Água Boa II, Rio Pardo de Minas - Minas Gerais, Brazil 2018
Benedita is an incredibly sweet person. I felt absolutely comfortable during the time we spent together, even though we have just met. When I took this photo, she was crossing the river that runs through the quilombo to wash her clothes. This river is one of the branches of the São Francisco River, and we’ve been told that its water levels have gone down in the last years. The São Francisco River has been suffering with irrigation projects and deforestation of native vegetation. The vazanteiro people, who live in its margins, feel those impacts deeply, as the river is a fundamental part of their day-to-day life and customs. Benedita told us her story as quilombola and how she began working as a lavadeira, a traditional but already outdated washerwoman occupation for women who lived in the margins of rivers and washed clothes in its waters.
"Today, we do the laundry in the river just because we enjoy it, it makes the clothes smell better. I learned it from my mother and my grandmother. When I was 9 years old I already worked as a lavadeira to help my mom. We spent the whole day washing other people’s clothes and, as we didn’t have any water at home, we fetched it from the river. We drank it, gave it for the pigs we raised, we used it for everything. My mom used to fetch the water in the afternoon and the next day we strained it and stored it. As we were doing the laundry at the river, we sang, told stories, fished. We sang a lot, really."
*Interview by Laura Mineiro
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