"Assentamento Vitdria:A Hollow Victory?"

April, 2000Assentamento Vit6ria, Pernambuco, Brazil

Peter Bird MartinInstitute of Current World AffairsFour West Wheelock StreetHanover, New Hampshire 03755

Dear Peter,

Out of habit and nervousness, I opened mybackpack and pulled out theworn paper on which I’d written the following: "Bus from Salvador toJuazeiro, Bahia; combi to Cura; boat from Cura to ’Old Varig’ fazenda;ask for Valdete’s house." I looked up and scanned the banks of the Rio SoFrancisco. Behind us was the state of Bahia, before us, the state of Pernambucowhere I would find Valdete.

Communication between us had been sparse since meeting at a Decem-ber workshop for midwives. Valdete was one of five midwives who had trav-eled to the conference from settlements established by the Movimento doTrabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra (MST, Landless Rural Workers Movement) alongthe Rio Sao Francisco in Pernambuco. Visiting midwives in the land reformmovement seemed like a good opportunity to get a different perspective onBrazilian society.

Early one morning as I perched on a rock, sipping coffee outside the

Valdete stops to rub her shoulders as her partner Grande, left, plantsone ofnearly 300 seedlings on their single-hectare piece of thecollective guavafields ofAssentament Vit6ria, Pernambuco.

workshop meeting house, Valdete wandered out andstruck up a conversation. She teased that the life of a poorBrazilian farmer would be too hard for a city-girl fromthe United States. She challenged mewith an open-endedinvitation and sketchy directions should I ever have thegumption to visit. It was an invitation not to be refused.

I looked back in the boat at my husband, Tyrone. Heseemed unconcerned. The only other passengers, twoevangelical women on their way to visit friends inPernambuco, smiled at me and offered advice each timethey caught my eye. Most of their words were drownedout by the boat engine but the gist was that gringos likeus shouldn’t be traipsing around "Old Varig" alone: toomany thieves. My worry was that we’d get to the otherside and wander around in circles under an unforgivingmidday sun. I let my hands drag in the water and rinsedmy face. We hadbeen traveling for nearly 24 hours. I justwanted to get there- wherever "there" was.

Elger, the boat pilot, guided us around a marshy is-land and cut the engine. Moving along the rapid current,weglidedunderoverhangingtrees and drifted intoatinycove.Agroup ofboys were thrashing rambunctiously in the wa-ter. Quite unexpectedly, first one hand and then a sec-ond slapped onto the edge of the boat. Grinning and drip-ping, a boy popped up and announced, "I am the son ofValdete!" Awave of relief washed over me.

Three other boys swam to the boat and clamberedaboard in their underwear. Elger fired up the motor againand we headed back into the riven Our escorts huddledat the bow of the boat and stole shy glances at us be-tween giggles.

Elger dropped us at the "banana port" so namedbecause of the field of bananas that runs along the foot-path leading inland. Eager to help, the boys grabbed ourbags from the boat. Of great amusement were the wheelson the bottom ofmy Samsonite carry-on bag, which wereof no help in the powdery sand of the banana trail. Wedisappointed the boys by not whipping out huge wads

of U.S. dollars to pay Elger. The kids hadbeen sure moneywould be falling out of our pockets.

As we walked, the boys introduced themselves. Thetallest were Valdete’s sons, Ezekiel and Jefferson. Theylooked about 10 and 9 years old respectively, but wereactually 13 and 11. The other two, Peu and Eduardo,looked about 7but were both 9. The smallness of the boyswas my first hint at the toughness of life in the commu-nity where we would be living for nearly a month.

After 40 minutes of walking, all signs of the lushvegetation along the river disappeared. The flora turnedscrubby and dry, the land cracked. We were surrounded bythe infamous serto, the semi-arid region that comprises thebulkofthe Northeast. Thepathended at abarbed-wire fencewith a broken gate. We crossed a wide dirt road andthrough another gate. To the right of the gate was a roundred sign with white lettering, "Assentamento Vit6ria:Movimento de Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)" (Vic-tory Settlement: Landless Rural Workers Movement).

Directly before of us stood a giant, two-sided ware-house and an old grain silo. Both looked unused. To theleft was a building that might have been a guard station.We turned left and walked parallel to the main road andbarbed wire. The brush opened up to reveal a neat row of 13cementbungalows withidentical verandas. At one time all ofthe houses were painted bright white with royal-bluetrim. It was clear that several had been abandoned. Win-dows and doors were broken. Garbage was piled in a few.

The boys walked ahead still dragging our bagsthrough the sand. At the far end of the row a dozen peoplewere lounging on a porch watching our slow approach.Tyrone and I straggled behind, absorbing first impres-sions and keenly aware of being observed. Valdete, whostands several inches shy of five feet, popped out of thecrowd and embraced me with a howl of delight. She ush-ered us into her house next door.

