— Luiza, come here quickly, take me there to the patio that I want to watch the sunset, don't you know that I do this every afternoon, woman, because I always have to keep begging you to do your job? After all, that is not what we pay your huge salary for!

— Yes, missus, I'm coming, don't be angry, look at the heart!

— And don't give me all this irony, you bitch, stop chattering and take me right on that damn chair to the patio!

— Okay, okay! Oh this little stressed woman!

— But look at how modern employees treat their bosses these days, it seems that we are two colleagues. Have more respect with me, you bitch!

— I'm sorry, Mrs. Mercedes, but I am not like your other servants, I was hired by Dr. Gilberto to provide my services as a nurse and, therefore, I am free to express myself as I see fit. And don't overdo it, I'm not disrespecting you!

— Ah, well, let it go, Now do me a favor and leave me alone here in my corner with my thoughts

 The sunset is beautiful, since I was a child, I love to see him hide, wishing us a good rest, diving into the flushed cloud. Saying goodbye to the day that has passed and greeting the night that is approaching. Before, he plunged into the murky waters of the river that licked the sands of that miserable village where I grew up. With its continuous flow, however dirty as not even good fish were raised in it to fish, which would be great to kill the hunger of those cursed people who lived in those lands.

I believe that nothing is more relaxing for a tired mind than admiring nature. And I, at this point in the championship, learned to value these little things, although the term small here is pejorative, after all, nothing could be more interesting than enjoying what is around us, what surrounds us. Anyone who sees me sitting in this chair, watching the sun go down, cannot even imagine the thorny path I had to take to get here.

I was a cursed child from the day I was born in that cursed region. A land condemned by drought, where almost nothing that was planted was born and the little that grew was not harvested enough to kill hunger. My birth took place in the summer, on a hellish day, although in the countryside there is never winter.

There, feeling a few drops of water falling on our dry bodies was a permanent dream and something far from the reality of people who throughout their existence have never experienced a single moment of peace and rest. Younger in a family of four, where our parents didn't even know how to write their own name, they always knew exactly what it meant to wake up every day with nothing to eat or drink. In a fractional way. Sometimes we went out to see who put more beans or rice on the plate.

 The only thing that appeared to boil in pots made of coarse iron and usually black from the smoke expelled from the wood harvested from the dry trees scattered through the forest. Eating meat happened only once in a while, when someone was willing to go out in the savannah looking for animals to kill, like: deer, edible animals. The hunger was so great that we even everything, not even lizards would dig.

The chameleons that say it, I doubt if these people in the big city would be able to face such misery, eating all these bugs. However, for those who have nothing and need to do everything to survive in a land forgotten by God, everything is valid, even eating poisonous snakes or frog fillets. Once my uncle Matias appeared at home with several frogs in a bag, saying that their meat was similar to a chicken breast after seasoning.

I almost threw up when I saw those filthy bugs, I doubted if I would have the courage to put a single piece of it in my mouth, but after it was properly prepared and cooked the smell was good to feel, and when I tasted it I liked it so much that I repeated the dish three times . The next morning, I saw the frogs' skin stretched in the thicket beside the house and I almost put the guts out, I was disgusted for many days. If I told anyone about it now, they would certainly call me crazy, after all, who in their right mind would eat those filthy bugs and still find the food delicious enough to repeat it twice more? Well, someone like me.

And all those who were damned lucky to be born in that end of the world, where the Devil pitched his tent. People like that would eat and lick their lips. Today I am a woman of life, I have everything that anyone can desire and everything that money can buy.

I live in a mansion whose extension is so wide that there are places in my own home that I have never visited. I can eat and drink anything I want, I don't miss anything, but at that time things were very different and in order not to die on an empty stomach it was necessary to do a little of everything.

We lived in a house made of beaten clay and stones, which were caught between two wooden sticks. Harvested from babassu palm leaves, they were filled with clay. The floor didn't really exist, it was just muddy mud and our feet lived black from the dirt that accumulated on it. The ceiling was made of beams carved from the thick branches of the trees and covered with the huge leaves of the babassu palm, visibly decorated by tiles of spiders that existed in the hills there. Yes, the situation in that shack was really scary.

Mom and Dad seemed to be used to all that dirt, as well as all the other adults we knew. I, even as a child, disgusted myself with that scrotum. She did not seem to have turned ten years old, she was stunted and did not have the profile of a teenager, more like a brat. Despite the poverty that surrounded us, my mother spent most of her time sitting in front of a sewing machine, making clothes for the women in the neighborhood, most of whom were a bunch of old women who were never too old to compete with the younger ones in search of a beauty that had long since lost.

They wore their dresses made of colored cloths and with designs of large flowers, painted their lipsticks with red lipstick and laughed at everything. Showing crooked and rotten teeth in order to win over the boys who roamed the alleys of the small village where we lived. The winners were the seamstresses like my mother.

 And the cosmetics salespeople who took the counterfeit products from the city stalls and pushed them into the foolish countryside. All dominated by the habit of false beauty. I, like dozens of other girls my age and with a poorly developed brain, only thought of playing on moonlit nights, when everything seemed perfect and even misery was forgotten.

Constantly dirty and wearing the same clothes for countless days, it stank to dance, I spent days with the same grimy dress and the smelly panties that was placed on my skinny body. This usually took place on Sunday night, when our parents took us to attend mass in the chapel and lasted until the next weekend. It was routine to stay without taking a bath, because there was little water and we needed to save money, despite having a river that passed close to the village.

It was of deep waters and we were forbidden to go diving there, because we could drown, as my grandmother Tereza used to say, may God have her in heaven, if they accept Northeasterners there, a race that seems to be the leftover of devils. She died at ninety-four years of age, almost a century of existence. Pure suffering. She was a tough, hard-working old woman, the type who spent much of her life under the docks.

His trajectory in this world has been breaking babassu coconuts in a sharp ax to dance. That was how I did to sell and earn a lot of money with that I supported the heap of children that I generated beside my grandfather's poor. All of this is interesting, people who live in large urban centers and in regions whose climates are cold and the most promising way of life. They live less than those who live in the savannah or in the backlands of scorching sun, splintering with hunger. It seems that the popular adage that says the poor is a vase made of bad clay.

