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Even in Sāo Luiz, where buzzards still feast in the streets, a modern fish-freezing plant is starting up, and across the state a new hydroelectric dam will soon boost the state's power capacity from 10,000 kw. to 235,000 kw. A group of ambitious jute traders in hustling Santarém has set up a factory that makes sacks from raw jute; it now employs 800 people. Hotels are going up almost as fast. This month a new 16 story hotel opens in Belém, the first major hotel in decades. Manaus also recently opened one—eight stories high and completely air-conditioned.
All of this is, of course, only a start. Decades will be needed to make real headway against the Amazon's problems of poverty, illiteracy and disease. But a new outlook has come to the great river basin, and with it a new optimism. "You're going to see a lot of big changes around here," says American Bishop James Ryan, who is stationed in Santarém. "If they can do this much in two years, think what they can do in ten."