Brazilians themselves exploited children, a fortiori the foreigners at
Bona Espero must be doing so, too. Furthermore, she was taken to
task for having a tiled floor in her house instead of a customary
Brazilian sand floor. When Ursula realized that someone had
surreptitiously photographed their home and school, she took up
pitched battle. They would close the school, she told the official. The
kids who lived there could remain, but now Alto Paraíso would have
to educate them.
The Labor Ministry quailed and the local board of education, for
whom the Grattapaglias had worked unpaid for years, began to
backpedal. But Ursula and Giuseppe held their ground. For three
years, the children of Bona Espero were bused to Alto Paraíso at the
town’s expense, where they were jammed into crowded classrooms.
The children took turns sleeping in town, since there weren’t enough
beds for all; Ursula and Giuseppe took turns chaperoning. During
evenings spent at Bona Espero, the children received extra coaching
to shore up their deficits in reading, writing, and arithmetic. In
2001, the Grattapaglias reopened the school, but not without a
guarantee that it would be accredited and supported as a public
school. It is now a pillar of the Alto Paraíso education system, which
sends the yellow schoolbus out to the cerrado every day at noon.
6. The Builder
Some cultures have their Eddas and Kalevalas. Bona Espero has
Giuseppe’s infrastructural sagas, in which he plays the reluctant
hero, brandishing his calculator amid four decades of fiascos—and
the occasional success.
In the seventies, there was no construction industry in the region,
and there was not much need for one. The nearest mason, a
notorious alcoholic, lived more than a hundred miles away. Local
homes were made with adobe walls, roofed with straw or branches.
When it came time to build, Giuseppe’s workforce comprised
illiterate field hands who picked up work here and there. “I had to
take out a meter stick and show them: ‘This is a meter,’” he told me.
“‘This is how you make a straight line.’” To renovate the “white
house” in 1978 required building an oven and manufacturing four
thousand bricks, which they did with the help of volunteers from
Germany, France, and the United States.
“The local men,” Giuseppe says, with a rolling laugh that starts in
his elbows, moves to his shoulders, and wobbles his head. “Around
here live the last free men in the world. They regard work as a
biblical curse. When I had to repair the bridge, I hired four workers.
Every morning when it was time for work, it would be me and the
tractor. One guy’s equipment was in the shop. Another had the
wrong day. One had a sick family member. And another—he puts
out his lower lip and imitates the shrug—“‘my shovel broke.’ There’s a
catch-all phrase you hear a lot in these parts: ‘It’s not possible.’”
Funding, except for money garnered through judicious sales of
land, invariably flows through Esperantic channels; Ursula says
proudly that they never solicit funds. Construction of the epic,
multipurpose community hall, which Giuseppe and crew finished in
2006, began with a blind couple, the former president of the Italian
Esperanto Federation and his wife. “In 2003,” says Ursula, “they
arrived with a guide and went about touching everything—the kids,
the trees, the fruit—and finally asked, ‘What do you need?’ I told
them: ‘A hygienic kitchen and a social hall,’ and they raised ten
thousand Euros.
“That,” says Ursula broadly, “bought the foundation.
“A year later, at a Rotary convention, a Japanese woman
approached us and said, ‘Can you help us find a home in Brazil?’”
The woman turned out to be the head of the Oomoto sect, which has
a long history of support for Esperanto; she was accompanied,
according to Ursula, by her personal stylist.
“The Oomoto paid for the walls,” says Ursula, “and the Germans
paid for the roof. It took Giuseppe and the workers nine months to
build it.” This triumphal conclusion seems to call for a proverb, and
she obliges: “Goethe said, ‘Whatever you can do or dream you can,
begin it.’” Two hours have gone by, and Giuseppe looks eager to
move on. He asks whether the interview is finished.
“Not quite,” I say. “One more question: What else would you like
to build here?” Giuseppe doesn’t hesitate. “My last construction
project will be a mausoleum to the martyrs of Bona Espero.”
7. Plantman
In fact, there already is a tomb at Bona Espero, out between the
papaya groves and the water tank: the remains of the founder,
Arthur Vellozo, topped by a fifteen-foot-high Leninesque bust of
Zamenhof. “Ursula and Giuseppe want to be buried here too,” says
Paulo, who is giving me a tour of his farm this afternoon, and the
story of his life—in English sprinkled with oregano. In his early
forties, Paulo had earned a degree in interior design and was living
in northern Italy selling snowboards and high-end ski outfits. Then
came a creeping sense of unease. “Something was happening; I
didn’t know what at first. I was living in a world of lies—lying to
get money, lying to spend it.” Paulo’s speech is explosive, his tongue
tending toward “caps-lock.” “I didn’t hear myself,” he says, “but I
was CRYING OUT against the lies. And here’s what happens when
you start to live by the truth: you can’t tolerate LIES anymore.”
For Paulo, the path of truth led to Brazil, to the city of Goiana, to
a storefront where he decided to open an Italian restaurant. Three
times he tried, and three times failed. “I waited for coincidences,
since NOTHING WILL HAPPEN that wasn’t meant to happen. And
then I met Vitor, a very spiritual person. He CANALIZES energy and
he taught me how to send my energy to others.” His eyes widen,
fixed on mine, and start to redden. Suddenly tears flow, which he
wipes away delicately, each with a different finger. “It’s
KERRRAZY!” he says, “People who feel as I feel are so happy, they
are CRYING. I hardly even know what I’m saying when I feel it. I
see a person and I feel their need, their suffering, and I just …
Ramón!”
He suddenly hails a field hand several rows away, and Ramón, in
a khaki sunhat, straightens up and looks at him, smiling. Paulo
mirrors his smile, staring at him intently. They both stare and smile
for at least two minutes. It’s hard to watch, what with the bugs
biting and the sun beating down, but I can’t take my eyes off them.
The flesh on the back of my neck is crawling. Finally, Paulo breaks
the spell, yelling a question in Portuguese over the rows of peppers.
Ramón nods, still smiling, and returns to weeding.
“Yes!” says Paulo. “Ramón felt it, he received it. I can send the
energy by phone, too, long distance. To Italy there’s maybe a five
seconds delay? So I send and I count to myself”—he whispers—“one
—two—three—four—five, and ‘WOW,’ they say on the other end,