Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
stores and delivering it to them with his
carroça
, a wooden wagon pulled by his “most
precious belonging,” his horse
Dourado
or “golden,” perhaps an allusion to what
he would rather be mining for. Aldair's youngest brother “became a millionaire,”
as he likes to put it, mining for gold during a few years in Mato Grosso. But this
is something that Aldair regrets not being able to do. Untreated tuberculosis has
crippled his lungs and legs, and he can only push himself on the ground with the
help of his hands and elbows. Much like his companion and her kids, Aldair's teeth
are taken over by cavities and his body is covered with scabs. Small mosquitoes fly
around his eyes, infected with chronic conjunctivitis. None of them own clothes,
other than the ragged outfits they carry on their bodies, nor do they have shoes.
Because the family manipulates deteriorated food, pieces of glass and metal, and
eventually chemical residues, Diego, Angélica, Daniela and their parents and other
relatives at the Itaóca village are exposed to tetanus, typhoid fever, leptospirosis,
scabies, gastro-intestinal diseases, and tuberculosis (Ferreira 1999c, e).
Both Aldair and Suely were disconcerted with the children's revealing performance,
because they had never mentioned to me they searched for scraps of food at the dump.
Suely started weeping and I followed her inside the house. We hugged, as she pointed
to a few ripe tomatoes, three oranges, and a few wheat buns in a plastic bag that
Aldair, with the help of Diego, was able to scavenge at the garbage lot. Like his sisters,
Diego suffers from the “stigmata” of slow starvation: weight loss and wasting, edema,
changes in hair texture and skin pigmentation, and abrupt mood-changes (Scheper-
Hughes 1992: 183). The boy's stomach is swollen, he has very little hair and his skin
is gray. In March 1998, Diego, Daniela and Angelica weighed 19, 14 and 8 kilos,
respectively, when they should be weighing at least 28, 22, and 14 kilos, according to
the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS; Williams 1997:590-595).
Like other Guarani kids in Itaóca and other coastal villages in the state of São Paulo,
the kids' growth has been stunted by malnutrition. Some, like little Angélica and her
first cousin Joacir, also show signs of mental retardation, a common consequence
of severe hunger, according to research on physical growth and malnutrition among
Brazilian Indigenous Peoples (Martins and Menezes 1994, Morais et al. 1990, Santos
1993). Angélica is the only one in the family to possess an immunization record, but
most of her shots are long overdue. None of the children in the village have been
immunized against tuberculosis, the major health problem in the area. And very few
have birth certificates. This means some Guarani children have no civil rights, since
the lack of a birth certificate obstructs access to the rights and privileges a country
offers to its citizens, such as basic health and education.
14
Still bewildered by the children's revelation of life on the dump, Suely wiped
her tears with the back of her hands and looked me in the eyes: “At least the dump
is clean. Drugs are dangerous and you get in trouble. Here, everybody is clean.”
Suely was referring to the presence of white drug dealers on the Itaóca reservation,
who hide in the woods and eventually grow marijuana in the area. I often heard
shooting near the villagers' houses and the Guarani told me to avoid walking back
to Mongaguá at night (a three-kilometer walk from the entrance of the village to the
