as per popular demand, what I do on a daily basis; and, notes from the field
June 20th, 2005Hi all:
I´ve received various emails asking that I provide a brief outline my daily routine for the past four weeks, both in regards to rsearch, and, ripping it up here in Rio as well as elsewhere.
Right, so here it is …
Following my departure from Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes (ENFF)–the MST´s recently-founded University where I was helping with english/computer skiils classes whilst conducting interviews–I headed to the city of São Paolo, contacts made while teaching at the Uni in hand, to arrange various visits to encampments in areas surrounding the city. While I spent numerous evenings sleeping at these encampments, I for the most part left the city early each morning and returned late every evening; to an apartment–rented by two law students in São Paolo who we met while here and were nice enough to allow us a space to sleep on their, well, bien-dirty living room floor.
After departing the apartment each morning at 7am, I would grab a $1 and 12 oz. cup ó pure expresso—a 2 hour buz, roughly–and head for the Praça Republica, a hub for regional bus transport in São Paolo. Bags under eyes and cup in hand I boarded one of various buses, pleasantly clean and efficient, headed toward the northeastern region of the city; from where I took a smaller van-like vehicle into the country-side. Upon arrival at the Irmã Iberta encampment–nestled 1.5 hour´s transport from city center-I would salute the inhabitants of each black-plastic tent-like structure on the dirt road preceeding their encampment´s secretarial building, and head straight to the home of Fabricio and Sheila, two of the camp´s leaders.
In a nutshell, I spent each day chatting with as many people as possible, both in regard to their reasons for entering the movement as well as how they feel subnational politics–for example, the personal agendas or politicking of senators or municipal officials–has or continues to affect the MST´s forward progress. Below are some of my observations/interviews from the Terra Prometida encampment, a smaller, five-year-old encampment 2 hours outside of Rio de Janeiro.
Forgive my use of parenthesese ( ) for quotation marks, but, oddly enough, this keyboard lacks the latter.
I arrived in Terra Prometida at roughly 9:30 and it turned out that my contact person, a burly-voiced fellow named Claudio with whom I had only spoke, confusedly, via cell phone, was nowhere to be found. Luckily, however, I was greeted by Tania, the encampment´s communications director. At roughly 5 feet 2 inches, Tania was a ball of fun the entire day.
I sat down in the encampment´s meeting area, a large black-plastic structure adjacent to a communal cooking area, and spoke, at first, with Tania and Maria, a 44-year old mother of four and another of the encampment´s directors, about their role within the MST, their respective personal histories in the movement, as well as the history of Terra Prometida.
In 2000, according to both Tania and Maria, 150 familes occupied a piece of land nearby to the encampment´s current location, but were forced off of it shortly thereafter, one year later to be exact, by police (an act called a despejo). In 2001 the 150 families moved to their current site, on the outskirts of Chatuba, a small community on the outskirts of Santa Cruz, a larger, more comercially-oriented city roughly 1 hours drive from Rio.
According to each of these women, the land on which Terra Prometida is currently located is federal territory that has not been utilized–neither for cultivation, nor grazing–for 30 years. In, approximately, 2004, the encampment´s leadership decided to move 35 (half of the remaining 70 families) to a site within the fazenda itself–at the entrance to the farm–to make the occupation more visible as well as place more pressure on the local, and municipal, government. In December of 2005 INCRA promised that the families would soon be settled (15 days from the day of said notification, according to Maria), but according to each of these women nothing more has happened in the past six months.
Maria told me that in 2004 INCRA made a similiar promise and had even chosen a piece of land–near the coast–on which to settle the families. However, she said that state government officials blocked the purchase of this land for the MST, because they viewed it as too valuable an asset to the state.
–many of the people in the encampment said that the state government has not, at all, helped the MST in Rio. Rather, it has served only as an impediment to the movement´s forward progress.
Maria Filomena gave a two-pronged answer to why she became involved in the MST.
(If we dont pressure the government, well never receive land), she said, adding that she was unemployed and in need of work when she joined the MST. Maria also stressed the link between rural-urban populations and how one relies upon the other for production/exchange of goods.
Maria lived in city for 25 years, starting in 1976, constanty battling with periods of unemployment. She thought that the city would bring her and her family a better quality of life. However, in 2000, she said, there was a wave of lay offs from which a rebound was not forseeable. It was then that she decided to join the MST and attended her first meeting. (We are working toward a better brasilian society as a whole) said Maria. (the state of Rio de Janeiro is better off with the MST). From there she participated in the first Terra Prometida occupation. (I found life in the encampments difficult at first–as you can see, we have almost no space between our houses and the neighbors), she said. (in reality, though, i then realized the passion for life that people here have).
Tania:
Tania, who loves to talk–as per her, no-joke, 20 minute monlogue-esque answers, gave an interesting story as to how she decided to become involved in the movement. She said that her only contact with the movement before 2000 was by seeing the red flags and black-plastic tents–which she then associated with (bandits and bad people)–whilst riding buses to and from work. (My vision of the mst then came only from seeing the tents once in a while when I was on bus rides), said Tania. However, in 2000 both she and her husband–Maurio, also on the encampment´s directorate–were unemployed and needed some form of financial support. It was then that she went to her first meeting and decided to join. She has been living in Terra Prometida ever since, where she resides to this day in a MST-typical black-plastic structure with her four children, her husband and her mother.
-the house (of Tania) was the most technoligically-equipped which I had seen since arriving here. A television and small stereo were in the living room, across from two small couches, while a refrigerator kept left-overs cold and a normal toilet was one step up from the out-house-like accomodations at Irmã Alberta. Perhaps this is a function of the time period that they have been encamped?
One interesting point which Maria raised, was in regard to the role that National television, namely the right-wing quasi-faschist station ¨O Globo¨ plays in warping the vision which Brazilians hold of the MST.
(The TV shows the bad-side of the MST and the good-side of the government, neither is true) she said, adding that people abroad have given support to Lula, whereas in reality he has done little for the movement. (Not even 100 families from Rio de Janeiro state have been settled since Lula came into office) she said, (that is a shame).
MARIA: (we are not joking around here, we want land in order to produce on it, the government needs to realize this) she said, adding that the picture often painted by O Globo, both in print as well as during nightly newscasts, is incorrect. (They make us look like lazy people, sitting around, drinking–while this is not true, look around you, where are all the people drinking) she said, pointing out that at that moment–a sunny minute at 2:30 in the afternoon–the 35 families were no where to be seen, working in the fields since early that morning, rather than lounging about as Globo would like the everyday resident, and foreigner, to believe
Hope to hear from everyone soon … 🙂
Pat