Northeastern Stories

  MARIA, FROM CRATO TO THE WORLD In 1945, Mrs Nenzinha and her four children were waiting for a steamboat in Petrolina, state of Pernambuco, to cross the São Francisco River to Juazeiro in Bahia. Her husband, Mr. Joaquim Passos, was waiting for the family, unaware that their daughter had run away. Maria was unhappy. She had been forced to leave the man she loved, Zé Bento, a wealthy farmer of Indigenous ancestry, tall and strong, with black hair falling to his shoulders. The family left without even saying goodbye to him.  Her mother, Mrs. Nenzinha, had commanded her to pack without explaining their sudden departure, besides they would meet mr Joaquim. Her mother just warned her they were leaving that very day. At first, Mr. Joaquim had accepted Zé Bento as a suitor. Zé Bento had even set aside a white horse and had it saddled especially for Maria. Joaquim looked down on Zé Bento because of his mixed heritage, though. Perhaps he also felt threatened by the financial independen...

Decades ago, I heard a story that deeply moved me. It was about a man named Zeh, a small-scale farmer from northeastern Brazil. Zeh was tired of working hard but never making enough money. He owned a small piece of land, planting and harvesting, but the money was little. There was never enough to save some and fulfill his dream: to have a small transport business. "As a truck driver, oh! Yes! I'll make good money," he thought.  He felt a lump in his throat every time he looked at his wife and children. The pain of their family poverty weighed heavily on him. His children went barefoot and often didn't have enough food to eat, and his wife didn't even have a new dress to wear to church. As the years went by, he worked harder and harder, but he could only manage to support the newly arrived children. Do you know what free entertainment is like for poor people, right? Zeh used to watch the news on his old television. It wasn't very old, considering there were no...