Kuetuvy's Many Problems

The Aché of Kuetuvy are very uneasy. These last few years have been nothing but trouble and this tendency doesn't seem to be abating.

Kuetuvy is a community that has been facing many problems since its founding in 2000, when the approx. 150 people broke away from the Chupa Po’u community and settled back on their ancestral land, and among of their problems have been poverty, bad education, but most prominently land issues. You see, when Kuetuvy was established, the land (known as Finca 470) was in the hands of the SEAM (Department of Environment). Successive governments and presidents of SEAM promised to give the land to the Aché, but it never happened.

So last year the Aché went to Asunción and protested for weeks in front of the SEAM headquarters and got Congress to approve a law giving the land to them, the rightful owners. President Lugo vetoed the law.  The Aché kept on and ran the bill through Congress again. It was approved a second time and Lugo couldn’t do anything about it. But the problems didn’t end there.  The President of the SEAM refused to sign the papers and so the title was not given for another 16 months. But then the shootout between the Carperos and the police which left 17 dead triggered Lugo’s impeachment and Vice-president Federico Franco became the new president. Nearly all of Lugo’s ministers resigned, including the president of the SEAM, and in their places came people more sympathetic to the Aché. At last, two weeks ago President Franco officially presented the land title to the leader of Kuetuvy in a grand ceremony in the Presidential Palace. But their problems are still not over.

A few months ago a group of campesinos (landless peasants) invaded Kuetuvy’s land, alluding to some bogus fiscal surplus, and they say that many of the armed Carperos (extremely radical landless peasants) who were at the shootout joined them later. The Aché want to kick them out but the Carperos have threatened to kill them if they come close. These campesinos enjoy broad impunity from the law and take advantage of this by cutting down the Aché’s forest and illegally selling the hardwoods. They are advancing from three separate camps and the cacique Martin Achipurangi said that some have already come to a few kilometers from the community. Meanwhile there has been no concrete legal or police action against them, despite various denouncements.

But here’s the rub. There is a fear that Franco’s government may lack the political will to uphold the Aché’s claim in this very explosive scenario. The last thing that they need is any blood spilt that would turn the whole international community against Paraguay, not to mention what the radicals here would do, endangering the stability of Franco’s government. Kuetuvy happens to be very close to Campos Morombí, the place where the shooting took place, and the campesino families that were involved demand restitution of land for what happened. And with campesinos already there and much money to be made on logs and Indian land, Kuetuvy is a very alluring site. The government is receiving a lot of pressure from many different special interest groups to answer the campesino’s wants in order to preserve the peace. And despite all the discourse of upholding Indians rights, when push comes to shove native peoples always are in danger of getting the short straw.

The Aché need this land. Kuetuvy has 4.650 hectares (11.490 acres) of land, of which more than 70 to 80% is virgin forest, one of the last reserves of importance in the country. I was in the community last week when they had their yerba mate harvest. The Aché of Kuetuvy have a partnership with an American-Argentinian company called Guayakí, which sells organic yerba mate products in the States. They’ve been helping the Aché plant organic yerba in their forest and selling it later. Last week the Aché had a great time, pulling together to harvest the leaves amidst jokes and raucous laughter. We were invited, as were many other people, and after a long and tiring trip we arrived very early in the morning… or very late in the night. I forget which. When we woke up and walked around, I again noticed things that I notice every time that we’re there. Precarious houses made of bamboo slats and odds and ends, the children with skin rashes due to inadequate use of water and, as we walked through the fields, farmland filled with half burned stumps and logs and the crops coming up from the sandy soil amongst weeds.

For years the Aché have practiced Slash-and-Burn agriculture: clearing land, using it for 2 or 3 years and then having to give it up because in the absence of modern farming techniques and equipment the ever present exotic weeds take over. So then they are forced to clear more land and the cycle repeats. This method is more destructive than logging or intensive agriculture. I’ve seen many, many acres with weeds and grasses as tall as a man and still more land being cleared for farming. But what can a man do against such an impetuous force of nature with only a hoe and a machete? And he gains from this barely enough food for the year and hopefully something on the side to sell. Because of this many go out and work day shifts for neighbors who pay terrible wages but it gives enough money for immediate needs, even though it weakens the community by diminishing the available workforce. But the Aché don’t want this. They want a different alternative, a more sustainable alternative. What they want is a method that will create a sustainable economy that will conserve the forest. In that respect Guayakí is already a great step in that direction.