Valdete’s house was the most up-kept on the little

A group ofwomen and girlsfromAssentamento Vit6ria ride patiently on a

boat as the pilot cruises along thePernambuco side of the river in search ofmore passengers beforeferrying across tothe Curaa, Bahia side. AssentamentoVit6ria is located between the towns ofSanta Maria da Boa Vista and Lagoa

Grande. However, bus service is so slowand riddled with assaults that manyfromthe settlement prefer to walk to the river

and cross by boat to Curaa.2 SLS-11

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avenue. Apink hammock and over a dozen plants in oldpaint cans and margarine tins decorated the veranda. Shemotioned us to sit on the neatly arranged white vinyland metal furniture. In the corner a crude teacart dis-played a decanter of homemade liquor and a dozenempty bottles of Montilla Rum. Valdete’s companion offive years, Gil Demar (nicknamed "Grande" because ofhis unusual height of over six feet) entered and jokedaround for a while. Conversation turned awkward as theinitial pleasantries were exhausted. Between shy smilesand incomprehensible jokes, Grande and Valdete ex-pressed their worry that their poor life style and simplefood would offend us. It was a preoccupation we wouldhave to work hard to dispel over the next few weeks.

Valdete announced that she had set aside food forour lunch. While she rustled around the kitchen, Grandepointed us to the room off the living room. Normally theboys’ bedroom, it would be ours during our stay. Thewalls were freshly painted the same chalky, aqua greenof the health post two doors down. Posters of our Ladyof Immaculate Conception and Saint George hung on onewall. On another was amix of laminated posters of auto-racing star Ayrton Senna, children’s program host Xuxaand several copies of a Gerber-baby-like photo the kindthat comes free with the frame. In the comer were theboys’ toys: two plastic cars tied to worn strings and twotired stuffed animals.

The dining room was just as sparse. Aplywood table

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filled most of the space. Crammed into the corner was aSinger pedal sewing machine. Along one wall an oldbookcase held an eclectic mix of primary-school gram-mar manuals, paperback novels, religious guides andbooks about the MST and traditional healing. Tuckedbetween the tattered books were Valdete’s precious items:miniature ceramic kitchen appliances, a pocket knife, avelour-covered piggy bank and a cracked oil lamp setnext to an open Bible.

Valdete had set the table with her best plates of am-ber-colored glass. In the center she placed rice, beans, friedmeat and manioc meal. Only two places were set. WhenI protested over the VIP treatment Valdete waved me offsaying they had already eaten. Tyrone and I filled ourplates and ate while shooing away the hundreds ofswarming flies. The rest of the family sat on the frontporch whispering and peeking in every now and again.

In subsequent days Tyrone and I worked our wayinto the daily rhythm of settlement life. TheAssentamentoVit6ria is one of dozens of similar MST communitiesfounded over the last five years along the So FranciscoRiver between the town of Oroc6 and the city ofPetrolina. Traditionally, the fertile river basin hasbeen in the possession of wealthy families, investorsand agro-conglomeratesTEverything, up to and in-cluding where water flows, has been controlled by asmall number of well-connected and self-preservingfamilies, lobbyists and politicians. Today the region

is one of the MST’s princi-pal targets for land reform.

Northeastern Brazil’slong-suffered history of sla-very, unequal land distribu-tion, cash-crop productionfor export and politicalcronyism have combined withthe brutal climate and misfor-tunes of the Brazih’an economyto create a culture of endemicpoverty. Over 30 percent ofBrazil’s population lives inthe Northeast, the majorityof whom are rural peasants.Of Brazilians living at or be-low the poverty level, 50 per-cent reside in the Northeast.

Poor investment in pub-lic infrastructure has com-pounded the misery of thenordestino’s standard of liv-ing. As a result, access to basic public services such asclinics, hospitals and schools have rendered the North-east the least healthy and most poorly educated areaof the country. Northeastern infant mortality rates,at 57.9 per 1,000 births, are more than 50 percent abovethe national rate of 36.1 per 1000. Regional literacy ratesare 20 percent below the national average.

Seu Silvio stands at the edge of thefield he is preparingfor guava seedlings. Each of the264 households of Vit6ria will plant one hectare ofguava as part of the settlement’sfirst

long-term, cooperative planting project.

With over two million rural peasants without land,and 60 percent of all cultivable land under the control ofa very few, the Northeast was a logical place for the MSTto work for land reform. Initially, the MST targetedlatifundos (huge land holdings) and unused, cultivableland. The general goal of the MSTwas to have underusedland taken from (usually wealthy) landowners and re-distributed to a greater part of the population. The objectof this was two-fold: to even the distribution of wealth,and to alleviate urban and rural poverty by raising therural standard of living.

Over the last few years MST actions have becomeincreasingly radical. Productive lands were once left alone,now nearly any landholding can become part of theMST’s vision. All latifundos and multi-national landhold-ings are potential targets. There have been incidents of

invasions into productivefazendas that were then sackedand burned. The MST is active in urban areas as wellwhere it uses the tactic of occupying government build-ings of agencies linked to land reform in order to call at-tention to demands.

