Waters of Life - Paul Syltie Brazil 2014

Waters of Life for Our Wapishana Brethren

In extreme northeastern Brazil lies a land few of us are familiar with. It is a land populated by what one expert has termed one of the three most isolated tribes in the world: the Wapishana (also called the Wapichan, Wapisiana, Wapixana, or Vapidiana). These Amerindian people number about 6,000 in southern Guyana, and another 1,000 or so spill over into western Roraimi State of Brazil. Many of these Brazilian Wapishana have migrated from Guyana across a rather porous border, without passports, especially after the British moved out of Guyana in 1966. There they live on a reserve of 14,600 ha (about 40,200 acres, or 63 square miles) which the Brazilian government fairily recently set aside for them. In the process, several European farmers were forced to leave the area, but in protest destroyed their farmsteads when they left.

With the exit of the British came a severe economic downturn throughout Guyana. Especially hard-hit were the Wapishana people, many of whom worked for British interests. Yet, God works in wondrous ways, and at least two of the present-day members of the Maloca Moscou community in Brazil, who had been forced to leave Guyana due to lost jobs and economic hardships, brought with them the truth of God. Their exposure to The Plain Truth through their English managers had led them to subscribe themselves, and grow in the faith over the years. Guyana’s loss was Brazil’s gain!

The People and Their Community

I was told by one member of the community that at one point in the Wapishana’s history the government had decided to exterminate the tribe. Thankfully a member of the government convinced the leader to scrap that idea, so the tribe continues on to the present. Their forefathers were “people of the bush,” as one person said, and lived by hunting and fishing, plus cultivating small plots of crops.

Today, most of the people speak Portuguese, as do Brazilians in general, plus the native Wapishana dialect. Those who have moved from Guyana speak English as well; English is the national language of Guyana.

According to one source there are 23 villages, or “malocas,” of Wapishana in Roraima State. These villages are more like scattered homes over a widespread area of several miles, often separated by several hundred yards, though married family members sometimes build near their parents’ house. The “town center” of Maloca de Moscou is really only a school, a playground, a health clinic, and a community meeting shelter, plus one
phone booth for the entire area. There is no cluster of homes as in typical townsites. Houses are built of rough brick and mortar walls, toppled by a roof covered with dried tree fronds. The structures are very effective at shedding water from torrential tropical storms, and are by no means air-tight. A typical home may be 15 x 30 feet, with one to two rooms and a dirt or rough tile or rock floor. Some newer structures have concrete floors. With the introduction of electricity three years ago there are improvised wires strung along short poles to most homes, giving 110-volt electricity for lighting and refrigeration... if the appliances still work.

Funds are very limited for these very close-to-nature people, whose primary income is from growing cassava roots using the slash-and-burn method typical of Amazon rainforest areas. Maloca de Moscou is located in a rolling mixed rainforest-savannah area, with small trees dotting the savannah grasslands. The best soils are in the low-lying forested jungle areas, so the farmers have cut down the towering palms and hardwoods of 10 to 20-acre tracts, burned the areas, and then planted native cassava amidst the charred stumps and gray ash littering the soil surface. This ash provides the bulk of the fertility to the crop, which is not fertilized commercially. Towering native or regrown forests surround the currently cultivated fields.

The farmers wield mattocks to punch holes in the compact soil, and plant the root cuttings in a 4 x 4 foot grid all across the burned-over areas. The work is hard, and the men spend long hours in the fields, sweating for their cassava crop which takes a year to mature from planting to harvest. There is no way to mechanize this production system. They must weed the plants carefully and control various larvae that can stunt the plants,
but cassava is highly adapted to this soil and climate.

After a year the crop is dug, the tubers carried by hand to a processing shelter, and then peeled, soaked, ground, sifted, pressed, and finally dried on metal-topped stoves fueled by wood. The entire process is very labor-intensive, but families pitch in and do their assigned jobs, with plenty of smiles, story-telling, and humor. The full bags of grainy, processed cassava is, after all, their staple income. Each bag sells for about $100 (230 reais), and is the main source of cassava in the local economy. One hectare of cassava will produce about four to six bags of processed cassava per year.

Because of the heavy rainfall and high temperatures and humidity, the rapid plant growth and organic matter oxidation allow for only two or three crop cycles over two to three years before yields plummet. At that point the field is abandoned to allow regrowth of palms and other plants. After 10 years the forest regrowth can be slashed and burned again; the regenerative powers of the natural world are amazing. In a mere five years the cassava field becomes a forest 50 to 80 feet tall!