But conserving the integrity of their land is vital for this. That is why so much is at stake here. Yesterday we had encouraging news. President Franco was in the nearby city of Curuguaty for a ceremony and some of the Kuetuvy leaders, Martín Achipurangi, Margarita Mbywangi, Emiliano Beijiwagi and others, went there. God opened doors and they got to talk to the president. He proved to be very receptive and promised to take action against the Carperos, and later that day a military helicopter flew over the campesino camps, so praise God! We hope that things will start changing.

The aché truly need this land. The forest is one of their last links to their culture and they want to use the already cleared land for better agriculture in order to keep the forest. They want to produce better crops that will give more food and money so that they may lift the community; they want to build secure houses and not suffer from the cold and rain that gets through flimsy bamboo walls every year; they want to have better education for their children; they want to manage their land better and sustainably; in short, they want a better life. We recognize these things take time. Time, determination, mistakes, patience and self-sacrifice, and especially people who are willing to give up their time and go shoulder to shoulder with them. If adequate steps are taken and the learning process begins with God’s help they will make it. That is what is happening at Kuetuvy now.

Gope cho djavu krampima. 
           (There endeth my words)  

A reflection on some Things

Yesterday morning Mom embarked on a great expedition, a voyage that took her and her faithful companions through a sea of obstacles and tribulations, along a winding and twisted road through rain, through sleet, through hail, but her heart was never daunted, no, not for the world, her head held high and her fighting spirit stirred within her, her long desired destination being: rocky Ithaca… errr, sorry…I mean, a teachers training conference in Caazapá. (Alright, now I know that the Odyssey is getting to me).

All joking aside, Mom did leave home early in the morning in our Isuzu with teachers Juan Manuel, César and Sixta, and the truck loaded with vittles for the “jornada” in Caazapá. Not ten minutes passed and she came back to get her bag of clothes. Something is always forgotten when you’re traveling, ain't so? So now we hope that things will go out well over there and that the majority of the teachers will show up. Mom has received much unfounded flak this whole year because of being the Supervisor of the Aché Education, so this conference might be a little hot. But we’re praying. Dad and Brian were in Asunción, where they were doing all the necessary paperwork for Brian’s trip to Norway (for those that don’t know, Brian is going to a filming DTS in Ålesund, Norway), and Blanca was in Coronel Oviedo with her mother and little brother. So Sylvia and me stayed at the house because of school, but don’t worry, we weren’t lonely. Simón Pychangi and Vicenta Kuanchingi, two aché from Puerto Barra, are staying with us because of school too. And early this morning Dad and the others came home by bus, although Blanca got a lift from a pastor who was coming this way, and with them came Eva-María Röβler, a linguist who is working with the aché and a good friend to us.

In recent memory there are two main events that stand out, which happened last week.

Saturday Night. A wedding was being held, and we were invited. At seven, we the Fostervolds, except for mom who was sick, decked out in our finest attire, got in the car and headed down to the Rio de la Plata church. It was the marriage of Olinda and Mateus. Olinda is an old friend of ours, sister to Ninfa Arce, one of our most trusted teachers, and Mateus, well… everyone knows him. They’ve been in a relationship for… oh… ’bout a year or two now and things have gone well, considering that Olinda has a small daughter too. So it was joyous news when one afternoon Olinda came up to the door and gave us the wedding invitation.

We arrived at the church and found that it was packed, no seats available and many people outside peering through the windows, but then again the church wasn’t very big.  The service was very nice, or so I heard since I couldn’t see very much, but the bride and groom were looking very nice, especially the bride. After the service everybody went out, got into their vehicles and drove to the banquet. The location of the feast was in the salon of the fairgrounds of the Agro Show, one of the most important agricultural expos of Paraguay. Coincidentally, that was the same site of the other main event in recent memory.

On Friday morning Dad, Brian, Juan Manuel and Me were at the Agro Show grounds attending the Proyecto Nuevos Liderazgos (Project: New Leaderships), a conference about the impact of the region on the every level of Paraguay and how to safeguard it, organized by the Coop and Héctor Cristaldo, president of the Union of Production Guilds and a major friend to the Aché. About forty Brazilian farmers were there, a few Paraguayans and upwards ten Aché as well, along with Murray Bryant and Prof. Luis. Three speakers were going to talk there, one from an economical standpoint, another from a journalistic view and lastly from a political stand. The conference room was well filled and as we came in the economist “Banana” Ferreira, a friend of Dad’s, was talking.