 And that it is unlikely to break is true. After all, it is not so easy that these people die, even in suffering. The Barbosa family was huge, made up of at least a hundred people, just uncles and cousins, I remember being a crowd. During the festivities of São João, during the June festivities, we got together to dance June parties, eat couscous, cornmeal cakes and tell lying stories at dawn.

The girls and boys played “falling into the well”, a game where anyone who missed the answer to the question asked had to kiss someone chosen by hand by the other participants. The guys got along well, and they made mistakes on purpose just to be able to kiss the ladies.  But look at that bastards! We, the girls and the smaller boys, could not participate, we were just looking from afar and the most excited ones just licked their lips with the desire to experience the taste of a kiss.

 Lucas, my cousin, was more brazen than the others and one night decided to ask me for a date, I had no idea what that was and said yes. The rascal grabbed me in the dark and chipped my mouth with a lick. Oh, what a disgusting thing! I thought it was horrible. And on top of that he grabbed me with an extraordinary force, the devil was my age, but he was as strong as a bull, because he was raised working on the hoe's hand, in the field, next to my uncle Pedro, a real executioner. He was the type to treat his children at the base of the whip, he did not give time to the nine males he made.

Perhaps that was why it was the most financially structured in the family. My father and the other uncles were more flexible in dealing with their children and because of that they had nothing. With him I learned that without much effort nothing is achieved in life.

 Maybe this view of things was what made me overcome the obstacles and setbacks that I encountered along the way and made me get here. Where am I today, when I can finally rest and see my long-suffering past from afar, just as a vague memory that even a bitter taste I like to remember. Without a doubt, I can affirm, with absolute certainty, that only the strongest will be able to achieve the full realization of their dreams.

 These, at the end of their journey in this life, will be able to take the pot full of refined gold at one end of the rainbow. For the weak, defeat and failure are reserved, which are the reward left by fate to losers. Lucas was a muscular boy and took me in his arms like a real angry horse, kneading me whole, making me feel wanted even if only for a second.

While the kneading that cracked my bones lasted, even though I hated it the tongue kiss he gave me. What actually for me was just a disgusting lick at that moment later disturbed my mind. After taking me to the dark and licking my mouth, he went back to playing with the other boys. It was as if nothing had happened.

The cynic continued to enjoy himself until dawn without speaking to me again, as if nothing had been done. As for me, although I was nothing more than a child, I was dizzy for many days without being able to forget the kneading behind one of the immense trees that existed there.

 I think in the end I fell in love with my cousin, because after that episode every time we saw each other I would look into his eyes and then come home like I was anesthetized. I started thinking about him daily, I dreamed of that night when I was kissed, I even felt the strength of his embrace.

The strong grip of his hands on my skinny body, and the disgusting rub of his tongue over my girl's mouth, during that horrible lick at first and passionate afterwards. I must admit that I hated it immediately, but it really marked my childhood. He, like all men, didn't even look at me in a special way or tried to bring it up, that in reality was just an impulse from the male inside him, nothing more.

It was sad to see my father, a man already advanced in age, getting up every morning while singing the rooster, still in the dark, and going to the farm to guarantee the daily bread in the company of my brothers and other cold buoys. I was still too young to fully understand the world to which I was assigned by destiny to belong, but it was already possible to understand that it was a real drug. We lived in a region punished by drought and hunger in the misery that spread through those lands reneged by God. There, in the on the land of the Judas, not even the devil walked.

At the end of each afternoon, I could see my old man returning tired from the mowing, with his old hoe on his shoulder and a machete hanging from his waist. insist on staying in those lands. They do not give up, despite the complete neglect, both by the authorities who are not looking for a solution to the scarcity of water in the region, and because of what is most sacred in heaven, clearly not caring for those suffering people.

With paled hands and cracked heels, but stubborn to the point of never giving up one day to change their luck and see at least a few drops of rain fall in that part of the world to wet such a great dryness, they insist on staying. There are no people in this country who are more optimistic than the Northeasterners.

 Especially the country people, never give up believing in a sudden miracle that comes from one hour to the next to completely change their lives. That is why it is possible to find them present in all Brazilian regions. And even abroad. This seed of fighters never stops walking in search of their dreams, wherever and however they are always trying to occupy their deserved place among those who are seen as winners. I myself can serve as an example in this statement.

 Because I reached the highest peak that a woman of mediocre origin, whose roots came from the lowest and most despicable parts of this nation, could dream of conquering. Today, at sixty-eight years of age, I can stop and look back, as I do now, to say that with faith and determination we can all go further. Any human being, men and women, regardless of their origins, can arrive very high in their stocks.

I came out of nowhere, it was nothing, it was just a hopeless spark that was born in a dry, unproductive land, without opportunities. That due to the evil of fate I had to live moments of intense suffering.  Humiliation and pain that terribly marked the most intimate part of my being, creating wounds that still open in my chest and soul, with frequent images of terror alive in my mind.

However, none of this prevented me from moving on and conquering my deserved place in this world, where I was planted and planted like a fragile plant that takes root in the earth and takes its sustenance from it, then grows and bears its fruit in large quantities, feeding everyone as much as she wants to make a living by giving them shade with her foliage. At the present moment where I am, I can look back and see what I have become. A tree with long branches, whose birds land and sing, celebrating each new dawn.

I built an empire made of money and power, a huge family, made up of seven children and daughters-in-law, fourteen grandchildren and great-grandchildren as far as the eye could see. All of this is the result of a life dedicated to pursuing the fulfillment of my dreams, overcoming obstacles, overcoming wounded pride and silently accepting the steps of the oppressor, even if they bleed my spirit. Who would have thought that that dirty girl.

 So restless on her feet would grow up, cry crocodile tears, suffer Then overcome everything with courage and optimism, becoming who I am today This is irrefutable proof that when we are born with the fate of being someone important, nothing can stop us. From the moment I started to understand things.

