Tenode Pora

Barely known to most of the nearly 20 million residents living in São Paulo, are the three Guarani Indian villages, two of them federal reserves, in the extreme south of the city. Located in the metropolitan area, the largest village known as Tenode Pora, meaning Beautiful Village in Guarani, is compromised of over 800 Indians.











This village, nearly ten years ago, was suffering from perdition mixed with a loss of identity and a victim of alcoholism. Today, with a new Caçique (Chief) Timoteo Wera Poty, the village and its inhabitants are recovering their ancestral dignity and reviving a living culture.

However, like 95% of the city, it also suffers from the effects of mass urbanization. Over the last fifteen years, the tiny 26 hectares granted to the Guarani are threatened by the urbanization slowly surrounding its natural realm. Anything from shantytowns to illegal settlements cause harm to the the reservation. Today ironically, urban planning has arrived from the inside, as a major habitat contstruction plan was practically imposed on the Indians to avoid a continuous subsidy of their natural way of life.

City Hall over the last four years erected a plan to build brick homes with concrete floor for the Guaranis. Nothing wrong with brick homes, but for people who are fighting a way of life and livelihood, concrete floors are cold and unnatural to the earth floors they prefer. The next three blog installments will speak of the importance of understanding the way of life these Indians have held for hundreds of years and why we still have a lot to learn from them in the XXI century.

Looking For A Battle

815 AM. Last stop in the Jardim Pantanal. Will not be back until October.

10 Million Daily Users

It's 6:15 AM. The trains have been coming in from the periphery since 430 AM. They are packed. The Subway trains to get here to leave the city at 530 AM was packed too. It's at least a 45 min train ride in or out from the station.

Castles

Eight o'clock in the morning. Northern of Sao Paulo, Brasilandia to be exact. Inside the Jardim Elisa Maria neighborhood, a soft fog rolls through the neighborhood. A river, a very polluted one, runs at the bottom of the valley/ A sort of hidden "favela" it is.

These houses reminded me of ancient ruins in the deserts of Morocco. Like homes coming out of the mountain. Caves almost. Will these houses remain 200 years from now? 500? Will someone dig them up or will the city actaully urbanize these areas properly someday? I doubt it.

Labor Day Countdown

May First, Labor Day. A date marked by struggle, but often nowadays a date marked by the innocence of humanity attempting to discover human rights. We have so few human rights that sometimes I believe we don´t have any at all.

It´s almost three in the afternoon and I´ve returned to the MTST (Movement for the Roofless Workers) camp Joao Candido. They have been out all morning marching downtown for their rights. The leaders compromised of students, militants, lawyers and vast army of popular supporters have united behind the movement to fight a pending eviction threat for Monday, May 7th. The mood in the camp was nothing but surprising. They are in their fighting mode and expecting to win a settlement that will at least drive them from where they are now to another land.

At the uppermost part of the camp, lies section 33. The last area of a total of 33. A group of children and their mother are playing soccer across one of the three they have established. Football may be a birthright in Brazil, but here each field is the only center of entertainment and a form of unison for the movement´s cause. Joao Rodriguez de Jesus, 55 years old, missing all his from teeth and originally from Bahia, is watching alongside three other elder sitting on a log. Leliel, only five years old and with the enthusiasm of gazelle. danced around Joao begging for attention. She also begged to be snapped by the camera. She kept calling out to him, ¨Tio, Tio¨(meaning uncle in Portuguese, but commonly used to refer to an elder friend). I asked to take their portrait and while doing so, tears rolled down Joao´s face. His eyes were small and his face showed the hardships of the land. At first I thought his eyes were ill and that the incessant tears were simply washing out his eyes from some malday. I asked him what was wrong with his eyes. Nothing he told me. They cry because of her. Joao explained to me that Leliel´s father was in jail and still to see a child so happy and full of life on this camp, struggling for a home, made him cry when she called out to him as ¨Tio¨. Joao has lost all hiss family..

The next morning the camp began gathering at its base, preparing for another march to Itapecerica´s city hall. One more of many efforts to come, to pressure the mayor into finding them a solution. Maria Bonita, in her mid 50´s, she would not confess her age, was leading section 12. Her hat was a true representative of the land, the people and their struggle. Yet it was her hard cold eyes and their determination that really demanded a portrait.

Exodus

The Prestes Maia 911 occupation by the MSTC, after a four year battle for a dignified home, has lost and the building is now being vacated.

Beyond the Roof of the City

It's about to rain and heavily. Some 3,000 families are camped out under improvised plastic tents since March 16, demanding proper housing. They are part of the the MTST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto). The movement has occupied a farm area of over 1,300 square meters, just outside the southern edge of the city of São Paulo, in Itapecerica da Serra. It's a political attempt to further the cause of the lack of proper habitat and part of on going race to reach Labor Day celebrations/protest.

It's sad to see these people here. Most of them really don't seem to know what they're doing. Many come from the northeast. Many have lost their jobs and can no longer pay rent. Others come from the adjoining urbanization and are supporting the movement. Many have abandoned the site too. It's most evident among the hundreds of abandoned single person tents.

The camp includes some small commerce, mostly bars. It's like the begining of another periphery. Yet the illusion is that this is a grand scale occupation when in fact the original 12,000 population has been leaving. The population now floats on a daily basis. However, it's important to note that these people are in dire need of a home and have been flowing from the inner middle of the city and past the periphery. In other words the city may have reached it's denominated urban limit, but the population grows and wants to lay down new concrete that will adjoin to it. The Meta city is growning alive and well.

I walked the camp from edge to edge with "Tres Reais", a sympathetic ex marine corp who abandoned the military, tired of seeing the abuse he had to give to his own people. In fact he himself has participated of various disoccupations. He is here now to fight against that and support the cause. And find a home.

Most of the people I met had the same, perhaps orchestrated answer? "We are here because we are homeless." Some I could admit looked the part. Others, like the young crew cooking barbecue inside a smokey tent, seemed to have come in for a laugh and to add to the list of families. They came from the neighboring urbanization. It doesn't matter really, as if these families are not enough, there are hundreds of them elsewhere in the city in worse conditions.

The rain finally came, in a downpour and with it the wind that lifted a few tents. I took shelter with a family who explained to me how they had lost their rent privileges due to a single delayed payment. Unemployment wasn't helping. The father of the family is mentally incapcitated. The daughter still breast feeding her first born was abandoned by her partner. Like so many other families I have met in the occupations, the female is leading the household.

When I left there was an assembly gathering. A relgious one and a political one to boost morale. The camp is scheduled for eviction on May 7. The MTST is trying to reach an agreement to move them out into an area under the control of the mayor of Itapecerica. Whatever happens, these people will add to the continuous flow and growth of this city.