The MST is well organized and informed. It movesinto an area and prepares for invasions after thoroughlyresearching the land titles, and the tax and loan historyof properties. An assessment of the potential for plant-ing or grazing is made before the invasion. (In otherwords, the MST is not going after chunks of poor soilthat would doom its members to failure.) There are alsosize limitations. The targeted land must total a minimumof 400 contiguous hectares (988 acres). This restraint wasestablished by the Instituto Nacional de Colonizao e

Reforma Agrria (Incra), the federal agency that deals withland distribution and reform. Incra will not appropriateany landholding that can not sustain a community of 40families on ten hectares each.

The MST has been active in Brazil since the early1980’s. Its tactics are the following. On a given date par-ticipants gather at a designated point. They’re asked tobring the very minimumneeded to camp. They also carry

The Brazilian Northeast is composed of nine states: Alagoas, Bahia, Cear, Maranhao, Paraa, Piaui, Pernambuco, Rio Grandedo Norte, and Sergipe,Eakin, Marsahll C. Brazil: The Once and Future Country. New York: St. Martins Griffin, p.73. The "poverty level" is generally

considered to be two minimum salaries per family of four. A proposal is before the Senate to raise the minimum wage from 136to 151 reais (U.S.$74 $83) per month.

"Violncia mata 68,5% dos jovens" Folha de So Paulo Sabado, 29 de abril de 2000.Eakin, p.73.MST is not the only non-governmental organization working for land reform. It is just the most notorious. Other organizations,

principally workers’ unions and the church, are also involved.

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agricultural tools, with the exception of knives. At a pre-ordained hour the MST invaders walk to the propertyline, cut the barbed wire, enter the fazenda and set-up atemporary camp. The invasions can turn into violent con-flicts between the MST on one side and the police andlandowners on the other.

The temporary camp is organized into a more per-manent acampamento (encampment) of tents and woodenshacks. There the MST participants live until Incra ap-propriates the land from the current owner, registers MSTfamilies and issues collective title to the invaded land.The process can take years. Once given possession, theacampamento evolves into an assentamento (settlement).The registered members (one per household) are then is-sued an indemnity of 3,000 reais (U.S.$1,649) to buildhomes. Of course, because it involves government funds,this part of the process can also be delayed for years.

The toehold of the MST presence in the Rio So Fran-cisco Valley of Pernambuco was the Safra (Harvest)fazenda just a few kilometers from Vit6ria. Safra, consid-ered the "mother" assentamento, was invaded in 1995 andestablished as an acampamento and the base from whichother invasions were launched. Vit6ria grew from onesuch subsequent invasion. Once an investment propertyowned by the Brazilian airline, Varig, on which was cul-tivated mango, cotton and flax, Assentamento Vit6ria isnow home to 264 families. Throughout the region onneighboring acampamentos and assentamentos live thou-sands of other families.

Valdete, her sons and Grande have lived in their little

bungalow for three years. They won the privilege of liv-ing in one of the existing Varig houses through a lotterysystem. Today, like the other families in Vit6ria, they haveten hectares of land and are planning to plant guava andbananas. But the fight has been a long one.

Valdete married at the age of 14. She was unable toconceive for seven years due to chronic severe anemia.At 21, she gave birth to Ezekiel. Shortly after Ezekiel wasborn Valdete’s husband developed an addiction to gam-bling. Six months pregnant with her second child, Valdeteloaded her husband’s belongings into a wheelbarrow,plopped Ezekiel on top and walked through the streetsof her home town of Santa Maria da Boa Vista until shefound where her husband was drinking with his com-rades. She announced the end of the marriage, unloadedthe wheelbarrow and left with Ezekiel. In the subsequentcustodybattles Valdete kept the boysbut lost everything else.Forttmately, because of the absence of children in the first sixyears of marriage, Valdete had been able to complete mostof high school while working as a domestic.

Her education enabled her to work her way througha series of jobs at a local plant, rising from janitor to clerkwithin a few years. In 1995 MST organizers circulatedthrough Santa Maria da Boa Vista looking for people oflower incomes and without property assets to participatein the movement. The idea caught Valdete’s attention.

The MST announced Safra as the first fazenda to betargeted. Valdete knew she had a secure job at the plantbut wanted something more for her sons. She imaginedlife on her own piece of land would be better than scrap-

Grande and Valdete avoid the brutal sun and heat, and relax on thefront porch after the mid-day meal.

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Valdete prompts her son Ezekiel as he works on math homework. For Valdete all of the suffering in the encampment andin building a settlement are worth it if the lives ofher sons improve. Her priority is for them to have access to a solideducation, which has proven hard in Vit6ria since classes arefrequently cancelled due to lack of teachers andfunds.

ing by on a minimum-wage salary. Sure her motherwould disapprove, Valdete said nothing to her family,quit her job and moved her sons to CuraG Bahia, then asleepy little colonial village across the Rio Sao Franciscofrom Safra.

In Cura, Valdete rented atiny row house for 90 reais(U.S.$49.45) per month. By nightshe embroidered sheets and teatowels to sell for rent and foodmone By day; she left the boysin the care of her goddaughterand took a canoe across the riverto help in the invasionpreparations.

stalled Dona Zefa and their youngest children in the townof Rio Vermelho and took Grande and another son, Negrointo the MST with him.

