Martyr in Brazil

Chapter 3. On the Amazon River

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The appeal of serving on the Amazon River

Salvatore made a brief visit to Parma where he said good-bye to his confreres, the parish and his sister Luisella, who was doing a nursing training course there. He flew to Brazil on October 26,  1983, destined to Belém, a city of 1,500,000 inhabitants, the capital of the Pará region, in the north of the country. Close by there was also the largest river in the world, the Amazon river, with a surface of almost 5 million square miles.

With some initial difficulty, Salvatore got used to the oppressive equatorial heat. He spent a period in the Xaverian house in Belém while settling into his new surroundings, coming to grips with the hidden face of the city: poverty, violence, degradation. From Belém, he was sent to the town of Bujura where he was to remain almost six months.

In one of his first letters, he described his new experience: “Many of you will be wondering where I am and what I am doing now. I am living in a small town of 3,000 inhabitants, on the banks of the great Guamà river. A small European-style church dominates the town’s central square, surrounded by huge dark-green mango trees. The streets are not paved and the houses are almost all made of wood.

For the moment, I am living in a small community with two fathers, a Spaniard and a Brazilian, and three sisters from southern Brazil. It is a small international community. I spend most of my time studying the language at a great big desk in my room, which is already overflowing with books, grammar texts and dictionaries: after almost three months, I have a good understanding of the language and have even begun to deliver my first homilies with a certain ease. I normally study seven or eight hours a day and, when I want to relax, I read comics in Portuguese!”. 

I spend most of my time studying the language at a great big desk in my room, which is already overflowing with books, grammar texts and dictionaries: after almost three months, I have a good understanding of the language and have even begun to deliver my first homilies with a certain ease.
Fr. Salvatore Deiana

Manual activity and gardening also helped him relax after his hours of study. The parish was immense, covering a radius of 30 miles, with more than 150 basic communities to visit, help and encourage.

“There is plenty of work to do. The small communities are spread over a vast area, between the river and the forest. We have various forms of transport: boat, jeep, hitch-hiking (!) on buses that are overloaded with people, and sometimes we walk. A small knapsack, a hammock and a change of clothing are all we need to keep us going. Recently, I visited some communities with Father Santiago and I had the chance to share something of their lives with them. These are very poor people who cultivate a small piece of land, and live in small houses made of wood and mud. The families are often quite large and the food is not always enough for everyone. Our work consists in organizing and animating the communities. Our house is always full of people coming and going. In spite of their poverty, our people take their Christian life seriously”.

Fr. Salvatore riding on a mule

Among the Kaiapó Indios

He was soon on the move once more. In April 1984, he was informed that he would be going to the Xingu region. In a letter he wrote, “I have just been given a destination to the Xingu region and in a month’s time I shall be in my new community. I will be starting once more from scratch; I am one of the lucky ones to work among the indigenous population of Brazil. I am happy to be going but, I must admit, the large distances involved are somewhat unnerving: we are cut off and isolated from the large inhabited areas”.

On May 7, 1984, Salvatore flew to the Xingu, a prelature (diocese) as big as the whole of Italy, with just 20 priests and about 40 sisters. The missionaries announce the Gospel to the people who live along the river Xingu and in the villages touched by the Transamazzonica road: a total of 2,000 miles of road crossing the forest. The Xaverians are near the river and look after a parish in the town of Altamira; others work along the route of the Transammazzonica road and in another two parishes.

Salvatore’s first destination was Porto de Moz, a 14 hour boat journey from Altamira in the Xingu. On May 31, he was sent to the parish of Vila Brasilia, Altamira, to work among the indios as he himself had requested.

He described his new life in a letter: “I am part of a team of three fathers: Renato Trevisan, Salvatore Saiu and myself. We live in the town and look after the parish which is on the outskirts (Vila Brasilia): this is practically a village of little old houses and a church which is more or less another little wooden house. Our specific work consists in working with the indios and they are more than 250 miles away as the crow flies, if we travel by plane; and more than 500 miles away, if we travel by boat. I am happy with this assignment to a project which has only just been started”.

He was now where he had always wanted to be: at the heart of direct missionary activity. He left immediately for Kikretum, one of the Kaiapó indio villages. His journey was quite an experience, as he himself explained: “I left with Father Trevisan to go back among the indios. I think we will become famous, since we are the first to travel the great distance from Altamira to work among the indios without going by plane. We took a bus as far as Tucumà (a journey of 3 days and 3 nights), then we finally arrived in Kikretum after traveling an entire day.

Once we arrived, we got our house organized, finishing the work the indios had already begun: it is made of tree trunks and mud, with a straw roof. It is easy to repair. We worked ourselves to the bone: we made doors, windows, floors and small wooden cupboards. Rice and beans are our staple diet at lunch and supper; we also have sweet potatoes, bananas and manioc flour. Fish and game meat are also common.” 

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