 And realizing the chaotic situation in which I found myself next to my family, living in that end of the world among the babassu plantations, eating white rice and beans from the colony that we harvested in the fields after months of sowing, I concluded that I urgently needed to find a way to change life.  But how, if there were no opportunities and was nothing but a brat? It was then that fate later decided to intervene and the doors opened, even if in a horrible way.

It was a life full of pain and suffering, at least for adults who understood the whole situation. of suffering. Well, but that's another story. While the universe conspired in my favor, trying to find an, worthy way that would allow me to get out of the poverty I have been in since I was born, I remained in the mediocre little life ever. During the day the routine was the same, I woke up very early to help my mother go to the pond to get clean water, before the animals went there to drink, to fill the clay pots scattered around the house. I had heard of such refrigerators that people in the big city had in their kitchens.

They said it made the water very cold. In fact, it cooled everything, even food. I wondered why to cool things down to eat, I never endured beans and cold rice, it had to be boiling on the plate. Well, he did not understand such things, mania for people who are beastly. After helping my mother with the housework, I was finally free to play with the many classmates in the small village, then I let go and only returned in the late afternoon.

When my father and the brothers were back from the fields. He loved the weekends, when everyone was home, sometimes Dad would take us to a stream five kilometers away from where we lived to bathe and fish. I always did well at fishing, I used a hook attached to the line of a makeshift rod made by George, my brother a year older than me. At the end of the day I brought a basket full of fish and my mother cooked everything with plenty of vegetables, the famous stew, which served everyone and we were full of bellies.

Soon afterwards, I would fall asleep with chipping and we would run to lie in hammocks made of thick and prickly cloth, because they were so dirty that they were rough. The washing of clothes was done from month to month to save the precious water.  For, in addition to being far away from the place where buckets and cans were carried over shoulders, the men of the house were not always available for the task.

From an early age I learned to do all the housework, after all, I was the only woman in the family, after Mom. But I liked to stay with her in the kitchen, helping, we got along, we talked and we were like two good friends. In the countryside it is like that, the girls contribute to the work with the mother and the boys with the father, in the fields.

 I also used to go there from time to time, I loved taking the hoe handle and digging the ground to plant. The harvest time was cool, all the women in the village and the girls were taken to the fields to harvest the seeds after they were ripe, rice, beans, corn. And we took the opportunity to go out among the undergrowth in search of fruit, there was a so-called priest's food, which was a real delight. It is born from a tree with enlarged leaves.

And it comes in bunches like grapes, but the beans are dry and hardened on the outside, it is necessary to break to remove the sweet dough from the inside. My colleagues and I were tired of eating these fruits. In addition to many others we find there, something that people in the big city don't even imagine exist. It is, in fact, an inversion of values. While in the hinterland there is nothing modern and technological, in the large urban centers its inhabitants know nothing of the little things that we can enjoy in nature.

Like the fruit, which I spent all my childhood savoring and never saw again, since I grew up and came to live in this jungle of stones. Another thing that we didn't see often at that time was as many deaths as you see now, God in heaven, but as the violence has spread in this lawless country, I think that nowadays there is nowhere else where we can find peace, even in the most distant places death takes its victims.

Even there in the hinterland and in the drier parts, there are those who take the life of the innocent for money and ambition. It is even fearful to walk there again. I have several properties spread across the municipalities of some states in this country, mainly the Northeastern ones, ranging from farms to farms that I used to visit frequently with my late husband in the past.

 They who turn to administer, I have done my part. I must admit that I have nothing to complain about, my assets only multiply day after day under their administration. I am really blessed, I think I started to be seen and remembered by the saints from above after so many blows taken at random from the accursed fate, which looked more like an executioner. From the moment I was separated from my family and taken as a slave to the house of my executioner aunt.

 I suffered like a mangy dog. I don't even like to remember how much I suffered and was martyred for so long, I even thought I would never leave that hell and almost gave up on continuing to exist.  But I will leave to think about it another time, today I just want to remember my childhood. The good times I lived with my parents and brothers, despite the poverty that surrounded us and the almost total absence of water typical of the Hinterland, where a rainy day or an eye of water found in the forest means a treasure of incomparable value.

It is true that the people there suffer, they are forgotten by the authorities who have little recollection of investing resources in that region. It seems that it is not registered on the Brazilian map. Politicians only visit those who live in the arid lands of the hinterland during the campaign period, when they are in search of votes. There, the residents are visited and convinced to believe in the false promises of improvements.

In fact, this happens in all parts of this nation contaminated by corruption, the poorest are deceived by the powerful and end up helping them to come to power, then they become the main victims of the infamous laws that they themselves create, all in defense of their own interests to the detriment of the most needy, I can still remember the many rallies that took place there in the village.

 And the candidates who went up on the big stands to speak their messages of deception to an illiterate and foolish people, who were easily convinced to vote for them in the hope of better times, that of seeing the voter being deceived by candidates is an old thing. In the main square there was a chapel, where we met on Sunday mornings to attend mass. Occasion when the priest spoke his tales and blessed the faithful with holy water.

The girls took a little time inside the temple, they preferred to run around the square, playing hide and seek, without worrying about tomorrow. This is the most interesting part of being a child, the mind is free of the characteristic concerns of great people. Today I can see that innocence emblazoned on the delicate faces of the battalion of grandchildren I own, they have no idea of ​​the chaos in which this world lives.

And it’s good that they stay that way for a long time. Next to the old house covered with coconut straws, where I was born, grew up and spent the first years of life, there was a giant tree with huge trunks, where children played every afternoon, after all, nobody went to school, because there was none in the nor teachers to teach how to read and write. Everyone was illiterate as a father and mother and little value was given to studies, which I certainly lost many years later.

When I found myself lost in life without a threshing floor and not even needing the means to survive. It is not now that the lack of knowledge makes us worthless. Unprepared to walk firmly on their own legs, without relying exclusively on third parties and positioning themselves in the world as someone independent and owners of our own place in the universe. It is terrible to walk like a blind man.

The type that is not able to see a span beyond the nose, because that is how we can compare those who do not even know how to write their own names. There was a time when I found myself that way, completely unable to find a path that would lead me to a promising future, due to the fact that I am an illiterate woman, without any study. That's when I regretted not going to sit on the school bench. I realized quite late, how fundamental this would have been for me.

