Comunidade Geraizeira Água Boa II, Rio Pardo de Minas - MG, 2018
Dinda is one of Quilombo da Lapinha’s leaders. We talked to her under an umbu tree, same kind of tree under which she was born, 34 years before.
"My name is Maria Aparecida, better known as Dinda, from Quilombo da Lapinha. I was born here under an umbu tree. I come from a slave descendance. My grandfather was enslaved and he suffered too much in these lands. Including here, from where we were outcasted. And when we realized that, we took back this land that was ours.
God knows about our struggle, about why we defend this land. Too much blood has come out of it, too much fight, and we’re still here struggling for it. I have two children and I teach them what I’ve been through. I teach them to fight for their rights. To fight for the right of being quilombola. Being quilombola is about having race, having an origin, it’s about fighting for what’s yours. Being quilombola is honoring who you are. It’s a search, it’s defending your color, it’s honoring your mother’s suffering, your father’s, your grandparents’, your children's’, and everyone’s who have been here. I’m here today at Quilombo da Lapinha, but if God calls me back, I know I did something good here. I told my story, and shared it with other communities that are in the same struggle.
I’m a quilombola, I’m proud of it, and I’ll take it to the heart until I die."
*Interview by João Roberto Ripper, Josy Manhães and Laura Mineiro
