For Crying
Out Loud

From August 31st until September 7th, I had the opportunity to walk with others from my neighborhood, Brasilândia (northwest periphery of São Paulo) to the 12th annual Grito dos Excluídos (Cry of the Excluded Ones) happening at the national cathedral in Aparecida, 170 km north of São Paulo. This national protest is sponsored each year by the National Conference of the Bishops of Brazil. The walk itself was organized by our Episcopal region of Brasilândia. Here is my testimony to the people, culture, and realities I encountered.

Day 1

I must admit that I was somewhat nervous going on a seven-day walk for over 170 kilometers, only knowing a few acquaintances and knowing that I would be speaking Portuguese the entire time. After throwing my fold-up mattress and two small backpacks into the truck that would be accompanying us, I found Nelma, my walking partner. Since both of us had wanted to go on the walk, but wanted to at least have one known person to go with, a mutual friend had introduced us before the walk.

Nelma had really wanted to make the walk the last year, but was working and not able to go. Since she had just lost her job two weeks before, she was free to go and was definitely walking not so much to denounce injustice, but to plead, along with millions of other Brazilians, for help from Mary, known by every single person in Brazil as Nossa Senhora de Aparecida (Our Lady of Aparecida).

Aparecida's image is a black woman with a heavy blue cloak and golden crown and she is central to popular and traditional religiosity—as popular as Our Lady of Guadalupe is to the people of Mexico. Nelma, who is 25 years old, is now one of the 1,800,000 unemployed people in the city of São Paulo alone, and she has a deep faith in Mary of Aparecida even through all the hardships of her life.

In our first few hours together walking out of the city, Nelma confided in me that she is struggling with the loss of her mother and her younger sister's alcoholism. Even with all of these problems heavy on her heart, Nelma told me how she was truly making this journey to thank Aparecida for blessing her with much love and support in her life, even though the hardships still exist. She was also going to bless a crucifix that her mother had given her younger brother before her death.

My reasons for walking were very different than my companion's. I wanted to get to know the people of Brasilândia better and especially the community organizers, church leaders, and activists who I knew would also be on the walk. I also wanted to go to show my support to the community and to affirm my solidarity with them.

However, Nelma's testimony to her life was extremely humbling and led me to think about my faith life and my own trust in God and to evaluate the ways in which I thank God for the love, joy, family, and friends in my own life. I realized how much I intellectualize and rationalize my ideas about faith and God, while many of the Brazilians I met simply depend on God with all their hearts.

Walking out of the city, it occurred to me how objective and concrete my goals were for going on this journey and that life is not always about production, the achievement of goals, or the making of a thing or a quantity of money. This pilgrimage and protest was a very simple act of faith and resistance in a country where the poor are ignored in order to fulfill the standards of foreign financers and the International Monetary Fund's restructuring requirements for loans.

It was a walk to say ENOUGH to the concentration of land. As the spokesperson for Brazil's Catholic Bishops put it, "Either the government changes its political economic system, or we will change the government." People are tired of the unemployment, misery, and huge disparities between the minimum salary (US$70 a month) and the opulence of the small percentage of rich people.

This seven-day walk—that can be completed in 3 hours by car—was a prayerful, simple, communal, painful, and joyful time. We had started at about 9 AM after a round of Hail Mary's and a sendoff from Brasilândia's (northern São Paulo where I live) very down-to-earth bishop Dom Angélico (he's known for inciting celebrations with, "You people are beautiful!" and "Whoever doesn't pray will turn into a bug!" Very quirky, but committed to the people and social justice in his archdiocese).

By 2:30 with the sun pounding down and my legs starting to ache, I started to have my doubts about walking the entire way. I couldn't believe it was only the first day and I started fantasizing about my trusty old Honda back in Dallas. We had been marching in a single file line as we reached the highway, the traffic deafening, and the pollution soaking into our skin, hair, and clothing and making our stomachs hurt and our heads ache. Mother Earth has a huge wound in her side that's only getting worse here in São Paulo. As far as the eye could see was asphalt, cars, trucks, smog, and fires on the edge of the city where the poor burn their trash because garbage trucks can't or won't enter the periphery.