After midnight one morning inAugust 1995 the MSTloaded buses on the outskirts of Santa Maria da Boa Vista. At

Grande’s story is similar.He, his parents Seu Paulo("Saint Paul") and Dona Zefa,along with nine brothers and sis-ters, were working as contract-or day-laborers on the various

fazendas in the area. At 42, SeuPaulo saw life working for theagro-industries in the area as adead-end for his family. None ofhis children had been able to at-tend school regularly. Seu Paulofigured he had nothing to loseand everything to gain. He in-

Cida and her daughter Andreza watch the antics ofPeu, Cida’s younger brother, as heplays with a broom on the porch of Cida’s bungalow. With schoolfrequently canceled or

shortened, kids like Peu have a lot oftime to play and explore. The principalentertainments are each other, the river and killing things with slingshots.

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and Negro joined the next action: the in-vasion of the Varigfazenda. For nearly twoyears they camped by the river on Varigproperty and endured police raids and theharsh climate.

In the acampamento, Valdete spear-headed the effort to start a school for chil-dren and illiterate adults. She organizedholiday events and begged used booksfrom the library and schools of Cura. Shealso became an MST militant for health is-sues and received extensive training fromthe MST in first-aid and community health.

Settlement children make a game out of tires discarded in a trash pile.

3 a.m. the slow ride down the dirt road west to Safra began.The MST descended from the buses a short distance fromSafra and, field tools raised in the air, walked en masse tothe fence surrounding thefazenda. Several groups cut thebarbed wire and the multitude entered and quickly stakedout a campsite. Within hours military police encircled theMST and remained in place for days in an effort to stopany food or reinforcements from reaching the invaders.Eventually the police were called off.

Grande and Valdete met in the Safra acampamento.After a few months at Safra, Valdete, Grande, Seu Paulo

Perseverance paid off. In March 1997Incra registered 264 individuals who metthe requirements of being landless, with-out guaranteed income or savings, withdependents, over the age of 18 and

younger than 60 years of age. Incra then listed the 264individuals as part of the collective claimants to the nearly3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) of thefazenda. The new own-ers, called colonos (colonists), voted to rename thefazenda"Assentamento Vit6ria" (Victory Settlement).

A team of ten MST agricultural experts made a de-tailed survey of the area, set up a planting and mainte-nance schedule and advised the colonos on the placementof housing, drainage, schools, warehouses, churches, etc.TodayAssentamento Vit6ria is divided into two agro-vilassurroundedby fields, each with a school that offers classes

Baby Vinicius, thefour-month-old nephew of Valdete, snoozes in the hammock as Valdete’s brother,Diogenes, and the rest of thefamily joke around on the porch of Valdete and Grande’s bungalow.

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from 7am until 8pm for children and adults who havenot completed primary school.

The agro-vilas (referred to as Vila I and Vila II) areimpressive communities of brick homes on dirt streetslaid out in grid patterns. In general, the houses are simplevariations on a two-bedroom, living-room, dining-room,kitchen theme. As the community has matured, thehouses have begun to take on individual personalitieswith gardens, outdoor sitting areas and beautiful fencesand flowering vines. Vila I, the larger of the two, has ahuge clay plaza that features a four-room schoolhouse,soccer field and space for a common area and church tobe built in the future. As yet, neither Vila has runningwater. Each household collects water daily from the riveror leaks in the irrigation pipes. The community also lacksphone and mail service.

As is standard with MST-Incra settlements, upon for-marion of an assentamento each registered personbecomesentitled to 27,000 reais (U.S.$14,843) in government loanmoney over the subsequent ten years. The initial 3,000-reais payment is an indemnity to help the colonos buildbrick homes. The money is also intended to be compen-sation for the time spent in the acampamento. Addition-ally, families are required to contribute to thef0mento, orseeding, of an initial community project. In Vit6ria thecolonos planted beans, which they could then sell orconsume.

The remaining 24,000 reais (U.S.$13,194) per registeredsettler will be doled out in a series of interest-free projectloans at the rate of one per year over ten years. The goalis to develop Vit6ria as a productive agricultural com-munity linked to other MST-founded communities in thevalley. One of the conditions that the bank and Incra stipu-

Vila horsemenpractice runningthe argolinha, acontest in whichthe rider must rideatfull speed downa chute at the endofwhich he mustthread a pointedstick through asmall leather loop.The riders werepracticingfor acontest thefollowingweekend.

lated when setting families on the repossessed land wasthat the land be used not only for subsistence farming,but also high-yield crops as a means of generating finan-cial stability for the community.

In Vit6ria each family has possession of, and is re-sponsible for, roughly ten hectares of land. The land isdivided into pieces in order to provide equal access toeach type of land in the settlement. Each family has ahalf-hectare (1.26 acre) near the river for feed grass andsubsistence crops, one hectare for a house and garden,one hectare of irrigated land for guava, and seven hect-ares for bananas.