The community of Maloca de Moscou has no private property per se, but families live on land that others have agreed is acceptable. If a young man and woman get married, they locate a place for their new home as agreed upon by the family and neighbors. Building costs are not high, but money is tight, so as many native materials as possible are used. One farmer with a 24-inch chain saw was particularly proficient at creating lumber from old-growth hardwood trees. He sawed perhaps 30 2x4s around 12 feet long, and as many 1x4s that were 16 feet long, using only a snap-line for a guide and the chain saw. The job took five days, and the lumber was remarkably straight and smooth. These pieces were to be carried on his shoulders, a few at a time, about two miles to his house. Larger and heavier timbers would require two men.

One winding road transects the area, hardly modern by U.S. standards, giving a bone-jarring ride in places where holes fill with rainwater large enough to fish in (almost). Off this main road there really are no roads, except for motorcycle and foot paths. Several residents own motorcycles, and very few have cars. Driving a car through the countryside is perilous to say the least; one may staddle a foot path, unable to see a hole or rock on
ahead, though larger impediments like anthills are visible enough to avoid.

The Area and Its Productivity

Eastern Roraima State lies adjacent to the low mountains of southern Guyana, and is mixed savannah and rainforest. A four-month dry period — January to April — while conducive to cassava production, makes banana, pineapple, and other fruit production less attractive. Some showers normally fall during the dry season, but the 2014 dry season was exceptional, with hardly a drop of rain. As a result, creeks stopped flowing all across the region, leaving only scattered pools for livestock drinking water. Even the massive White River at Boa Vista, the state’s capitol a bit over an hour away by car, was very low, revealing sand bars never seen before. Old-timers had never noted the creeks stop flowing altogether as this year. Fortunately, on the night of Passover (April 13) a heavy rain fell, breaking the severe drought. Soils of Maloca de Moscou are very poor, called “xanthic ferralsols” in modern soils jargon. They are highly weathered by tropical heat, moisture, and microbial action, have little nutrient-holding capacity, are very acidic, and contain few nutrients. Aluminum, silicon, and iron oxides dominate, organic matter is very low, and with any amount of tillage and farming the few nutrients present are soon used up. However, tropical trees, especially palms, native fruits, and certain hardwoods and vines do well in more favored environments. The savannah areas can grow decent grasses for livestock, or field crops and trees if fertilized and watered.

The Project Coalesces

The purpose of this mission to Brazil was to assist our brethren in “learning to fish,” rather than just “give them fish,” for we are told, “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others (Philippians 2:4). Moreover, Paul said to the Galatians, “And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all, especially to them who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:9-10). What, then, could be done to help these brethren, who had little cash in hand but had a strong work ethic and desire to pursue the truth? Indeed, it was readily apparent that their thirst for direction, and especially spiritual guidance, was unquenchable! Jorge DeCampos and I were given tours of several area cassava farms to see up-close the soils and production system for cassava, the cattle project, and other aspects of the brethrens’ support systems. In most cases we had to walk some distance to reach the fields slashed out of the jungle, and we became versed in the hard labor required to produce their main cash crop: cassava. The field procedures cannot be mechanized, though improvements in processing to the dried cassava “grain” can be made. In particular, the heating and drying step could be hastened considerably with improved equipment. Since each farm has its own processing facility, it was determined that it would be impractical to upgrade one farm without upgrading them all. We had to look elsewhere for answers. One day after touring the various farms, the brethren were gathered in the kitchen eating area, beneath the sizable, open-sided structure they had built. It was time to discuss their needs in a more concerted way, pulling together their ideas with our own observations. As if by some great spirit force the group, with one voice, spoke of the need for a water well... a deep one to give abundant water for irrigation during the dry season, and for community use. Yes, that hit the nail on the head, and provided strong direction toward another great need we had noticed for this community: the need for many more fresh vegetables in their diets. Various health problems, such as diabetes, were appearing among them, without a doubt tied to their appropriating the Western diet of refined sugar, white bread, and other refined and adulterated foods. Fruit they had a-plenty, but not vegetables and whole grains.