 Because only then would my journey towards the unknown become easy, where I had to know how to live with the unexpected. Of course, it was only decades later that I realized that, when I looked around and no longer saw the presence of parents and the family where I used to anchor my hopes, my childhood was in the past and innocence was thrown into the drain of a naked and raw.

 It was not easy to wake up suddenly and realize that I was alone, with no one around to reach out and help when needed. It turns out that in her early years as a girl she was still completely unaware of these issues and only thought about playing. Little did I know or care what I might have to face tomorrow. Children are like that, no matter the poor of the favela or the hungry of the hinterland.

As well as the wealth of the high social classes, they are stuck in their fantasy world without thinking about the future. They only think about their varied forms of entertainment. But, what good would it be to be a child if it were not so, being free of the terrible concerns that so torment adults? For this, God divided human life into four distinct phases: Childhood, adolescence, youth and maturity. And, at least, during the time I walked the path of innocence I was happy, despite the many thorns around me nothing prevented me from enjoying the peace of innocence that never comes back.

Mrs. Chica, a black woman with gray hands who lived in a shack two hours away from the village, was a scary woman to see. Tall, fat and with red eyes, she only appeared from time to time among the residents, I was terrified to see her. However, at the same time I was happy because I always brought a cauldron full of porridge and distributed it to all of us, I was yellow from eating so much, it was one of the most special moments for all the kids.

Some of the strangest boys of a day got together and went to snoop in the old witch's hut, the ugly black girl who scared me so much. And they invited me to come along. You know, although I was scared, I was full of curiosities and I accepted the invitation, but it wasn't silly or anything and I stayed at the end of the line, stepping back so as not to be seen or face the witch.

Yes, that's how I thought about my childhood, for me she used witchcraft, because if not, why would anyone choose to live alone in the forest? Either she was a criminal or was running away from something, at least she heard older people comment on it.

That Sunday afternoon, I had the bad idea of agreeing to go with the children to annoy the old woman and I was terrified to realize that their intention was to stone the poor girl's hut; I found a tremendous lack of sensitivity. My young age did not prevent me from reflecting with a little justice, after all any sensible person would understand that even being a witch.

 She had the right to live in peace in her corner, with her spells. Besides, the poor thing didn't bother anyone. Not to mention the delicious porridge he gave us from time to time. Carambolas, what if she put a little witchcraft in that treat? Do you know I never stopped to think about it?

 When we are nothing but brats full of damnation, we only think about killing hunger and stuffing our bellies until they crack. Well, on that occasion, as soon as I saw the other children stoning the old black woman's hut I was very sorry for her, especially when I heard her screaming help and threats against them, the poor thing was taken by surprise, as she lived in her quiet corner for a long time, without anyone going to bother her. She was frightened and enraged, she wanted to drive the invaders out of there.

 But it was not possible, since there were many and they appeared from all parts, throwing stones. I reserved myself to be just from afar, watching. At times he cursed the damned and asked them to stop with such barbarity, but without success. Everything lasted only a few minutes, but the result was disastrous for the victim of the monsters' insanity, because the poor thing was desperate with the surprise attack.

The kids got ready and then they fled enjoying the affront. And they left me behind, completely unaware of the fact that they were already gone and I was alone in the place. It distracted me and I was lost in the bush, now returning home would be complicated by the fact that I don't know much about the place and the path I have traveled. I started calling their names in the hope that they would be around and could hear me, but it was in vain.

Then I started to get more and more scared, gradually increasing the sound of my many screams, without any result. The dirt road was a branch only two meters wide, little used by carters who sometimes carried loads of wood to make coal in their charcoal works. Imagine a girl just ten years old lost in the middle of the forest without knowing where she was and how to return home?

It was desperate and I started to cry a lot, because it started to get dark and nothing to find a single living soul to help me. It was then that, suddenly, I felt a tight grip on my thin arm and when looking at who held me, I yellowed with fear when I saw that giant gray hand that squeezed me with an extraordinary force.  It was she, the old black woman who found me aimlessly in the thicket and decided to provide help. However, instead of thanking the elderly woman for her loving gesture, I floundered with fear and started screaming for help.

 Even she was startled by such a scandal. I think the poor thing had never seen a brat so small with such a big mouth and capable of making so much noise with her screams, I was choked until I couldn't do it anymore. She just contemplated my despair without doing anything to silence my weeping. Only after the fright, was over did I calm down and the old woman decided to take me to her shack. I followed in her footsteps, being pulled by the arm, I had no choice but to obey her decision, as she kept my very thin wrist attached to her huge hand and pulled me along the way.

After a long walk we arrived at the hovel, everything there was strange and frightening, as soon as I entered the place my curious and perplexed eyes saw the bust of an animal clinging to the wall made of clay and stones. Next to it, about a dozen portraits of people I have never seen before. He, ordered me to sit, pointing to a wooden bench, which I did promptly and without arguing.

It was hard to dance and my ass hurt because I didn't have a greenhouse, besides that I was devoid of meat on my buttocks, a skinny tomboy for living eating beans and white rice in the devil of that hinterland, covered in a vast vegetation of thorns that made me even afraid to contemplate.

She said nothing, she kept pacing up and down, fixing something here and there, chewing homemade tobacco, spitting from time to time in the corners of the walls, it was disgusting the disgusting habit of the black woman from whitened hair and that welcomed me. After settling in, he went to the wood stove and removed a huge pot of porridge from there, put it on a dish plate and told me to drink it, using a metal spoon so clean that it glowed even in the dim light of a lantern. gas.

Then I lay down on an armed net in some corner, the little clarity was undone. Giving way to total darkness. Outside, it was possible to hear the crickets' party and the owl's terrifying singing, as well as the roar of the jaguar, which at times seemed to be very close, prowling around the shack.

The fear was notorious, while the woman snored on the wooden bed beside me, I couldn't sleep, they remained wide open. Sleep did not come and insomnia took its place, preventing me from falling asleep, forcing my ears to hear the footsteps of the nonexistent, created by the illusion that the night dread caused. I was in a hurry for the sun to rise and soon its rays would appear on a new dawn, however the hours seemed to pass slowly, it was as if the hand of the time clock was stuck to the gears and hardly moved.