MST technicians presented Vit6ria residents withoptions for the first planting project: banana, coconut,guava, papaya or tomato. Tomato was rejected becauseit needs to be replanted every three months and usesexpensive fertilizers and pesticides. Banana was seenas too fragile for the first project because one harshwindstorm could wipe out a crop and set back the en-tire community. Coconut takes too long to produce. Thechoice came down to papaya or guava. Guava was cho-sen because it would bear market-quality fruit withineight months.

It was also decided that each registered family wouldbuy a German-Swiss cow that would arrive either pregnantor with a young calf. The price of 800 rea/s (U.S.$4,39.80) in-duded the expertise and personal visit of a veterinarian (al-legedly also German-Swiss), who will accompany thecows through their adjustment period to the land andclimate. This particular breed was selected because of itsaverage yield of 15 liters of milk per day. (It remains tobe seen how lucrative these cows prove to be. As it is, thehigh price and requisite technical accompaniment had

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Vit6ria residents scratching their heads in doubt.)

The planting of guava trees in the irrigated land wasthe first of the projects that drew on loan monies. In thefuture the MST settlements in the Sao Francisco RiverValley will be united through a series of industries pro-ducing guava and banana sweets of export quality anddairy products for local-market consumption. The MSTregional coordination has submitted a 2-million-reais(U.S.$1,099,505) proposal to the federal government.Aldalberto da Silva, one of the MST volunteers involvedin development planning, claims the project for the sweetsand dairy production is simple and feasible. The MSTplans to build the needed warehouses, packing plantsand processing areas on land that is currently the Agroisaacampamento ten kilometers outside Vit6ria. The proposalhas made its way through the various bureaucratic chan-nels to Brasilia where, says Aldelberto, it has been bur-ied in "dirty politics" of anti-agrarian-reform politicianspressured by agro-industries and huge latifundirios.

Beginning in mid-March, each registered Vit6riacolono received 305 guava seedlings and instruction inplanting and fertilizing the crop. The initial investmentfor the guava and cow projects was 4,750 reais (U.S.$2,611).Repayment of loan money mustbegin within three yearsof project initiation and conclude within ten years of thefirst payment date. In the case of the guava project theinterest-free loan must be paid off in 2013.

From a distance, the MST inspires idealistic imagesof comrades pulling each other up by the collective boot-straps ofbrotherly solidarity. Images of revolutionary CheGuevara, the MST flag and the colors red and black areeverywhere. In the countryside and small towns, the MSTcaptures the hearts of those withnothing.

miserable drama of acampamento-atd-assentamento only toget their hands on the land and indemnity money, "sell"their lot and move on. Still others, like the settlement"presidents," find ways to make a decent living from themoney of others.

In general, the residents of Vit6ria view their localleadership with a cynical eye. Already two presidentshave been thrown off their land and out of the MST for em-bezzlement. The first was brazen enough to ride around in anew car in an area where the two major forms of trans-port are thehumanfoot and the donkey. The second pinched8,000 reais (U.S.$4,398) over time, and then disappeared.

Nothing was reported to the local police because ofthe settlement’s collective embarrassment--a fact that al-lows the scenario to repeat itself. (It would also be badpublicity for the MST nationally). The current presidentis suspected of skimming interest from the community’sbank accounts. Solid proof has not come to light, onlythe observation by residents that despite the fact that theposition he holds is voluntary, his wealth has increaseddramatically since taking office.

Just a year ago the president’s wife gave birth to a

baby with a closed throat. The baby died at home be-cause the family lacked the four-reais passage to the hos-pital in Petrolina. Since taking office, their house has filledwith new furniture. The president is often seen drinkingin the bars of local towns and dining out at modest res-taurants. His wife recently gave birth to their sixth child

by caesarean surgery in a private hospital in SantaMaria da Boa Vista.

Vit6ria residents recently convinced themselves that

Most participants latch ontothe MST as if it were the pathwayto E1 Dorado, a slice of land andhunger-free days. Dreams aretapped and they learn about theother popular land reform effortsin Latin American and the world.The sense of destitute isolation isbroken. Polemics mix with the re-ligiosity of the people and they seethemselves as the meek inheritingthe Earth. They were without landand now they are with land. Bydefinition they are more thanbefore.

For others, the whole businessof joining the MST, getting regis-tered and allocated a piece of landis just that: business. They are abreed of prospectors who, incred-ibly enough, go through the entire

Startled by my presence in usually isolated area surrounding herfamity’s mud hut,a little girl clutches her doll as she stares at me. The mud and stick house are typical

of the temporary homes built during the encampa-mento phase ofan invasionthough many, many homes in the serto are of this style and endurefor years.

