Trouble in Dry Flour

Sr Enoch picked us up Sunday morning for a visit to the village of Farinha Seca.  It lies on the reservation near the Mission and not far by car.  I volunteered to ride in the back of the pickup before I remembered the condition of the roads. I felt like I was reliving a chapter from my mother's book where she describes the jarring journey as a passenger sitting on a wooden bench of a cart.
As we bumped along the divide Gracinha clued me in to which land belonged to who.  Many of the white-mans' fields were empty, unplanted. She explained that they were afraid that the indians would burn their crops.
We stopped several times to pick up passengers but most villagers seemed reluctant to leave their homes. We passed one house built in the old Kaiwa style, with thatched roof reaching all the way down to the

ground. I learned that this was one of only two houses of this kind left on the reservation.  All the other Kaiwa live in brick homes.  "Harder to burn down," Gracinha explained. 
I began to sense that there was unrest here.  And further down we were stopped by a barricade of trees cut to fall across the road.  A man dressed as a village chief told us the road was closed due to the amount of rain they had recently.  Sr Enoch is well known on the reservation and so he was able to convince the men to let us through.  The village boy sitting by me did not recognize the men as being from these parts.  He also told us about a shooting that had taken place the night before resulting in an indian being taken to hospital.

When we reached the corner of the reservation where there is a small church, we were approached by an angry farmer.  He claimed that if the indians didn't let him drive on the road to his land they could expect more trouble. Few turned up to church and those that did were advised to stay home and not get involved in the dispute over land.  The Kaiwa are a peaceful people, but there are plenty of others who go around looking for a fight. Alcohol, drugs or politics are usually behind any contact initiated from off the reservation.  It must be quite a meaningful and refreshing change for the people of 'Dry Flour' to receive a visitor like my mother who they consider an old friend, and has no other agenda other than to see how they are doing.