the courage I’d tried to instill in myself would drain away, the courage needed to live in that hostile land of perennial sun and occasional rain, that abusive land where people were dying constantly, denied all succor, where we lived like cattle, working and getting nothing in return, not even rest, and our sole rights were to reside on that land for as long as the owners were willing, and, if we never left Água Negra, to be buried in the grave awaiting us at Viração. But I persisted. On the paths