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when negotiating on behalf of the community forwholesale purchases the president and otherleaders passed on inflated prices to residents andpocketed the difference. For example, barbedwire cost the families 40 reais (U.S.$21.99) per rollinstead of the going retail price of 32 reais(U.S.$17.59): a difference of only 8 reais (U.S.$4.40)but when multiplied by 264 families the sumquickly mounted into something significant. Asit turned out, the cost of barbed wire was indeedhigh. However, in this case, rather than lining thepockets of settlement leadership, the surplus wasapplied to the cost of maintenance fees for theirrigation system. By the time all of this wassorted out, residents had whipped themselvesinto a state of indignant anger. Whether allega-tions of fraud ever prove true or not, tensions andaccusations highlight the pervasive mistrust andcynicism running through the settlement.

Perhaps most surprising is the overall lackof organization and solidarity. In theory, there aremonthly assembly meetings called to informmembers and give air to issues. In reality, mostmeetings are either poorly attended or canceledaltogether. The tone of the community is one of asmall town lacking infrastructure but ripe withgossip, confusion and crime.

Life in the countryside is not idyllic. This isnot a place where doors are left unlocked. On thecontrary, houses are buttoned tight at night de-spite the sweltering heat. Many sleep with loadedrifles within reach.

Valdete and Grande rarely leave their houseunattended for fear of burglaries. As it is, simplethings like laundry soap and buckets are takenwith regularity from the back porch. The popu-lation of their chicken coop has been reduced byone-half in the last six months. With a simple tileroof capping the bungalow, locked doors andshuttered windows do little to thwart would-be intrud-ers who simply shimmy up the outside wall, pull off afew tiles and jump in.

To avoid the brutal sun, Grande frequently works bymoonlight, leaving Valdete and the boys alone. One suchevening Valdete heard a "crunch" and realized that some-one had entered the house. Although she and Grandekeep a loaded rifle on hand, she figured it was better tostay still and i:luiet. On that particular visit the burglarswere merely hungry and raided the refrigerator for boiledmacaxeira and juice. Valdete found three used cups andplates on the back porch after the intruders had left.

Unfortunately, the next invasion was not so benign.The men entered through a window. Valdete heard themand tried to remain as still as possible. Aman entered thebedroom, covered her mouth with a pillow and menaced

Two of Grande’s sisters balance on top of the leakingirrigation pipe to wash their mid-day dishes while Valdete

and her son NenO wash clothing below.

her further with threatening words. Valdete recognizedthe voice of the man. A few minutes later she also recog-nized the profile of another of the intruders. All threelived in Vit6ria Settlement. Days later, one of the meneven had the nerve to ride by on his bicycle and offersympathy over the burglary about which he had heard.

Most recently, control cables of one of the automatedirrigation machines (which the residents inherited fromVarig) were stolen and sold as aluminum scrap for about40 reais ($21.99). The replacement value of the cables wasseveral thousand reais. Though no one has been formallycharged with the theft, all of the suspects are residents ofMST settlements in the area, including Vit6ria.

The MST assentamentos and acampamentos rarely callon the local policia militar (PM). In part this is to maintainautonomy from the influence of local politicians who con-

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Valdete’s son, Nen, left, and hisfriends cool offwhile waitingfor the boat to take them across the Rio So Franciso toAssentamento Vit6ria after a morning ofshopping and workingfor small change at the Curaa, Bahia market.

Sent to the leaking irrigation pipe to wash the day’s dishes, Valdete’s neices Suely, left, and Wesleane, right,goofoff in the cool, muddy water before returning home. None of the homes in Assentamento Vit6ria

have running water. Residents draw waterfrom the river, a kilometer away, orfrom big leaks inirrigation pipe that runfrom sun-up to sun-down.

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Even horses cool off in the So Franciso river. At the end of long, hard days many owners bring their horses,donkeys and mules to the river to wash them offand cool them down.

Cida, Valdete’s neighbor, stands with her daughter Andreza under the spilling waters ofan irrigation pipe.Cida was trying to break Andreza’sfever.

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trol the police. It is also, as mentioned above, to controlthe MST reputation in Brazilian society at large. Butmostly it is because the average PM is not regarded as"Officer Friendly." When invasions and subsequentacampamentos are set up, it is the PM who are called in toconfront the MST and often destroy the acampamentos.The PM also set up "identity ambushes" in which theywait in a recessed area along the road and then checkidentity papers of those passing a subtle form of ha-rassment. The PM is also given to random raids in whichthey burst into households, frequently at night, and turnthem upside down in search of arms and drugs.

In January 1999 an enterprising former presidentbought a used bus and initiated service between Safraand Santa Maria da Boa Vista. In a short time the profitshe made were enough to buy a second bus. Others fol-lowed suit and today there are six buses running up anddown the dirt road cutting through the settlements. Ac-cording to Valdete, the nearest municipalities have allgrown by at least a third in the five years since the MSTpopulations settled in the area. The towns’ respectivemarket days have become major hubs of commerce andtraffic has increased.