In the economical side Paraguay is the on a road of enormous breakthroughs. Paraguay is the 6^th largest producer of soybeans in the world, 3^rd largest exporter too. It was the second country with the biggest growth rate the world last year, at 15.3 %. The agricultural sector is the backbone of Paraguay’s economy, giving more revenue to GPD than the hydroelectric dams of Itaipú and Yacyretá combined. He explained the relationship of cash crops with animal breeding with fertilizers with biofuels with petroleum with everything else. Everyone is related. Soybeans, corn and sugarcane are used to make feed for animals. A bad crop in the States is a great thing for us down here, and vice-versa. The majority of fertilizers are produced in countries around the Caspian Sea, like in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan or Uzbekistan, and when problems erupt there the price of fertilizers go up. With biofuels the need of crops like sugarcane goes up to make ethanol and consequentially the price for petroleum rises. Libya gave two percent of the world’s oil and now with the civil war there the price of petrol went up 20 percent. Everyone is related. And Paraguay plays an almost unwitting major role in all of this, yet certain key figures in the government want to stop it all.

That’s where the second speaker came in. His name was Miguel Noto and he was a reporter. He showed us how people of extreme left wing ideologies are trying to bring down the mechanized model of agriculture, source of Paraguay’s riches. This systematic attack has been going since prior to 2000, and not just in Paraguay but worldwide. It’s core ideas is that soybeans are hazardous, agro-toxins kill, multinational entities are akin to the devil and that mechanized agriculture irreparably destroys the land and the environment.  A whole load of bull. And key members of government, notably President Lugo, are propelling these principles among the Landless Peasants (Campesinos) and in the mass media. Already there is resentment among the people of the capital against the Brazilians, saying that they stole all the land and what not, which is wrong since Paraguayans themselves sold it to them. The Campesinos, though, take it more to heart. Guided behind the scenes by politicians, they invade private property declaring that it is theirs by right. Now don’t take me wrong, I do believe that many of them are sincere in what they ask and it’s the government’s responsibility to alleviate their poverty, but some of the shady dealings that happen in the shadows, meaning shadows of ignorance, are scary. To the point, about a month ago the president of the Liga Nacional de Carperos (LNC, a Campesino organization) declared that the only way to solve the “problem of the 8.5 million hectares of ill-gotten land” was to nullify all the rural land titles to “sort out the rightful owners”. Elsewhere the LNC said that the first step to attain national sovereignty was to expel all the Brazilians subsequent to the compensation the must pay to the state for their illegal occupation of lands, and then they must expel all foreigners, and then install “real” Paraguayans on the lands. If this would ever come to pass, no one would be safe. And Lugo supports this type of rhetoric. The president of the LNC made his statement on TeleSUR, a Venezuelan TV station.

The danger is great and there is no counteroffensive from the hard-working farmers who know the truth and whose livelihood is at stake. So Miguel outlined a way to create national awareness, through the press, though radio, though videos.  “I’m a reporter, use me” he said, “Invite reporters to see what you do”. Also political pressure is needed. So that’s where the last speaker came into place.

Gonzalo Quintana went to the front. In his youth he had a wide assortment of oddball professions, until, as he jokingly put it, “I got tired of working and turned to politics”. The former president of congress talked about the decaying political and state systems. He showed an image of a group of migrating geese in formation. They are in that formation in order to slacken wind resistance and positions are rotary, so that when one tires the other can take the load of leader, receiving maximum wind resistance, he explained. The core policy of the vast majority of politicians is ‘what I get out of my position’. The politician claims to represent the people but really represents himself. We need to cultivate new leaders, leaders who have the people at heart, people who can represent faithfully our interests. The state is a vicious cycle of successive governments who steal as much as possible and try to remain in power as long as possible, usually ruining the good things their predecessors did. He showed a graph of how the state worked under the Stroessner dictatorship and how it works now under Democracy, and, alas, the system is not the same but going worse. The regime depended on a 4% of the GPD to function, yet know that figure has grown exponentially and if unchecked will ultimately collapse. Just the bureaucratic system is maddening. He told an amusing story about how the odyssey he had to face to just renew his I.D., taking a whole day to do so when it could just last under a few hours. “We must change the structures before they fall on us” he said. Then he showed again the image of the geese. That is how we should be.

That finalized the conference, and we all headed back home to eat.