The next day we sat down together and discussed their needs. Would drilling a deep water well, possibly 140 meters (460 feet) deep, be the course to take? A nearby community well of that depth had produced an abundance of excellent quality water. If situated atop a nearby hill, with a water tank for pressure, hoses and pipes could divert water to individual family plots in which vegetables could be grown — spinach, collards, lettuce, root crops, tomatoes, and peppers, and other tropical crops — providing a focal point ofimproved nutrition and health for the community. Not only United Church of God members could profit, but families throughout the area could participate and share in the abundance that this project was giving... letting the congregation’s light shine to the entire community in a truly tangible way. Principles of God’s health laws were made plain: eat herbs with seeds (Genesis 1:29), eat fruits with seeds (Genesis 1:29), and eat clean meats (Leviticus 11). Avoid refined and processed foods as well, and eat fresh, uncooked vegetables plus “integral (whole grain) rice rather than refined white rice. The plan was greeted with enthusiasm. A second meeting was held a few days later, and the brethren not only fully agreed to the plan, having given it further thought, but added to the plan by suggesting building fish ponds nearby, using the water to maintain water levels during the dry season, and diverting some of the water for a banana and pineapple plantation. They were thinking now. Here was a project from which everyone could prosper, “living water” as it were to help power the income and health of God’s brethren in Brazil. Their own initiative would be called upon to bring it about, but help with at least part of the cost would be offered. They would need to build a fence around the gardens as well; free-ranging cattle posed a continuing threat. Before we left Maloca de Moscou, approval for the water well project had been granted by the town council, and now only official Brazilian government approval was needed.

Following Up

While visiting the farms, several soil samples were gathered and mailed off for analysis at a laboratory in Missouri. Based on the results it will be possible to recommend amendments for the gardens, as well as for cassava production areas. Sources of fertilizer elements will have to be located, but if enough organic materials can be discovered — especially poultry and cattle manure — then most of the fertility problems may be solved. The soils will need to be regularly monitored due to their natural depleted condition. A livestock herd of 12 head is currently being tended by the brethren. That herd is already growing, and has a virtually unlimited area to expand. An improvement in their nutrition has been made by introducing trace-mineralized salt to replace regular livestock salt. The vegetation is deficient in several vital nutrients that will be compensated for by these trace minerals. A return visit to Maloca de Moscou may be necessary in the coming months. We are highly optimistic that the Wapishana brethren will carry through their plans to build a foundation for greater prosperity and health during the coming years. We seldom pause to ponder the incredible value to something so common as water... until we have too little of it. The northeastern Brazilians have this problem four months of the year, and a deep well should do much good for these people. Let’s pray that this will indeed be the case. A special note of thanks should be extended to the Brazilian government for nearly eradicating malaria in the area of Maloca de Moscou. There was one case of malaria that erupted while we were there: a teenage girl contracted the disease, but she had just returned from a visit to Guyana where malaria is much more prevalent. The young lady’s case was nearly resolved with proper treatment by the time we left. I especially wish to thank Jorge DeCampos for inviting me to accompany him on this journey to Brazil to serve our brethren, and to L. Scott Hammer, president of Vital Earth Resources in Gladewater, Texas, for so generously giving me the time away from a very busy schedule as director of research to help with this project. As a parting comment, let me reiterate my impression of the Wapishana brethren as being a most dedicated and hard-working people of God. Though short in stature, they are tall in love and kindness toward all of us who have made it possible for them to prosper more abundantly these past few years.

1.Jorge DeCampos walks to a cassava field through the jungle with Benedito, a deacon in the Maloca de Moscou church.

2. The fleshy roots of the cassava plant provide the main cash crop for the Wapishana.

3. Heating processed cassava to dry it is a major step in marketing the crop.

4. Bonifacio stands in his cassava field, recently cut out of the jungle and burned, then planted with tubers to produce plants which can be seen emerging throughout the field.

5. Jorge DeCampos holds a Wapishana child.

6. Roads and bridges have much to be desired in the Wapishana reserve, including this rickety bridge that barely supported the car.

7. Geraldo stands in his banana grove, which he is greatly expanding to market fresh fruit to the local market.

8. Here are some of the cattle owned and managed by the church in Maloca de Moscou.

9. Jorge DeCampos and Veronica, an agronomy student from Maloca de Moscou at the university in Boa Vista, eat lunch at the market in Boa Vista. Veronica hopes to work on environmental issues of the Amerindian reserves once she gets her degree.

10. Fueing up the car in the outback of Roraima State is not always simple.

11. This beautiful cassava was grown by Adriano, shown here by some mature plants.

12. Pineapples grow well in the Boa Vista area, such as this huge example at the market in Boa Vista.

13. Edison grows excellent tomatoes on his farm in the Maloca de Moscou community.

14. Paul shares some friendly moments with the Wapishana people.

15. This teaching session at the kitchen eating area involved discussion of the proposed water well and nutritional facts.

16. Jorge DeCampos poses with the entire United congregation after Sabbath services