IV. A Slave and a Lover

Brazil, an intense dream, a vivid ray
of love and hope descends to earth
if in thy lovely, smiling and clear skies
the image of the (Southern) Cross shines resplendently.

-- Brazilian National Anthem

The old dredging boat lies anchored on the Madeira River, in Rondônia, five hours downriver from Porto Velho.  On board, four men work silently, in part because they are concentrating on what they are doing, in part because there’s little to say, but above all because the hypnotizing and monotonous noise of the machines so fills the air that it makes it hard to communicate at all.  Finally at nightfall, the men have been confined together on the draga for four weeks and are able to relax a bit, eat the dinner prepared by the cook and play some cards or dominos.

That is what normally happens each day on this boat dredging for gold.  However, today is not a normal day.  Paulo Gomes de Andrade, an old garimpeiro (gold-panner), is tense because the new hire Bentão has been missing since the morning.  Bentão is a spritely, hardworking, amiable, and talkative caboclo (a mestizo, a person of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry) who started out panning for tin-oxide and has moved on to panning for gold.  This was his first time out, and he hasn’t tired of questioning the way in which work is done on the boat.  Indeed, if not for his friendliness he could come across as arrogant.  Paolo and the others, who have been panning for fifteen to twenty years, either let his questions go by or patiently explain to him why things are the way they are.

But this morning, when Paulo was making a offhand comment to the foreman, Bentão got himself involved in the conversation and said that he wasn’t interested in panning that day (not a particularly good thing to say), and preferred to stay on shore and collect castahnas (chestnuts).  This was a clear provocation and the old garimpeiro still didn’t know what he was going to do at the end of the day, after the shift came to an end.

While he was thinking about this, his distracted eye followed the muddy water that the dredge was pumping from the bottom of the river and throwing onto an array of boxes.  The pumping had begun in the evening, and the time would come to begin the sorting: get rid of the array of boxes, put everything into a tank and let it sit for an entire day so that the mud would settle at the bottom.  The next day the mud would be placed in a centrifuge along with mercury and some powdered soap, the gold would adhere to the mercury and form a homogeneous silvery mass.   Afterwards, all that would be needed would be to place the mass into a crucible and run a blow torch above it, in order to evaporate the mercury.  The amalgate would yellow and produce an entrancing vision of pure gold.  Thus would arrive the great moment of finding out just how much gold the crew recovered as a result of more than 20 hours of work.  Eighty percent would go to the owner of the draga and twenty percent would be divided equally among the four garimpeiros.

The work day had come to an end, and the mud containing the gold (at least one hoped) was settling in the tank.  All that was left to do was to wait.  The sun now was setting behind the curve of the river.  Everyone now relaxed.  In the mean time, an awful anxiety settled into the hearts of everyone, which would last until they were able to determine the final result of their work.

When work was finished, everyone would eat and chat a bit or play a game or two.  Paulo did not want to wait until dinner.  The time had come to deal with the insolence of the novice, for the newcomer’s own sake.

He whistled Bentão from boat: “Come over here, my little one.  I want to tell you a story.”

Bentão, not wanting to be bothered, quipped: “A good story is exactly what I need right now!”

The old garimpeiro began: “Look, I’m forty-two years old and I’ve spent nineteen of them panning.  It’s hard to find work in the cities and my companions and I began to pull gold out of the river because we had no better option.  I’ve never been able get away since.  After you begin panning, it enters into your blood, and you’re no longer are able to free yourself from it.

“One gets used to making as much as 1000 Reals a day (about $300 per day) . . . and its always the same.  In the begining one sees the money entering one’s wallet, and doesn’t even know how to spend it all.  But many garimpeiros live no better than before, because they spend everything that they make, and spend it on stupid things.

Nearly all garimpeiros have botecos (bars or general stores) that sell them the things that they need: shoes, work clothes and a lot of liquor.  A good part of one’s earnings goes for these things.  The other part usually is spent on women.  Still many leave the garimpo life and go back to work in the fields because they fall into debt to the store, the owner of the boat or to both and so they get rid of everything and try to disappear.

“The life of a lover and slave of gold is a very lonely life.  When one becomes homesick, one thinks, ‘Maybe I should go home.’ But then one thinks, ‘Where would I find work?  The gold is here in the river.  Tomorrow, I may find a good place’ . . . So one starts to drink to make the loneliness go away.  I also wasted everything that I made without thinking . . . on alcohol, on watches and other gadgets . . . Then I got married, had my first child and came to think more about the future of my family.”

He paused for a short while, staring out into the distance as if his life was passing in front of his eyes, and concluded in a quiet voice, as if he were almost speaking to himself, “But I’ve never seen a garmipeiro who remained both rich and happy.”

