Sunday – 10/01/2016
AREAL AND ENTRE RIOS Our first direct contact with the specific work we are here to do throughout January takes place in the village of Areal, close to Regência. The community is located 800 metres away from the flowing, though sad, Doce, embedded in the middle of dozens of pumpjacks, in Portuguese “cavalinhos” (little horses), oil extraction wells belonging to Petrobras16 in the Lagoa Parda field.
I have the impression I am on a ticking time bomb – all over, there are pipelines and cows in a parched landscape. The silent movement of the pumps set the pace of development, confronting the impoverished condition of the village. There are few houses, and the rare population has fled from the sun. Garbage is scattered through the village where boats have retired from the river and roças17 no longer exist. Samira, a long-time friend who is also discovering the river, and I interview the Barcelos family; several children are playing and running. Some of them, beautiful and with clear native Indian features, have several open sores on their bodies, like some kind of skin disease... could it be from the river? We speak with the residents who anxiously take turns explaining the situation and the way Samarco selects the beneficiaries and all the insufficient water supply that has been carried out.
10