That day, as I was coughing up pollution and feeling my muscles strain even though I had stretched and was wearing my Hi-Tech tennis shoes, I looked up from the asphalt and noticed, Penha, a 60 year old Afro-Brazilian woman walking in front of me. She was wearing thongs, as most people were and her pace was steady.

Here is the God of the poor
Walking in her simple dress,
scarf around her hair and thongs
on her feet.
She is endurance, accompaniment
and she can't save you, but she
keeps up and inspires you with her
strength

Day 2

Once the word got out that a person from the US was on the walk, I was bombarded with questions and started getting to know the other walkers. Having US clothing, friends, shoes, music, or having visited Disneyworld in Miami is the height of status in Brazil. I am definitely privileged by my skin color and US citizenship here in Brazil.

Then comes the questioning: "How long have you been here?" "How long are you staying?" "What does your family think about you being so far away?" "Don't you miss your mom?" "You don't have any children yet?" "Do you know Leonardo di Caprio?" "Have you ever met Michael Jordan?" I must have answered these questions 50 times over, finally got bored to death with myself, and the sterile image of the US. I learned to create dialogue better with jokes and asking questions about their families and work.

I met a sixteen-year-old young man who is very charismatic in his Catholicism and hoping to one day become a Franciscan or Dominican brother. He was wearing a T-shirt with a blue-eyed Jesus and matching baseball hat and, no matter what I told him, he couldn't understand that not everyone in the US is white nor that we don't just eat hamburgers and French fries.

Tragically, but not accidentally, McDonald's and Hollywood are our most powerful cultural representatives here in Brazil, and I would say in the world. I also met Ana Maria, who is heavily involved with the Worker's Party, which is closely tied to the Catholic Church because of its similar work with the poor, in community organizing, and its desire that Brazil be free of international debtors and privileged multinationals.

Met a thirteen-year-old, Luís, who lives in a favela (random grouping of shacks in the middle or on the edge of the city) with his ninety-year-old grandmother. Throughout the walk he checked in on me and made sure I was getting enough water. I also met one of our leaders, a priest Zé Renato who led us in song and chants from the back of a tiny Chevy for the entire seven-day period. He would yell out, "Quem tem fé…" (Who has faith) and we would respond, rhyming, "…vai a pé!" (goes by foot") and "Being a Catholic in our society...." and we responded, "...means a commitment to the community." "Brazil! Your sons/daughters would never flee the struggle!"

After 24 kilometers we reached the Catholic community that would host us for the night. All of us in pain—the second day was the hardest—sunburned (except me slathered in sunscreen) and tired. Although the showers were freezing cold, they were clean and we all passed out on our mats, re-energizing for our 6-AM departure. Just walking all day, the necessities of life become clear: water, food, rest, and companionship. I realized, even if I had been physically capable and knew the route, I could never complete the day's journey without singing, laughing, or conversing with the others.

Day 3

This day was full of music as our goal was 44 kilometers—26 miles! The songs kept us going in the heat and the hills. This one was written by one of Brazil's most popular musicians, Milton Nascimento in homage to Mary.

Maria, Maria, is a gift
a certain magic, a force that alerts us
a woman that deserves to live and to love like any other on the planet
Maria, Maria is the sound, is the color, is the sweat of a people who laugh when they should cry
and who don't live, but just endure.
But it is necessary to have strength, to know the force of your energy always.
Maria, a mixture of pain and joy.
But it is necessary to have the dawn, to have grace and to always dream.
Whoever carries Maria with them possesses the strange mania of having faith in life.

Another song that is central to Brazil's northeasterners, who come a 9 of Brazil's most destitute states, is "Asa Branca" (White Wing). This huge rural region of Brazil is arid dry with many similarities to West Africa in its geography. Millions of northeasterners have journeyed to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in search of work, leaving their beloved land and families because of extreme drought and loss of land to huge land speculators/owners. The northeasterners on our walk knew this song by heart and sang it with pride. Here are some of the lyrics:

Today many far leagues away
When the green of your eyes
in a sad solitude is scattered on the fields
I await the rain to fall once more
I assure you, so don't cry,
so I would be able to return to my land
that I'll return my heart.

This land is our life
our people, our foundation
our faith, our hope, the reign of our land

Other music having to do with dreams of equality and peace....

