The life in colonies
Jayme Abenathar Colony
The few visits Augusto would receive from his mother and brothers in the Jayme Abenathar Colony in Porto Velho were done by means of a glass wall. Touching was not allowed. Augusto was kept in a room with a mate (a middle-aged man), just as all of the other patients.
This man knew a story about Manicoré: many ships would pass by the city without stopping, the crew members would shout from these vessels in the middle of the river to the residents that they were a buch of bacuraus – name of a small native bird. This story became popular in the Amazon and those from Manicoré were called “bacurau” in a funny way. Everyone in the colony had a nickname. So young Augusto’s room-mate gave him this. From then on, only family members and olf friends would call him Augusto, because he started to introduce himself as Bacurau.
Bacurau even liked the colony in Porto Velho, but he did not hid the wish to get out of there, what finally happened in 1957, three years after he came in. When he left, he was invited by his brother Zuza to live in Rio Branco.
He accepted the invitation and for four years he looked for a job to help with expenses. He just got some part-time jobs. He tried to work with construction, but when they saw his hand he was fired. He knocked from door to door for a job, he moaned lawns, sold popsicles, but there were no formal jobs.
His childhood was marked by an imposed isolation, what obligated him to reflect very much. His adolescence was marked by losses, which interpreted as because of the disease he had. He conclude the only way out for him was to live in Souza Araújo colony in Rio Branco.
He left home early in the morning, went down the river and entered the colony on June 23rd, 1961 at the age of 21.
Souza Araújo Colony
Some time after he arrived at Souza Araújo he was elected mayor. He took office with is wife Zenaide Araújo in 1967. As a mayor he taught children to see Hansen’s disease and life in a different way: “We taught them to read, write and to have a different mindset about the disease. We would tell them they were not a bunch of pitiful kids”.
In 1971, Bacurau renounced to the administration of Souza Araújo because he divorced Zenaide, as the regulation stated. He had been the mayor for 5 years.
He became a leader and was renowned, ever since the beginning of his entrance, for he defended patients against discrimination, restraint and unjustice. He was the voice of interns before the colony’s administrators, even out of the administration himself. For isntance, when he worked in the nursing center, he demanded a better therapy.
After he left the administration, he went on to teaching adults. With the Minerva project (Mobral – Movimento Brasileiro de Alfabetização, Brazilian Literacy Movement) –, Bacurau got his elementary school diploma in 1973, together with his own students. In the same year, he began his carreer as a teacher hired by the State Education Department.
He never forgot the traditions he lived in the colonies in which he was. He found in them the social strictness of his family, but also the solidarity of a society with excluded people.
Besides education, Bacurau was intensely involved in the gospel worship and social awareness works poposed by the Teologia da Libertação [Liberation Theology]. This ideological line led to many actions out of the church. Political parties, neighborhood associations and people’s movements were born from his gospel groups.
Life outside the colonies
In 1976 at the age of 37, Bacurau envisaged the possibility of finally living out of the colonies and struggling for life in society with respect and dignity. At that time, there was a change in the Hansen’s disease control policy in Brazil, encouraging home therapy. “I saw I had legal support to leave my confinement and live freely”. And, despite the large prejudice, people were much more tolerant than at the time of their childhood and adolescence.
In Souza Araújo, he met Tereza Prudêncio and proposed to her for them to live together. They went on to the new house in Castelo Branco neighborhood, in Rio Branco. The house was in a sort of a swamp, a precarious place away from downtown. But life for them restarted on January 20th, 1977.
Solidarity
The couple Bacurau and Terezinha did not have biological children, however, he raised five children of hers from her other marriage as if they were his. Beyond these, he raised several other children as his own during his whole life. There was a time when he sheltered nine people, but they never lacked food. The house was open for anyone that needed, be them friends, be them just passing by or visitors.
Raimundo Nonato, Bacurau’s brother, remembers his solidarity spirit:
“I saw his car dirty. And I said in a joke: ‘aren’t you ashamed of this dirty car in the garage?’. He says: ‘money is short, I couldn’t afford to wash it’. I pulled it out and washed it. A couple from the country-side arrives, a young guy and the lady was expecting. They asked if I knew where Bacurau lived, I said it was right there. He was surprised because he saw such a simple house, he thought it would a big one, a mansion and said: ‘can I speak to him?’. I aswered: ‘Bacurau is right there. They looked astonished when they saw him, with crippled hands and feet. And they said: ‘we are coming from the country-side, I was unemployed and my wife got pregnant, and she is sick. We have come here to Rio Branco for therapy, but we do not have money. We have nowhere to go. We can’t even rent a car. They said to me Bacurau could help and I came here. I am a worker, he showed his hands. Bacurau said: ‘brother, ask Tereza to bring my check book. I went in and got it and he told me to fill it in with an amount good for 30 days worth of groceries. I calculated it, filled it in and he gave it to guy: ‘go to a grocery store and shop. If you need anything else, come back here’. The guy hugged Bacurau, his wife was shaking and they left. I looked at Bacurau and asked: ‘you didn’t have money to wash your car, I am here washing it, and comes a person you don’t even know and give them all your money?’, he says: ‘I don’t have cash to wash the car, but to feed a person and his sick pregnant wife, I do. We always have to have money to help someone in the need. That was a life lesson to me. Even since the kid was born, the kid, the guy went in there to invite Bacurau to be the godfather and said he had the money pay him back. He had found a job. These examples, many of which I saw in his life, have heloed me to live better”.
Song composer and writer
Bacurau liked art very much. He composed and wrote quite frequently.
In 1972, it composed the song "Lapinha na Mata". This song turned into a hymn known in the Church. Sometime after the publishing company Irmas Paulinas recorded it. Bacurau had several songs that were celebrated and sung in catholic masses.
The first book written by Bacurau is called " À Margem da Vida: num leprosário do Acre[To the Edge of Life: in a leprosy hospital in Acre". The publication was sponsored by the Catholic Church because it expressed the ideals of the Liberation Theology. Dom Moacyr and the priest Clodovis Boff were the major enthusiasts of the workmanship that was launched in 1978.
In the same year, Bacurau was invited by the Ministry of Education to participate in the collection "Prosadores do Mobral". It was a series that served to publicize the Mobral, and the books were written by old pupils of the program. With this, he published " Chico Boi", in the beginning of 1979.
The team responsible for the Mobral in the North region in Brazil decided to launch the book in Manicoré. In his original city, Bacurau and the Mobral team were received with honors and a demonstration. This event marked him because he never forgot the irony of the public authority and the hypocrisy of many people who received him. The same city hall that, in its childhood, determined his confinement, now was paying homage to him. Not to mention some people that, in the launching of his book, had shaken his hand with a smile, but who had helped expelling him out of city when he was just a child.
Bacurau liked to compose songs that talked about people’s soul and spirit. His wife says Bacurau preferred to write lying belly down in the couple’s bed. He would spend nights awake, reading, writing and putting music to his poetry. Other times he would make songs in the bath or in his favorite chair.
In January 1988, his composition " João Seringueiro", won the Acre Festival of Popular Music - FAMP. It was an accomplishment for him, who never forgot the auditorium applauding his songs enthusiastically.
│ origin │ engagement and struggle │ the departure │
Text adapted from the book Bacurau – Uma vida, uma historia by Daniel Klein, 2005