Pachamama is crying in Xapuri

February 29, 2024

Dear friends,

Some of you might be aware of this, and others have heard from me: my town, Xapuri, in the Brazilian Amazon region, where my parents live, is experience a huge flood, just one year after a previous one from which people there have not yet recovered. When I was a kid, I remember my grandparents saying that they never experienced a flood that made people to live their houses, and the older people in the region used to say that a big flood that would invade the streets of the city would happen every 20 years. The fact now is two floods have occurred in a space of 11 months. And as always, the most impacted by this are the poor. In my view, I have no doubt that is a clear example of the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor that Pope Francis speaks about (Laudato si’ 49).

I am sharing this with you, dear friends, as a twofold moral duty. The first is to ask for your prayers for the people of this region, and for my parents who has been directly impacted as well. My dad is a 73-year-old man. He has worked day and night to address the damages of this flood, helping the people in town and in the rural area where our family has a little farm and where we have some projects with the community. Our house in the farm is under water; all the crops have died, many animals have died too. My dad is using a very rustic boat today to try to rescue some of his and other people’s animals (pigs, chicken, dogs, cows, etc) that are essential for their way of living, providing food and income (especially by selling milk and cheese and the crops – yucca, bananas, and corns – all destroyed now), and the people themselves. This is not an easy mission because, to reach the areas where people and livestock are, he needs to go through the main river (that is flooding). This river is not friendly now. I am impressed with my dad’s courage and energy. At the same time, I fear the danger. We have a little house in the city, and the waters have not reached there yet. There is a safe place for now, and hopefully, it will be maintained in this way. I attached a picture of my dad with two dogs that my mom, who is with him in this, took. Although it is a dramatic situation, I think it is a cute picture.

Second, my moral duty is to cry out along the Earth and the poor that are my origins. This ecological crisis, mostly created by the economic model of exploitation of natural resources and people – historically developed, implemented, and led by people from the global north – does not impact people in the same way. While the rich in the global north are shocked with an unexpected summer day in February winter, the poor in the global south lost their houses, belongings, income source, and the way of living because of a flood just one year after the previous one. As someone told me: “The negative effects of climate change are not equally distributed.” I cannot blame nature for that. Actually, I do not think a nature exists separated from us. We are nature, something that I learned at an earlier age, and I was happy to see that Pope Francis has embraced this perspective, when he talks about the Amazon region, “where there is such a close relationship between human beings and nature, daily existence is always cosmic (Querida Amazonia 41).

Criticizing the dominant economic model of development, the Brazilian indigenous Ailton Krenak affirms that “We became alienated from this organism of which we are part, the Earth, and we started to think that it is one thing and we are another: the Earth and humanity. I don’t understand where there is anything that isn’t nature. Everything is nature. The cosmos is nature. All I can think about is nature” (Ideas to postpone the end of the world, p.16-17).

I really think that all in the Earth is nature. I feel this awareness as call for contemplation and care. But we, as humanity, have placed ourselves above nature, seeking to dominate it and making the Earth a servant with the sole proposal of serving humanity. However, this service is not extended to all people; only those privileged with power and access to economic resources benefit. This perspective is rooted in an idea infinite progress – which several thinkers have criticized, including Simone Weil – and it has shaped the reality we find ourselves in today. Moreover, the benefits of this progress are enjoyed by only a small portion of the humanity, mostly residing in the global north. The  rest of the world is left with a disproportional vulnerability to suffer the consequences of the ecological crisis, as seen in the plight of the poor in this small Amazon region in Brazil and many other parts of the world.

My moral duty, as son of this region, is calling your attention to it and encourage you to rethink your relationship with the Earth. My duty is to bridge the cry of my people in Xapuri to broader audiences, especially in the global north, where the majority of those responsible for the ecological crisis are. Hopeful, this can create more awareness, and new people can join us in the effort to listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor, being open for the possibility to learn another way to relate to the nature, moving from domination to contemplation. Pope Francis says:

From the original peoples, we can learn to contemplate the Amazon region and not simply analyze it, and thus appreciate this precious mystery that transcends us. We can love it, not simply use it, with the result that love can awaken a deep and sincere interest. Even more, we can feel intimately a part of it and not only defend it; then the Amazon region will once more become like a mother to us. For we do not look at the world from without but from within, conscious of the bonds with which the Father has linked us to all beings. (Querida Amazonia 55).

Sorry for the long text. If you read it until the end. I only ask for your prayers for the people in Xapuri and that, in your prayer, you make an effort of an imaginative contemplation of the faces of people who are suffering at the moment because of this flood. At the same time, I hope you can contemplate the Amazon region that is also suffering, as a “precious mystery that transcend us.”

Thank you for listening,

Alexandre Martins

Alexandre lives in Milwaukee with his wife and three young children. He is a professor of theological ethics at Marquette – in the theology department and the Nursing School.