All I want is to look at the fields
I just want to sing my song
Only that I don't want to sing alone
I want a chorus of birds with me
I want to bring my friendly song
to whichever friend that needs it
I want to have a million friends,
and to be able to sing with more strength
I want to believe in a peaceful future
I want to have a yard without fences
I want my child to stand firm
singing loudly, smiling freely....

I was in so much pain by the end of the day that I started singing every song I knew in Spanish, English, and Portuguese to distract myself. Making somewhat of a scene singing in English, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet the five 18-21 year olds who had decided to make the journey to Aparecida. When I started singing "Shake it up baby now," one of them joined in and knew all of the words! It was a fun way to connect with this group who also knew, by heart "Stand by Me," "Rock around the Clock," and we had a three-way harmony going on to the chorus of "My Girl." Then they sang their favorite samba songs and I hummed along.

All of these young men and women live near my neighborhood in the northern periphery and although they like school, are extremely creative, and socially conscious, they know that because they have attended public high schools that they will not be priority admission for the University of São Paulo. This university, like many others in Latin America, is free of charge, top education, and is meant to be a social equalizer in countries with such high poverty rates. Unfortunately, because more and more students cannot afford private universities, the University of São Paulo has become more crowded and more elitist leaving the youth from the lesser-advantaged public schools in the peripheries in the cold.

We finally arrived in the rural community of Jacareí and were warmly greeted once again and split into groups for warm showers in people's houses close by the church! This was a wonderful luxury (especially after having taken freezing showers where a tiny stall included both toilet and showerhead). We all attended mass which was led by the community's humble priest, Father Alfonso and directed by the parish's Youth Pastoral. The community is very committed to the Landless Movement and accompany landless people who live in plastic shacks about four blocks from the church.

This nationwide movement seeks to pressure Brazil's government, which has never implemented land reform without pressure, even though the laws clearly call for an end to huge landowners called fazendeiros. (If you'd like to learn more about Brazil's landless movement, look for pictures by Sebastião Salgado in a book called Terra.) The liturgy ended with theater done by the youth drawing attention to hunger, concentration of land, and racism in Brazil, then they played a rock song called "What Country Is This?" and danced up and down the aisles with the Brazilian flag, the Landless Movement's flag, and holding up cards that spelled out DIGNITY.

Day 4

I had slept in the church the night before very peacefully and we had the entire morning free since the organizers did not want to push us too much after our 44-kilometer walk of the day before. Therefore, some of us, including myself visited a landless community near the church that morning. In order to pressure the government to implement its land reform laws, these poor families and small farmers occupy a piece of land that is not in use and the Landless Movement usually accompanied by the Church files the legal proceedings.

It is in no way a simple or easy process. This community was suffering from attacks by police hired out by the huge landowners. While we were there, Father Alfonso made it clear that if the police come again, the families should take refuge in the church. He joked that the walkers had invaded it the night before, so it was nicely broken in if the families should need the church for protection. Everyone laughed, but tears came to my eyes as I realized how seriously this community believed in hospitality and welcoming the stranger and the outcasts. Later Father Alfonso related to us that once when the police came to attack, the community was ready and stood in peaceful protest singing:

Sou, sou teu, Senhor
Sou povo novo, retirante, lutador
Deus, dos peregrinos, dos pequeninos
Jesus Cristo redentor

I am yours, Lord
I am just arriving, the migrant, a fighter
God of the travelers, of the little ones
Jesus Christ, redeemer

This day before lunch we held hands in a circle and called out the different forms of exclusion in Brazil and we thanked God and Aparecida for being fortified by the example of the people's struggle for agrarian reform and decent housing in this town. As we left the next morning, we serenaded the community with the song that they had taught us.

Day 5

After another long day of walking, we stopped and rested at a community in the middle of the countryside called São José dos Campos. St. Lucy's (who was the first recognized woman saint in the Catholic Church, by the way), was the name of the tiny antique church that barely held us. We sang around a campfire and ate hotdogs—which Brazilians adore! Somehow, we also had the energy to dance forró (pronounced foe-hoe) which is similar to the country two-step, but with more wiggle. It's even more popular than samba dancing and definitely easier for foreigners to pick up! It felt great to swirl around under the stars after marching on concrete for so many days.

