full flow rehearsing with piano, snare drum, and full string orchestra.

Magnificently ringing round the chandeliers, pouring off the gold leaf – such total romance! Now I shall have to hunt her records down as a tangible reminder of this extraordinary wilderness. The opera house itself built on rubber exports 100 years ago, is a fitting artifact, as sumptuous as the forest beyond.

And so to Sao Paulo, a plane change and Europe.

If it’s Monday, it’s Copenhagen and the climate change summit – Snowblogging from there.