About 500 km west of Salvador, deep in the forests of Bahia, south of Rio Paraguacu, used to be a “fazenda” (big farm) that belonged to C.S. one of the richest men in Brasil, owner of 22 more fazendas and of a big financial group. But not any more. The last 10 years, there stands the assentamento of Beira Rio, one of the most important settlements of MST, the Movement of the Landless People of Brasil (Movimiento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra), housing about 400 families.
It all started in September 1997, when a group of 400 families, leaded by a team of MST militants entered (without guns, without violence, children were at front-line) the fazenda that belonged to C.S. (owner of a financial group and many latifundios in Brasil), a land of 11.250 hectares and settled there. The action followed a wide research, concluded by an experienced team of MST that collected several info about this fazenda, such as property titles, uses of land etc. Only when they confirmed that the land was not used, they proceeded in occupation.
It took about 1 year living in barrancos (temporarily-set tents), until the acampamento was legalised through an MST processes in cooperation with the government and bacame an assentamento. The state helped build (basic) houses for all families and brought electricity.
The last 10 years, thanks to self-organisation and communal living of its inhabitants, Beira Rio has become one of the biggest and best organised MST assentamentos in the area of Bahia. We spent some days there with Bessy and here are our experiences.
All men work the land as a primar occupation. They produce enough to be self-sustained. The land is divided to small fields who belong to the families. Every family is in charge of cultivating its field, however the products belong to the whole community and are to be shared. The same with animals. Half of the families are charged with cattle and the other half with goats. Diary products and meat belong to everyone. Everyone has paultry and pigs, as well.
In Beira Rio everyone claims to be rich, but noone has money. This is because almost no money cirqulate in this community. Only products. The only money come from selling meat to nearby villages (Marconilio Souza, Boa Vista) and serve for buying infrastructure (tractors, horses) which are also communal.
As for services, they exist but they are all voluntary. Mainly when people need assistance in the fields, they ask the help of friends and neighbors. Work is always offered free of charge, as a contribution to the common objective.
There is an internal organisation in Beira Rio. A president is being elected every 2 years by a general assembly, however he is subject to change if the assentados are not satisfied with him/her. A meeting of all assentados is held once every month, where all the problems of the assentamento are discussed. All families participate, which make these meetings usually noisy and long. We were told that meetings are not over untill everyone has expressed his/her view and untill all issues are resolved.
Here is worth mentioning the definition of assentados (officially registered). Assentados are considered the man and the woman of every family. The children may live with them but have no “voting rights”.
Childhood in an assentamento is really short. People usually “get married” when they have 12-15 years old... Don’t think of any glamorous wedding, they just call themselves married, they live together and start having children!!! Women usually have several children when they are 25 and many grand-children when they are 45.
However, once they have made their own family, they can no longer remain assentados in the same assentamento. They have to go through all the stages of the “luta” (fight), therefore they are asked to proceed to occupation of new land, and set up a new assentamento.
We asked several times if people want to leave the assentamento and find their luck in a city. We were told that everyone is happy to live there. They have everything, a modest house, land to cultivate and they are part of a community. They always motivate people to leave the assentamento for University studies, provided they will return to offer their knowledge to the community. They even said that several homeless and desperate people from the cities are often asking a shelter in the assentamentos and they are always welcome.
All children are supposed to attend school every day. Depending the size of the assentamentos most levels of basic education are offered (1st – 9th grade). Since education is the field work of Bessy we conducted several interviews with school director, professors and children and I hope we can dedicate a seperate post on this issue.
However, life in an assentamento is often very hard. Children have to assist their parents in the fileds where they spend long days and a lot of energy from studying. Parents are in most cases iliterate themselves and they won’t motivate children go to school. Helping them is out of the question. Men tend to alcoholism and drugs use (from a domestic cactus and other plants). Women spend the whole evening in front of the TV watching the Brasilian telenovelas, and children are also addicted to it.
Hygienic conditions are very poor. Running water is of brown colour and often causes diarhea and intestine problems to children. Waste-water system doesn’t exist neither, resulting that all waste are poored on the streets, or even at the back-yards of the houses. But the most important is the lack of hygienic education among the parents. In most of the cases they keep the houses and the streets full of garbage, they have their children consuming dirty water and eating not properly processed food. Of course it is a matter of lack of infrastructure, but things could be a lot better if there was basic hygenic education.
In the time we spent in Beira Rio, we visited most of the assentamento, we met many of the assentados, we visited the school and talked with students and professors, we visited the fields and helped the plantation of a special herb which they use for water purification, we met a lot of children (there are plenty of them) and played a lot with them, we wondered around and feeled the rythm of life, but most of all we asked many questions. In such a short time we wanted to know everything about the assentamento and we were very lucky to have constantly next to us A., a very experienced militant of the MST secretariat. She was in the front line of various land occupations and knew probably everything about the MST movement, the history of Beira Rio and the everyday life of the assentamento.
It was a unique experience for us to be there. It is really difficult to exress the feelings of our short life in the assentamento. The non-existance of property, the lack of privacy (houses are “open door” all day long), the abscence of money and generally the lifestile of this community can bring a visitor very easily to embarassement.
In their society, maybe it is the communal way of living and abscence of money that makes all those people so nice, happy to talk to us, invite us for drinks and offer food and fruits, ask about our country, socialise, lough, and dance no matter if they are working the land all day long.
In our society, maybe it is our individual way of living and money-driven activities that often drive us miserable, tired, stresses and unsocial, no matter if we are doing nothing all day long.
