North East Brazil
The environment in this area is known as a Caatinga. With it’s landscape that’s different to every other part of the country, it looks like a semi-desert. The rainfall is low and unreliable therefore it is difficult to grow crops and to make matters worse, there is a drought every ten years.
Pau Ferro
Pau Ferro is a small village in the North East of Brazil. Many people are moving away from Pau Ferro because it is suffering badly from the drought and all the village wells have run dry after two years of poor rainfall. The only source of water during this drought period is a stagnant pond from 6 months old rainwater. There is also a lack of food in Pau Ferro. Most people have beans and rice once a day, goat meat once a fortnight and no green vegetables. The inhabitants of Pau Ferro are used to dealing with death, as it is a part of their everyday life. Many people suffer from minor illnesses like vomiting, but because there are no local doctors in the area, there is a high risk that they will die.
Sao Francisco River
The Sao Francisco River is the only major river in the North East Region and has nine dams built on it to provide:
Water,
Food,
Transport,
Washing,
Cooking and irrigation for crops and life.
The Sobradinho Dam
The Sobradinho Dam cost £366 million. When the lake filled up behind the dam, 75,000 people were displaced and some of the richest farmland lost beneath the waters of the lake. Three new villages were built to rehouse the displaced people.
One example of the displaced people is a farmer named Joal who was badly compensated for his losses.
He received £15 compensation, and for his new plot of farm, got £5 and 400m of wire. Joal used to own 23 fruit trees including, coconuts, oranges, guava & bananas. The water that was supposed to irrigate his land was also 5m below and he can’t afford a pump so that it can be irrigated.
Joal may be considered lucky, as some people who live in Sao Goncalo (40%) received nothing at all. Life is different for them in many ways, like:
- The pump that supplies the village water only works part of the time because the fuel company that runs it doesn’t pay the bills
- They believe that “God and their own strength will see them through”
- They are obsessed with their disruption and it is all they talk about
- In their area, it rained in February but there was no rain in March, April or May causing great concern.
Carmina in Pau Ferro
Carmina wants to leave the North East of Brazil to go to Sao Paulo because her uncle lives there. She believes that life in the north east of Brazil is bad; she wants to improve her life by moving to the city. She never stops complaining about the bad conditions of the countryside, and how she has suffered from her brothers and sisters dying.
The Future
From the video we watched about the North East of Brazil, I have concluded that it is an inhospitable environment and is not safe for people to live. I think that all the inhabitants of Pau Ferro will have to leave and migrate to larger cities as it is their only hope for survival. If they do not leave Pau Ferro, I think that the droughts would get worse each year and eventually would become a desert land.