I was forced to contemplate the stirring of the dry leaves scattered outside, during the blowing of the winds, and the dancing of the thorns during the passing of the gentle breeze in the dawns of a permanent hot and dry summer. That macabre night finally ended and the woman got up early, made a delicious couscous that we ate together. Accompanied by very hot coffee as I liked. Then I was summoned to go with her towards the village.

 Back home and delivered to my parents who were informed by Mrs. Chica about what happened. Which gave me a painful beating with branches of tamarind, a thing that hurts for cassette. And only those who make an unforgivable madness are beaten by him.

I was quarantined for several days after the beating, my ass was in disgrace, the executioner at the time was the father who had a heavy hand to stick the cloth on the back of the disobedient. My older brothers who say that, it was a pity to see them under their ire. At that time, the victim of his heavy knocks would have been me and despite my mother's intercessions the stick ate

And the pain in my back was so great that I even pissed on my dirty panties, as always black with dirt. My grandmother came to my house the next day to rebuke her son's ignorance by beating me like a male goat, she understood that female daughter should be punished with less rigor and that he had crossed all limits. Believe me, I had a fever of at least thirty degrees and I felt my fragile body crack under the cold mixed with heat.

Guys, I was just a person fiasco, skinny and sorry. The good thing was that I started being pampered by my grandmother and aunts for a few weeks. Even Dona Chica went to visit me and took porridge to help recover her health, she said that if she drank everything, she would strengthen the meat and bones, she would even gain some fat. This little one has the weight of a goat, said the woman to my mother. Since then, green corn porridge has been included in our diet, a recommendation made by grandma who wanted to see her grandchildren fuller, and we would like to thank the old black woman with gray hands for this, as it was her insistence that Mom take better care of our health.

In the northeastern interiors, families raised their children based on corn porridge and couscous, both for breakfast and dinner, as it was an easily accessible product, planted even around their homes and harvested after a few months. after planting. But with us it was different, my father hated any food made from corn and for that reason forbade consumption at home, which has not happened since. In a few months my appearance as a skull changed its appearance and my mother realized that this helped her to consider Mrs. Chica's statements about corn porridge to contribute to the good of the boys.

The land on which we built our home was large, surrounded by poles crossed with each other by the absence of barbed wire, generally used by wealthier landowners. In it we could find several fruit trees typical of the inland, which developed well in that region.

A huge cashew tree, several tamarind trees, whose fruits were extremely sour and their branches served for parents to beat their children from time to time, in addition to wild fruits and others of the type. I liked to sit under the jackfruit to admire her beauty and tell her some of my girl secrets, including the kiss I took from my cousin in a moment of carelessness.

I don't know if that was for sure a kiss, I think that taking a lick on the lips of a loose kid cannot be considered something like that. In my view, kissing is synonymous with love, passion, romanticism, but a tongue smearing your mouth has nothing to do with such concepts. From time to time he also exchanged a word with Mrs. Florida Tree, a tree that did not bear fruit, but its flowers were beautiful, colorful and perfumed everything around. They were my best friends, to them I opened my heart and revealed the most hairy, Crazy.

 I exposed my girlish fantasies, even my most secret dreams. Like the project of one day growing up and going to live in the big city. Winning in life and becoming a queen after having married a prince charming, then returning to the village in a carriage and leaving my friends drooling with envy.

Well, surely one day I would leave for the skyscrapers of the big city, become a woman of great social influence and have a lot of money after meeting my first love, who was no prince charming, but who was rich and powerful enough to take off the shackles that have long ben.

 Attached to my neck and the chains that held my feet and hands, giving me freedom. However, not before paying a high price. He made me a free woman, both from the dismay of the streets, where I was made a slave to prostitution and drugs, and from the miserable situation in which I was held hostage for several years.

My princess dream certainly materialized, I rode in the carriage and the glory of power reached me, but at a very high cost that I paid under many misfortunes and sufferings. The stinky-haired girl, smelly and standing on the floor, would grow up and be dropped into the world like a rag that is used and then thrown away.

With no one to turn to, anyone to talk to about their misfortunes or who could offer any kind of help. But that would still take time to happen and in the meantime, I was allowed to enjoy my childhood illusions, fantasies that only at that age can be had. Sometimes I was stuck for so long chatting with faithful friends that I didn’t see the hours go by and only woke up when I heard my mother’s cry, who was worried about me

      — Devil girl, do you want to take another beating from your father? She said screaming, fearing that the worst thing would happen if my father arrived from the fields and did not find me at home. My father was a tough guy, never sat on a school bench or received any education.

It solved everything by leaps and bounds. However, underneath that alligator breastplate was a kind man, with a merciful heart when it came to reaching out to help his fellow men. I remember, as if it were today, the day when my father donated a huge piece of land that he used before for the manioc plantation with which we made flour, for the construction of the chapel.

 No one else was willing to collaborate with the poor priest who was sent from the capital to save our souls, but he had nowhere to lay his head. Daddy received the vicar at home for several weeks until the church was ready. And look, it was my brothers and our old man who built it, nobody helped. Miserable people! I made my small contribution myself, carrying water in the gourd to quench the thirst of the workers and portions of porridge in the morning, rice and beans in the afternoon, to satisfy the hunger of the poor. We country people are hardworking and fearless people, but I cannot deny that among these people of extreme strength and dynamism, there are also certain lazy people who embarrass us.

 One of the most negative characteristics of my people, must be seen as the unwillingness to share what they have with others, the Northeastern is miserable and does not know how to share his bread with anyone. But not everyone is like that, my father was the greatest example of this. And if the majority of these suffering people act in such a way, there is an explanation for that. After all, who, after being born and living their whole life under the bitterness of drought.

 And hunger, would still be willing to share what little they have with others? And the worst of all is that even after leaving such poverty and conquering a space in high society, most of them only change on the outside, inside they remain the same hard shells as before.