Turning back to the moço (young man) and speaking again with a stronger voice, in part to try to justify himself, he continued, “One doesn’t give up, because one knows that in the city, without an education, even if one finds a job, one could make, perhaps 300, 350 Reals ($100).    One needs a high school diploma to make more, but one will never make as much as one can make by panning.  True, one doesn’t always find gold.  At times, weeks can pass in the dredge boat going up and down the river without finding anything.  But the Madeira River still has a lot of gold.  It’s here.  All that is needed is to find it and purify it.

“Now after spending a month on the river, tomorrow one can return to the city to rest for a week and be with one’s family.  One can come back with all the gold that one could ever want, but then one’s family will breakdown.  The wife will get tired and will no longer stay all that time alone.  You too, will lose your interest after all that time away.  The woman that I live with now is my second wife.  With her, I’ve had three more children.  I have friends who have started over with a new woman for the fourth or fifth time.  For the garimpeiro, family is like panning.  As long as it’s fruitful, you stay.  When it stops, you go on.  It’s not an easy life.

“I’m telling you this because you think that panning for gold is the same as panning for cassiterita (tin-oxide).  It’s not.  Gold is gold.  Gold is like a game.  It attracts you and it enslaves you.  So panning gold becomes a passion.  You’re just starting out now.  Decide whether you’d prefer to continue panning for tin.  One you get hooked on gold you won’t have a chance.”

And so it was.  Having said what he wanted to, Paulo stood up in silence.

The novice remained quiet.  He continued to look toward his coworker, now with greater respect.  He had made his decision.  In silence, having become friends now, over gold, they headed to a small table where dinner was being served.

Gold that kills

Amazonia has always been a region described by superlatives.  It’s rich in water, rich in forest, and has widest variety of flora and fauna on the planet.  The region’s mineral reserves are also spectacular.  Its iron reserves are among the largest in the world.  Its manganese reserves, used in the production specialty steel, make Brazil the world’s second largest steel producer.  In bauxite (from which one makes aluminum), Brazil is the third largest producer.  There are enormous reserves of niobium, essential in the iron refining industry.  (As a matter of fact, the largest reserve of niobium in the world is found in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais).  The oil reserves in Amazonia are not only the third largest in Brazil, but produce crude oil of the highest quality.  Amazonia also contains the second largest gas reserve in the country.  It also has large reserves of tin and of copper.

And it contains enormous, irresistible deposits of gold that support the dreams of some 300,000 garimpeiros.

But gold is a metal of contrasts and contradictions.  It does not understand compromise.  It can build a city or it can produce a crater.  It enriches and it enslaves.  It can give life color or it can kill.  If on one hand, it made Ouro Preto and Vila Rica (historic and picturesque towns now protected by UNESCO as part of the cultural patrimony of the world) in the the state of Minas Gerais.  On the other hand, it has made the “Great Pit” resulting from the uncontrolled gold rush in Serra Pelada in the state of Pará.  It enriches and it beautifies, but it also enslaves and kills.

The history of panning for gold in Brazil is a storied one, but which also has taken a high toll in lives and environmental damage.  This is because the mercury, used by the garimpeiros in the inexpensive process of separating gold from the mud dredged from river bottoms, is toxic.

In the treatment of the gold-mercury amalgam following separation of the gold from the mud dredged from the river, the mercury is vaporized and, consequently inhaled by the garimpeiros themselves, resulting in their slow but irreversible poisoning.  Besides this, in the cleaning of the dredging boats and of the equipment used, residues of mercury contaminate the water, the surrounding vegitation and the fish.

In people, continuous exposure to mercury results in serious nervous system disorders, producing problems with motor functions: tremors, loss of motor coordination, eventual loss of sight and hearing and finally death.

Plants suffer from genetic changes that still aren’t well understood.

For their part, contaminated fish become toxic carriers, which when consumed produce ever greater neurological damage in those who eat them – resulting, at times, in miscarriages and both physical and mental birth defects in children.

Such is the effect of mercury, which is almost inseparable from the processing of gold.  It causes death even as some use it, hoping to realize their dreams.  It’s a truth that the garimpeiros are reluctant to accept.

Brazilia in Acre

Along the left bank of the Acre River on the border with Bolivia, 230 km from Rio Branco, a village was born in 1910 bearing the name Brasilia.  In 1912, it became a town; in 1938 a true city, a seat of government and only a year later the seat of a prefecture or court.

This was Brasilia of the Territory of Acre, which was then under the direct jurisdiction of the federal government.  In 1943, the federal government changed the name of Brasilia to Brasileia – suggesting that it was a combination of the words Brazil and hiléia (untamed jungle), referring to the name “hiléia amazônica” given to the region by the German naturalist Humbult.

The change in the name from Brasilia to Brasileia did not have anything to do with the creation in 1960 of the federal capital Brasilia.  (The Territory of Acre became a State in 1962).