Today the road between Santa Maria da Boa Vistaand Petrolina is an alternately swampy and dusty trekthrough mostly isolated areas. The isolation, in combi-nation with market days and fixed dates for release ofloan money, has created the perfect atmosphere for as-saults. On such days pockets are flush with bankwithdrawls and proceeds from market sales. Without fail,there is at least one armed-assault per month of a busrunning on the dirt road between Petrolina and SantaMaria. Typically, a group of six or more armed, maskedmen board the bus and force them to be driven into thesurrounding brushwere everybag andbody are searchedfor cash. Because the assaults happen on "money days"it is widelybelieved that the perpetrators are from withinthe MST communities and thus have prior knowledge ofwhen cash will be released.

When talking with the movement militants who planinvasions and work in community development, the ex-citement and rush ofbeing at the center of a revolution ispalpable. Young volunteers like Adalberto and his wifeErlanea (a paid MST education coordinator and trainer)are fluent in local and national politics. They are adept atviewing the world, rightly or wrongly, from themovement’s perspective of the landless poor versus theBrazilian power-establishment. They spin issues like sea-soned politicians and have mastered the manipulationof revolutionary rhetoric and historical figures and eventsranging from Guarani Indian Sep6 Tiaraju, an 18th-century revolt leader, to the ruthless 1930’s Brazilian-backland bandit, Lampiao; to Carl Marx; to Ho Chi Minh.Their ability to place the struggle for land reform in Bra-zil into the history of great revolutionary movements fu-

els their passion and motivation on a daily basis. Theireyes shine with sharp understanding of the enemy, thebattle and the impending victory.

But on the muddy, polluted banks of the river, in thehot shadows of living rooms and at night on the breezyporches of Assentamento Vit6ria homes it is hard to findeyes bright with dreams and struggle rewarded. Eyes,voices and bodies are tired. As Grande is inclined to say,"A person doesn’t age, his body just get used." This is a

community of bodies used before their time. The hardlives they gave up for the MST dream, the brutal yearsunder plastic tents in the serto sun, and the constant pre-cariousness of building a new community have takentheir toll.

Of the original 264 families who camped together onthe edge of the river, fewer than 100 are still part of thesettlement. A few have swapped their plots with mem-bers of other settlements in order to be closer to familymembers. Many received their initial indemnity and"sold" their right to be on the collective land title. By sell-ing their lots, those who left were permanently barredfrom ever being registered in another MST assentamento.

Others simply gave up and walked away from Vit6rialeaving everything behind. If they walked off after re-ceiving indemnity and loan money, they earned a "dirty"record with Incra and the national banking system andwill never qualify for a loan or be able to open a bankaccount. They condemned themselves to a potentiallyworse life than what they had before joining the move-ment. (Few of those who participated and abandonedtheir lots ever had the means to use the banking systemto begin with).

If the Vit6ria colonos hold on and keep plugging away,they’re likely to scrape out a decent life on the land withthe money earned by selling goods they produce. There’salways the future promise that the proposed sweets anddairyproduction willbecome reality and, given time, pullthe settlement families up the ladder to the lower work-ing class. They will never be kicked off the land or havetheir homes repossessed this aspect is the great safetynet of collective ownership and community. In the eventthat a colono fails to pay off one of the loan segments, thedeadline can be renegotiated ad infinitum as long as he(or she) continues to make good-faith efforts toward pay-ment and does not abandon the land.

Even given this safety net, many have tired of settle-ment life. The main frustration is the perceived corrup-tion and confusion in administering the projects, com-pounded by the paternalistic practices of MST organiza-tion. Rosalina da Souza, a resident of AssentamentoCatalunha, the largest assentamento in the area, is angryabout how her life has evolved with the MST. Over anafternoon of cooking and visiting together she said, "Thelife of a small farmer is sacrifice. You have nothing. Itmakes you want to give up on life." She believes the lo-

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cal leadership of the assentamento has"destroyed the lives of people. Theyact in our name, putting us in debt. Inthe endwe end up withoutmoney andwithout anything to plant." And to-ward the national and state leadershipshe is even less forgiving, "They don’ttreat us like children. They treat us likeslaves. We live and work as if under a

fazendeiro. We’vejust changed masters.Nowwe’re slaves of the government."

MST organizers argue that collec-tive titles and community administra-tion are the only option. Individualcontrol would result in wasted re-sources and the destruction of long-term, sustainable production. Collec-tive bargaining power is the strength ofthe MST. For this reason, loan money isused to cover all anticipated expensesbefore passing the small amounts of"leftover" cash to the colonos them-selves. This keeps the squeeze on thesettlers but also, theoretically at least, thwarts the urgeto give in to frustration, to "sell" or abandon the landand resort to the life of destitute day laborers.

Men grab the head ofa horse permitted to eat too much green grass. The horse’sstomach swelled and she was constipated. The men poured a bottle of Coca Cola

into the horse’s nose,forcing her to swallow it. That did not help much, andthey later resorted to a soap enema. It was the drama of the Vilafor an

afternoon. The horse recovered.

In the evenings, Grande liked to stretch his legs inthe hammock hung across the veranda and Valdetewould drag worn floor pillows out to the lounge on thecool, waxed cement.