 It just didn't happen to me because I believe I inherited a little of Daddy's soft heart. I can't close my hands to anyone who calls for help. I spent most of my suffering existence sharing my achievements with my fellow men. On one occasion I went to visit Dona Chica, the old woman who distributed green corn porridge in the village and lived deep in the forest, even though I didn't quite understand the reason for being driven to it.

 I went there and spent the whole day chattering with the poor thing that, apparently, tormented himself with so much useless speech. Since I was a girl, I am a person with a loose tongue, I speak exaggeratedly and I end up leaving those around purple ears because they hear me chatter so much. Even though she was excessively shy and oblivious to a lot of talk, she learned to pay attention to that skinny and ferocious girl, I started to go to the abandoned house in the inside the woods, far from everything, every day.

At first, I was received without much courtesy, but over time I started to feel like I was her daughter. Or rather, I started to see her as a second grandmother, even though she didn't have gray skin like her. We started to talk, the old black woman learned to open her mouth more and finally we communicated better, we became two friends, confidants. We told each other our secrets — if a child with a pure heart like me would have something to hide from someone. Adults tend to see these little creatures as beings without a brain.

 Unable to feel emotions and keep in their hearts feelings that need to be understood. But it is a terrible mistake on our part to believe that they are insensitive to the point of not having a sharp view of what we face in our reality, even though they do not know how to clearly express how they manage to understand what we live and feel, they know and understand how much maturity is difficult, which, like us, will soon have to face.

And that was clear to Mrs. Chica during my visits in his corner away from it all. She started to talk more and heard different stories from her mouth. He told me all about his past, he revealed his sadness and bitterness, all the disappointments he went through during his youth.

 Perhaps he spoke to me of his discouragements for thinking that, being a child, deep down he would understand nothing and serve only as a simple listener, that he would not ask questions and say nothing of what he listened to anyone else. But she, like most adults, was wrong. I kept all her stories in my heart and mind and learned from them that life is not always fair to people.

This helped me to overcome the future disappointments in love that would surely arise during the long walk that I would still go towards maturity and in all other areas of my existence, without that woman having any idea helped me to mature immensely. Before, she felt good in the company of animals and solitude.

Without the hassle of other people, but after our conversations and being able to count on my presence daily, she changed her way of thinking. She started to feel the need to mix and that was predominant so that I invited her to go more often in the village, interact with the other residents, so things were reversed and this time I was the one who held tightly in her giant gray hand,

Pulling her along the footpath, the wagon branch. Towards the place where we lived to teach her how to get along with other people again, as she certainly would have done before she became that wild animal. Since then Grandma Chica and I started to be together, chatting long, both in the shack of the forest and at my house in the village. All the other residents were amazed by the enormous transformation that took place in the life of that woman who until recently chose to live isolated in the forest like a madwoman.

The most interesting thing was to notice the strong friendship that started to exist between her and my parents, who spent hours sitting in the living room. Chatting away in the middle of the night. For the first time we could hear her recount her devices made in the days of a girl, she looked a little like me. It was a little girl anxious and did several pranks.

 Gradually, he stopped going to the old house where he lived, abandoned everything, taking his ducks there to our house, became part of our family. My grandmother brooded with jealousy on the mother's side, seeing the connection that came to exist between the two of us and because I started to give her more attention.  I stopped the girl's madness and, when I wasn't helping my mother with the housework.

I spent most of my free time listening to our guest's stories, I found everything I heard interesting. It was a period when God decided to look more mercifully at the and it started to rain, the happiness in the eyes of each farmers was easy to perceive from a distance. Our faces, burned by the intense sun of a long and lasting summer, showed the hideous kind of suffering we faced there. We drank water from a shallow pot that, in order not to swallow the animals' leftovers.

 We had to collect the liquid well before dawn, even at dawn. We bathed twice a week to save money, as we only had two large plastic drums to accumulate a small amount taken from the Parnaiba River, located more than two kilometers away, from where the village men brought in buckets and cans held by supported poles.

On your strong shoulders, I never went there, children were forbidden to go to the river. I looked out the window and admired the rain, it was strong and it was possible to hear the rattle of drops of water falling on the dry straw that covered our house, unfortunately we never got a roof made of ceramic tiles or even raw clay, like most neighbors, because we were actually too poor to buy them.

But it didn't matter, in my child's eyes everything looked fantastic, charming and magical, it took forever to rain in the backlands. And I couldn't miss the opportunity to watch that almost unique show in my life. The elders ran to the fields to plant seeds in the hope that the crop would flourish.

In the meantime, I ran to the yard to play in the mud, but that time I was stopped by my mother, who did not leave any of her children in the rain, claiming that it would probably be flu. She hated to see us all snotty, sneezing and then shaking with fever. Every year that we had winter in the region it was like this and the work of curing us was left over for the poor thing. That I couldn't sleep at night, taking care of so many sick people.

 — Not this time!

She screamed, when we were already getting black from falling in the mud, she was absolutely right not to allow us to do that.

 After all that I and two others were asthmatic, all I had to do was catch the flu and the asthma attacks came. The most irritating thing was that, besides spending a sleepless night, she hit his head with the children who were damaged by the rain and contracted diseases.

On top of that, she had to listen to her husband's boring complaints, blaming him for everything. I saw how my mother suffered when she exercised that role of a submissive wife and the weight of responsibility that was imposed on her shoulders. I had to answer for all the wrong things we did, there seemed to be a sign on the forehead written guilty.

Forcing you to explain the reasons that prevented you from avoiding our mischief. I don't know if I ended up learning wrong, but I realized that being a mother and wife was martyrdom. And for a long time, I refused to carry that burden.

Until I finally matured and met who made me change my concepts, understanding that if there is true love what seems to be a burden becomes something very light to carry on the shoulders, in fact, it can even cause us intense pleasure and satisfaction. So that year, there was nothing left for me and the rest of my brothers to do but admire the rain falling through the window made of rough planks, without any art or decoration.

Typical characteristics of shacks like ours. Looking steadily towards the yard, I saw guava, cashew and so many other plants that were packed in the wind. They bathed under the dripping rain and seemed happy to have the opportunity to play in the strong winter that miraculously fell on a land usually cursed by the northeastern drought.