By day 5, I had thought a lot about the homeless people in San Jose, San Francisco and Dallas who walk or sit alone all day long without a community with whom they could debrief, share a meal with and recognize the pains and joys of life. The monotony would drive me crazy. Walking tends to make you take the long view. You pay attention to the pains that hurt the most and you let the other ones go a little bit so you can keep going on, up and down along the vibrantly unjust and beautiful road of life. If you know you have a long way to go, you conserve your energy and you share more about your life as each day seems a little more precarious along the edges of the road.

Day 6

We left this area at 4 AM the next day. As I drank my coffee with a few other stragglers, most of the group again prayed the Hail Mary in the dark, under a golden sliver of a moon. Walking in the dark through the small roads, the fields rising up above the fences and the fog settling in, I felt a sense of peace in the simplicity of our community and the beauty of our surroundings. Violence is not endemic to Brazil or any other part of the world. I believe it is a result of the ripping away of the sacredness of people and their land. It is a result of selfishness and power and it breeds fear and ignorance.

Violence also comes from twisted theologies that tell the poor that they are stuck in their poverty because they did not pray enough, did not let themselves be saved, and are simply not good enough for God. One of the most powerful experiences on the walk was on this day when we arrived at the community that welcomed us. Again we were gratefully able to take showers in people's houses.

I went in a group with two other women from an extremely poor land occupation near my neighborhood. Yolanda and Luciana are very involved with the struggle for the land where they live. They work, raise children, and are involved with their community all while living in thin wooden shacks often without electricity and potable water. The woman's house we were welcomed into was a three-story house that even had an elevator!

When we commented on how pretty her house was and thanked her for her hospitality, she stated that it wasn't her doing, but all God's blessings. I realized she was a person very grateful to God for the things she had, but at the same time, I was horrified by how hurtful her statement could be to my two companions. Would they think that God is punishing them because they do not have even a house? Would they consider themselves unworthy? Do they, along with this woman have an image of God that is judging and who takes and gives at whim? How do I need to talk about God in a world that is so full of class, gender, and race inequalities?

Day 7

"Independence" Day. We made it!! As we came down around a curve of the highway the reddish-gold enormous structure of the cathedral came into sight. It was a relief and a joy to know we had accomplished our goal. As we had walked we had both denounced the Brazil and world that is trapped in violence and greed and we announced the justice-filled, peace-loving world that we do want.

We attended mass with about 50,000 other people and after the mass was the Grito—the Cry of the Excluded. The Bishops along with the Central Worker's Union, the Union of Popular Movements, the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers, and the National Confederation of Teachers denounced the privatization of Brazil's water, light, and phone systems and heightened interests on debt—all requirements of the International Monetary Fund.

People already starving and suffering from unemployment do not want the streamlining of jobs by foreign multinationals nor more taxes from loans of which they will never see the benefits. The Pope and the Catholic Church are calling for a Jubilee 2000—freedom of debts for poor countries (You can get in touch with Maryknoll or Bread for the World for more information).

Many heavily indebted poor countries, including Brazil, have already paid of the quantity of their debt many times over in interest rates and will never be able to pay off the entire amount. Also, as in Brazil's case, much of the debt is acquired by dictatorships that do not allow public opinion in national financing or other issues.

We arrived on Brazil's Independence Day to declare that there can be no true independence with the amount of suffering and poverty that prevails in this nation. At the end of the Grito, the organizers had picked a person from different sectors of society and asked them, "What does it mean to share the bread?" What does the Eucharist really mean for each of us and how do we live out our promise to be in communion with our neighbors? The end of impunity! Equality between blacks, latinos, and indigenous peoples! Full participation of women! Better distribution of land! A Brazil full of happiness, creativity, and true freedom.

Michelle Myers, originally from San Jose, California, graduated in Sociology and Women's Studies from the University of San Francisco. In Dallas, Texas, she worked for two years with Central American asylum-seekers at Proyecto Adelante, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing legal and other support services for undocumented immigrants. Michelle is currently a lay missioner with Maryknoll and lives in São Paulo, Brazil, where she works on issues of health, human rights, and citizenship with women who prostitute downtown and with new communities of land occupations on the periphery of São Paulo. Please send questions or comments to email: sejup1@ax.apc.org  or Michelle Myers, Caixa Postal 10027, CEP 03014-970 Belenzinho, São Paulo SP, BRAZIL

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