Now back to the wedding. The whole hall was beautifully decorated in green, white and gold and rows of tables set with fine china. There was lots of music and, later, lots of food. Oh, the food! Rice, salads and potato salad, and Churrasco (Brazilian barbeque) all on two long tables. It was delicious. During the feasting the groom went around with his best man performing a Brazilian tradition of cutting a piece off the groom’s tie in exchange for money. After everyone ate their fill and the desire for heady wine was appeased (oh, there I go back to the Odyssey again…) there was time of relaxation and the photographer took a ton load of pictures of the newlyweds. After that they brought out the desserts. Oh, the desserts. Little cups of chocolate-covered strawberries with cream and also assorted chocolates truffles. Heavenly. After such delicacies I could not eat the cake, which surely was great as well. 

Finally, around 12 the disco started. We left early with Dad, and then came back to get Sylvia and a few friends. Along the trip with Dad we reflected about some social issues underlying the night. We wondered how so much money could be spent on parties like this and the like, while in the very town of Naranjal there are sectors with a very low standard of living, not poor, but not exatly middle class either. Or if that is not a very pressing issue, then why couldn’t people use their money to boost the teachers’ miserable salaries, teachers who work from morning to night. All the money that flows through the bread basket of Paraguay, and they use it for grand (and, I can’t deny, fun...) parties, while much bigger issues lie beneath the surface, issues that are in danger of exploding. It reminded me of the conference, just the other day. So many things, wonderful things, but other things that must change, or else…

Blanca's Return

Last week on Monday, Dad, Brian, Sylvia and Me got in the car, backed out of the driveway and began our journey to Asunción. The reason we were going was because, oh joy of joys, Blanca was coming home.

Blanca Liz Sostoa is our cousin from my mother's side, who has lived with us for six years in Puerto Barra and Naranjal for educational reasons. Over the years she has become an integral part of the family, to the point that Mom and Dad affectionately call her their ''adopted daughter''. Her kind-hearted disposition has, and still does, endeared her to every person who meets her. It is partially because of that that last year she went to the States, to Arrowhead Bible College, with a full scholarship, courtesy of our friends in Absarokee, Montana. A group of the church there came down to Puerto Barra in February last year came down to enlarge the Aché's church, and that's when the idea came up. So in September Blanca packed up and got in to the plane to São Paulo, Brazil, and ultimately Montana.

A year had passed now and we were going down the highway to Asunción, the capital of Paraguay and where Blanca's plane would touch down. As the land flashed by us and the warm air rushed through the window, I had to say that she had picked a good time to come home. Weather down here has been uncommonly warm and clear, so Blanca would have a warm welcome, so to speak. 

We arrived at the Mission House (the place where the people of our mission can come to stay when they are in town) at nightfall. Mom was there, having come a few days before us because of Ministry (of Education) work. We unpacked the vehicle and, with barely time to change our clothes, we went to a church service in which Dad was making a presentation about the Aché, in a church called Renuevo. 

The next morning we went to the airport. We arrived at ten. A huge crowd was there at the exit gate, awaiting their own respective loved ones. Among the throng we found Sinthya and Fatima, Blanca’s sisters, and Fatima’s little son, and we joined forces. The place looked like this: on one end the Gate, which was made of glass but shaded with a cigarette advertisement so that the other side was invisible, and the crowd was in a rough square around it, held back on the sides by dividers, the kind that infests airports. So there we were Sinthya and Sylvia in the forefront facing the gate, Mom, Fatima, Brian and me a little farther behind, and Dad on the side. All the while we were craning our necks every time that the gate opened while our hearts and expectations jumped. But it wasn’t her. And thus it kept going. Sylvia and Sinthya craned their necks so much that Mom said that if Blanca didn’t come soon then they’d turn into giraffes. Gradually the people left after great displays of joy when the people they were waiting for came through the gate. And time wore on.

It was eleven thirty. We were almost the last people there. Some talk had already arisen about whether she might have been delayed or missed her flight or some other unforeseeable plight.  But when we least expected it she appeared! Sylvia and Sinthya screamed and ran to embrace her. Radiant smiles and hugs all around. She had come back quite Americanized, what with wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and tied hair and speaking Spanglish. Mom teased her that now she would need a translator. After everyone had their say we headed to the vehicle. Turns out that she took so long because her bags got left in São Paulo (typical) and she was filing a complaint. But everything was well; we’d just need to get the bags tomorrow. So we went back to the city, happy as clams with her and her sisters and her bags with us. Blanca had returned.