  I stretched a little more, leaning my bones over the base of the window and I could see the jackfruit at the bottom. Twirling its branches and swaying its fruits as it could in the lurch of the whistling gale as it ran through the trees. The beech tree, with its thick and colorful stem, painted in red and white, shining among the others, remained firm, standing over its roots, as if it were just enjoying the moment.

From time to time the strong thunder accompanied a fast lightning bolt, making me shiver at the base and retreat from the window. However, the scare was fleeting and soon he put his nose back to enjoy the storm. In the hinterland it is like this, eight or eighty. When the devil decides to stick his tail between heaven and earth, not a drop of water falls to wet and cool the earth. It is already known these are months of dry drought. However, after divine intervention decides to sympathize with the poor backwoodsmen,

He orders that the floodgates of the clouds be opened, and allows the rains to fall in great quantities over the entire length of the places punished by the drought. Some birds also seemed to have fun gliding among the drops of water that fell from the top without ceasing, they flew from side to side. At certain times they would scrape the eaves of the house and return to the middle of the land, in an impressive back and forth, taking the opportunity to bathe and cool their downs.

 Those who believe they are the enemy birds of cold weather are mistaken, they love it, even those who live in arid places and adapted to the heat. Undoubtedly the biggest ones, such as the hawk and the owl, should be hiding in some place to escape the rain, say the more experienced ones, who avoid bathing their feathers, because later it costs to dry and fly.

The wind blew strong that afternoon and the sound of its whistle was clearly felt as it crawled through the strands of my long hair, it was like the singing of poetry, like soft and delicate notes that made me fall asleep. I loved his cold passage through my body, relieving me of that terrible heat of the hot days that passed before his arrival.

The day came to an end and the darkness slowly approached, there was no lighting on the streets and inside the house lamps were used to illuminate the room. Since they were based on kerosene, their smoking wicks gave off black smoke that spread throughout the place, sticking to a dirty black wall that was difficult to clean.  

Electric light already existed all over the world, but at that end of the Judas one didn't even hear it. We lived in the dark of nights lit by flames of fire as if we were in hell. But for me, at least during the times of a girl, everything was accepted in the greatest tranquility, because, as a popular adage says:

Whoever has never tasted does not know how it tastes. I was born and growing up without even seeing a light bulb in front of me, so I couldn't tell the difference between it and a lamp. It got dark and Dad locked all the holes in the house, ordering us to go to sleep, he loved to lie in my hammock and stay under the blanket made of thick cloth. I disconnected from all things and listened to the tinkle of raindrops falling on the roof.

I thought it was fantastic, a simple gesture of nature that maybe people in the big city didn't have time to perceive and appreciate, but for me, a poor girl from the scarce backcountry of rain, it was impressive. The room where we slept was huge, despite the poverty there, little houses are not built.

 Everything is big and spacious, even without much comfort. The nets attached to iron shipowners or attached to ropes of embers lined up next to each other. My brothers slept tired of the toil of the farm. George, the smallest of them, was the one who snored most and prevented me from falling asleep, so I took the opportunity to dream a little. While outside it rained non-stop from an early age, in the bedroom and wrapped in the thick cloth sheet I thought of a future where things could be different for me and my family. I was never selfish and whenever I created images of a prosperous and comfortable life in my mind, I included all my family members in them.

He knew the taste of each of them: George, the snorer, wanted to have his own room with a big, soft bed to snore lying on and on. Francisco was a hard worker, but an eater without limits, the poor would kill his hunger with so many goodies that he couldn't even handle it. Marciano, the eldest, was extremely materialistic, petty and with cow feet.

What mattered to him was having a lot of money and a lot of goods. My mother did not expect great things in life. I used to say I already had everything I needed to be happy: A husband, his children and a place to live. She was the type conformed to almost nothing, a typical characteristic of country women, educated by their parents to grow up, marry and serve as a doormat for men, but I would not, I would never enter into this!

 Anyway, I intended to give her and my father a dignified old age, with enough comfort and a lot of employees to provide both of them with a peaceful and hearty ending, where they could eat and drink the best and the best. Perhaps I was a strange girl, different from the others who lived nearby.

 While most of them only thought of playing with dolls, I dreamed of a life far away, of becoming a rich woman free from the misery in which I had been born. I had no idea how this would happen, or when it would be possible to make such a dream come true, but I felt in my heart that I would have a better future than the present I was in until then.

It was a winter morning and quite different from the others. Because even during that season of the year in the hinterland it does not usually rain and what surrounds the inhabitants of the region is dust and a lot of dryness. However, to our happiness it seemed that God finally felt compassion for our terrible situation and released some of his water to moisten the cracked ground by the intense drought and water the plants. That by a real miracle they managed to survive such a situation. The weather, which was usually so hot and burned on the skin, dawned cold and pleasant to feel. Even the air we breathed was softer in our nostrils and from time to time someone was heard exhaling.

  Sign of the flu on the way and Mom was immediately terrified, she didn't want to spend nights and nights taking care of skinny kids. Grandmother Chica, who came out of the forest and started to live in our house at the request of my parents. Recommended that we be given such tea from the root of the bush plant, a plant that was born in the bush and that gave long and thin branches to fight flu, which was urgently accepted and provided.

After preparing the home remedy, we were forced to drink under screams and threats, because the devil was bitter to kill. It would make any angry and ferocious animal run out into the world. How mean, I was angry with the old black woman for weeks, but her intentions were the best, I just wanted to help avoid the worst.

He saw us as grandchildren, his new family. After reflecting better, I forgave her and we were fine again. The remedy was really efficient, although it gives me a few getaways and getting into the rain hidden from Dad, I didn't have the flu. The homies got along well in the fields, because they bathed in the rain while working and still enjoyed that delicious little cold that it was all day.

The new climate lasted for three months, it was the first time that it happened, it usually only lasted thirty or forty days. As the bush plant tea worked well and we didn't get a cold, Mom didn't stop us from playing in the rain anymore, it made us lose our fear of drinking it just to be able to fall into the mire.

