During the training and production days, one of the participants, Andreia took a series of pictures, which were exchanged and are posted below. These shots display some of the moments that we were not working in the project and reveals the commitment of the families with the project.

Sharing these pictures with the community was also a significant moment of the project. In my return to the community I recorded a DVD with both mine and Andreia's pictures, which the families could watch on the TV. In the forest there is no electricity supply, but there is a generator, which is run by gasoline and that we turned on. They  loved to see the pictures and the children were giving everyone a buzz. Then, I used the occasion to show them pictures of the work of Doutor da Borracha, who does rubber shoes in another community, in addition to other natural rubber handcrafts made by other communities from the Amazon Rainforest. This generated a rich discussion about doing rubber products and a range of new ideas.

It was fantastic to return to the community of Seringal Veneza at Parque das Ciganas after two weeks and realise how the families own production. In the previous week it was raining a lot and the best course of reaching the community was by boat. About three boats were there waiting for me the moment I arrived, just a very friendly reception indeed. On the way Iris was telling me about the amount of rubber they produced in the meantime since I had left. She was very glad with the quality of her rubber sheets, the amount produced and the new colours that she explored.

In my arrival to the community, we all gathered at the big house's terrace to sort the work for the next days. I also remunerated them the bonus regarding to the training days. They were all satisfied and again committed with the project.

On the next day at 5 am we woke up to a intense working day, when we made a quality control of the produced rubbers, selected the best ones and analysed what kind of problems we had with the bad sheets, weighted the production, washed the material and also produced more rubber sheets in the afternoon.

During th e FSA training, on the first week of the project in Brazil, I taught the women that were participating of the training how they could work with the FSA rubber while it is still wet in order to make artefacts. How was my great surprise I had in seeing what they produced in two weeks and how enthusiastic they were with the rubber. Madalena, a very shy woman, who sometimes did not expressed her enthusiasm, also did a bag, some flowers, a tree and some armbands. Moreover, other women, as Aninha, that did not participate of the FSA training, was also making rubber artefacts. 

I was surprised in seeing Aninha working with the rubber that we separated during the quality control. She was really focused on cutting the rubber delicately to do armbands while the children looked at her enchanted. Her older boy Gustavo also develop his own cuff. I really left it flow without interfere in their creative process. I also gave them some tools and materials such as hangs for earrings, threads, pliers and stylus, among others for complementing or helping them in the artefact making. 

On the following day, some of the visitants bought practically all the armbands the women did. Andreia told me how she was happy in having learned how to manufacture the FSA and with the perspectives of developing her products further to sell them. She was already thinking in prices and in selling them in a local fair in 2013. 

Andreia and Iris together with me presented the processing of the rubber to Lily Cole. Lily also worked on a texturized rubber with laces and thought in some design with the material. 

Larissa Chaperman is the chemistry of the laboratory Lateq at the University of Brasília who is responsable for developing the copaíba gel. After different tests, we decided to use the wax format instead a gel, as it is saver (more difficult to ingest) and also presents very good results. The ingredients are all used in cosmetics, not allergic, non animal, and presenting no risk for human health or even for the skin. We worked on choosing colours that are part of the colour palette and in the smell of the wax. She also tested the duration of the product on the rubber, which presented a long lasting result.

Vanda has arrived from these two weeks of training and technical support for the FSA production with the result of 300 rubber sheets, which is a very good amount. Although the distance of the rubber roads, rain and some setbacks, the group was efficient enough to surpass any difficulty.  Colours are beautiful according to her, just white didn't work well. We will have a range of colours in pastel tones, plus black.

She told me the producers were also pleased with the result and that they said they will keep producing during these days for completing the 400 rubber sheets. The women, mainly Iris and Andreia, have developed more artefacts with the FSA. I can not wait to see it all.

This is a brief description of the work in the State of Acre, Brazil. From 5th to 15th November 2012 the FSA training and production happened at Seringal Veneza with rubber tapping families that are part of the producers association of Parque da Cigana. 

Vanda (who is the chemistry researcher from the Lateq) and I travelled on the 5th from Brasília to Rio Branco, and then to Feijó, and then to the community of Parque da Cigana on the 6th, after many setting up plenty of materials, food, utensils to take to the training days. Mr. Tabota from Seaprof in Feijó was really kind and efficient in helping us to sort everything out.

We were very welcome by the families who would be involved in the course. However we were a bit frustrated because we expected to have latex to begin the course on the same day, but the production was not organised yet. In the end everything was right as we employed the time to discuss how things would work during the next days. Soon, women and men assumed their best roles, one in tapping the trees, others in organising the work space, cleaning, and producing the rubber sheets, among others. On the next day, each one were in their way to makes things happen.  

The first production was very enthusiastic. We made about 60 rubber sheets, but lost some of them because it was also a day of testing the latex with new pigments to achieve the pastel colours we wanted. We also lost a part of the latex because of the long distance and warm weather. 

On the second day we could see what were the pigments and sheets that worked and the ones that did not. From our notes, Vanda and I knew beforehand what worked well and what we should not repeat. After pressing the coagulated rubber we did some tests of printing some sheets with laces textures.

After pressing all the rubber sheets I showed Iris and Andreia how to work with the wet rubber to develop products. They were enthusiastic about it and immediately began to materialise ideas. I was also glad to be part of this emerging creativity process.

Later on, the team of the The Economist newspaper, with WWF UK and WWF Brazil arrived. They came out in such special moment, which just became even better through out the reportage. The rubber tappers exposed the difficults they are facing because of deforestation and the importance of the rubber and other productive activities in the forest. Moreover, we explained the FDL and FSA technologies, which the processing method was demonstrated by Vanda and the producers.