Talkwould grow from tired sighs and inevitably tumto the good old days of solidarity in the acampamentos.Then, no one faulted anyone for anything, "If so-and-sohad a baby and needed cloth to make diapers, everyonewould chip in what they could. No one went hungry. Atnight we would all gather and talk. We’d have meetingsto decide what to do anyone could talk about theirworries. We had groups to do everything. We didn’t havea president then. There wasn’t corruption or fear. At nightwe walked around at all hours," said Valdete.

Valdete admitted that reminiscing about the good olddays in the acampamento tended to romanticize the memo-ries. As much as she was full of warm stories of noblebattle and neighborly love, she could also spin sad yarnsof flooded shacks, babies dying ofpneumonia and armedassaults between hungry acquaintances

This romanticized hindsight was rooted in solidar-ity of purpose and the fact that just by existing build-ing huts, putting in gardens, improvising schools, coor-dinating community functions in short, by living dailylife, they were fulfilling their obligations. They were "do-ing their job". What grew out of three years of encamp-ment for manywas the insidious idea that the act of wait-ing brings justice (and money). Action was inactivity it-self waiting for time to pass, for Incra to put land into

MST possession. Just living and passing time, albeit inrough conditions, was enough.

In the current phase, after three years of possession,traces of the waiting behavior were still apparent. Manydays Vit6ria was idle. There was always the coming andgoing to the river to fetch water, working a few rows inthe garden, washing clothing or herding animals fromgrassy patch to grassy patch. But, there was not a greatproductive push to sculpt the settlement into a viable co-operative community.

Gone were the "multid6es" (collective work efforts)of the river front acampamentos. The revolutionary zealand enthusiasm for reform had been diluted. Nightlymeetings and community discussions were replaced byhome routines, television and improvised bars.

In the recent spate of guava planting, the disorgani-zation and balkanization of the community was baldlyapparent. The automatic irrigation systems pivot on a ra-dius of one hectare, forming a circular field. Planters wererequired to clear their respective lots, measure the placement of the seedlings, prepare the land, fertilize and plant.They were also required to fence their piece of the cir-cumference. Some settlers were more motivated than oth-ers and planted their seedlings quickly after delivery. Oth-ers delayed for various reasons. The result was that theseedlings were not fenced off and goats quickly munchedthrough the future orchard. Arguments broke out and thecommunity splintered further.

If each of the 264 households had sent one capableperson one day per week to work on the fence, the fiveguava fields would have been enclosed within a month.Instead, attitudes and morale plummeted in proportion

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to the rise in confusion and bitter feelings.

On afternoon walks with Valdete through the Vilasthe most frequent sentiment I encountered was "Eu voume embora d’aqui" (I’m getting myself out of here). Thewords flowed from Valdete as well. At 35 she looks a de-cade olden She is tired of the confusion and lack of orga-nization in the Vit6ria. Valdete has stopped participatingin invasions and marches around the state. She has givenup walking through the community to drum up enthusi-asm and support for projects like a day-care center, a sew-ing cooperative or a church. Cynicism has taken over heronce tireless idealism, "Here it’s every man for himself.When something needs to be done they just stare at eachother waiting for someone to find a solution. This doesn’twork anymore. I’m tired."

Still she gets caught up in the dream every now andagain when she lets herself. "Everything is for my sons. Iwant to see them finish school and get good jobs. I woulddo it all again for them." But she doesn’t want them tostay in the counfry, or even the MST. I want them tolive in a nearby town and visit me on weekends. Jeffersonsays his dream is to be truck driver, earn a lot of moneyand build a house. He’ll live on top. I’ll live on the bot-tom. He wants to drive by and see Grande in the ham-mock and me in a rocking chair! Ezekiel wants to be asoccer star. But first, he’ll study."

Valdete shakes her head. No, it’s not time to give up,

even though the presidents of the community are cor-rupt, no one remembers the long-term goals and theschool is canceled every other day for lack of teachers.It’s not time to leave, at least not yet.

The first harvest of guava will come in December.The whole community has its future pinned to the suc-cess of the harvest. "I can’t sell now. If I sell now I’ll onlyget 4,000 reais (U.S.$2,199). That doesn’t make up for thelast five years of my life. I have to wait until the guavaproduce and the earth has value. Then I might sell, ar-range myself a nice little house in Santa Maria or Cura.Put myboys in good schools. Go back to embroidering. Ican’t sell for less than 8,000 reais (U.S.$4,398). I have towait until the first guava. I’ll sell my guava and otherswill want to buy my piece of the MST. Yes, I’m thinking Iwill leave here."

On April 1, 2000, the evening agricultural report an-nounced that the price of guava in the Rio So FranciscoValley had plummeted. Large-scale producers were let-ting the fruit rot on the trees rather than waste resourceson a harvest. Valdete lay on her bed staring at the televi-sion screen a little stunned. "But we’re all plantingguava!" she cried.

Until the next adventure,

Valdete, left, and Grande walk the length ofa row ofguava seedlings they had just planted. The settlement’seconomic stability is tied to the success of the guava crop, which should be harvested in December. The price of

guava plummeted on thefirst week ofApril due to over-production.

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