It, rained day and night, sometimes weak, sometimes strong. In some points of the narrow street where we lived, there were holes dug by the residents, in order to remove clay, which overflowed with so much water and during our madness we jumped into them, playing diving. We also swam in other similar spots, where even fish were born. In them.

 We would take a burlap sack and, holding each one by its side, we would pass through the holes and remove the straws or traits that the boys used to bake. All made in an improvised fire, prepared with babassu coconut shells. Of that we had a lot of storage inside the house, in fact, all the residents did it as a way of making fire in the coal stoves, when it was lacking due to seasons like that, with many rains. I cannot deny that despite the miserable life I had a good time during my childhood and knew how to make the most of it. With grandma Chica, my mom and I learned how to extract oil from castor seeds. It was used to iron the hair and make it softer when combing, taking the grain and kneading it in a juicer if the milk was obtained, which was used to fight worms.

Then it was damned, because every day very early we had to drink that nauseated porridge and there was no point in sobbing, the old woman forced us to ingest the crap at hard times, with the branch of tamarind in her hand, if she didn't want to drink she would get in the whip

But in the end it was worth the martyrdom for the good result it brought us, after all we were free to continue in the mess, the other girls' favorite pastime was the swing hanging from one of the thick branches of the plum tree. I decided to try it and they started to rock me in an exaggerated way. They pushed the swing back and forth and the devil ended up breaking, I was thrown away like a stretch and fell over the arm that was so thin it broke.

Damn, I must agree that the pranks practiced in our childhood days only create problems and it is our parents who pay the price with so many headaches. I was taken in a cart to a health post ten kilometers from the shack where we lived, which had no medicine to relieve the pain.

 The nurse with the name of a doctor stuck my arm anyway, after plastering he sent me back home. Only then did I become quiet and stop worrying my parents, it was about three months with a bandaged arm and without going anywhere, the winter was gone. With it the storm of cold winds. The rain and water droplets that caused the pleasant crash on the roof stopped. Back was the harsh summer of intense heat, dust and drought.

The routine was repeated, a lot of work in the fields under a scorching sun that even cracked the ground and little harvest. My father went out the door, looked at the hill directly in front of him, scratched his bald spot under his straw hat and breathed hard. Before him was yet another long challenge.

 From that moment on things started to change, a few days later a man appeared at home dressed like a doctor with a document that told us to fix the lumps and vacate the land. According to him, the government had confiscated those properties and everyone should vacate them immediately, unless we paid the amount of taxes that for decades the former owners failed to pass on to the public coffers. Well, to understand this, it is necessary to know that in the backlands of those times it worked like this: The big landowners used to rule the region and paid nothing to the State.

In return, the government pretended not to care for fear of reprisals on the part of the powerful, but when they died and the future generations of such colonels abandoned the old sugar cane mills or coffee plantations to live in the big city, leaving their lands in complete abandonment. Then, the State returned to claim its right of possession. It happened that, in most cases, many families were already installed in the old properties, so they were expelled from there without notice.

 And left with their bags on their heads without direction or direction. These were called retreatants. And we, after years of living in peace there, were about to become wanderers, too. Upon arriving from the fields and being informed of the news, Dad almost lost his mind, he didn't know what to do in the face of such a calamity.

 What would he do to give us food and home again? What would become of all of us from then on? He found no answers. I remember today as if it were the moment when my father sat for several hours in a rocking chair in the narrow courtyard, thinking about life in search of answers that could make him see a way out of the dilemma that suddenly appeared.

On one side he was in his reflections and on the other the sound of the sewing machine. It was Mom's way of dealing with nervousness. The thing that broke the silence, it was the poor thing expending his energy, stamping his foot on the pedal of the old sewing machine, the only inheritance received from Grandma Adelaide. Speaking of which, to complete Grandma Chica suddenly becomes ill and leaves us in the most difficult moment of our miserable lives. In the hinterland, there is no such thing as a funeral home and a coffin, it buries in an old hammock in some grave.

After the wake that lasts an entire night, the old men drinking black coffee and thick asphalt, the straws filling the face with Sugarcane liquor, the kids running down the street, playing hide and seek. The young people are dating and the guitarist plays a funereal song as if it were a real diversion, they throw the dead man into a net and two strong men take her trapped on a stick, positioned on her shoulders, towards the clandestine cemetery in the middle of the woods.

Here and there, someone groans, feigning a forced cry and, thus, the departed were said farewell. That same way Grandmother Chica left, poor thing. Back to reality we face another big problem, eviction. The deadline for us to leave the house I was born in has expired and I have lived my whole life, the time has come for us to go out who knows where.

It turns out that my parents and the other residents decided to resist and stayed right there. Waiting to see what was going on, after all, no one would lose everything they built with so much sacrifice. And there was nothing else: The police arrived the next morning armed to the teeth and put everyone out of their properties based on threats.

They were kicked, beaten, humiliated and there was a angry male who reacted and took a bullet, my father was one of those who pulled out the machete and pulled out an authority's arm, resulting in the arrest. She was handcuffed and kicked, my mother was screaming, she begged for her husband to be released, and she was slapped by the cop with bulging eyes and big ears, my brothers tried to intervene and were knocked out, while I and other children hid in the distance, underneath of a hut.

The unhappy bastards started to set the houses on fire and for the first time I could see how beautiful the fire was spreading over the roof of dry straw, at the same time that it was sad it became a spectacle before my gaze full of astonishment. In a short time, everything turned to ashes, there was only us and our mothers crying in complete despair, we lost our lands, our goods and we were in the middle of the street without a threshing floor, not forgetting that all the adult men in the village were taken in cane or lost life in the fight against invaders.

— Ready, missus, your time out here is over. Time to return home, have dinner and sleep

— There you come to me with that chatter again, Luiza, you haven't spent all the time you said give me to stay here on the patio, watching the sunset!

— It's been an hour since I brought you here to the patio, yes, and the sun has set for decades, Dona Mercedes, be more understanding!

— More understanding ... Um ... I know.

— Come on, everyone is waiting for you at the table ...

— Okay, do what ... Hell!

— Stop complaining, woman, in a little while you will be in your quarters and can resume your thoughts

— They are memories!

— Okay, okay, your memories ...