23. The feast of the rebirth and the African palm

Returning to Puerto Nuevo was more difficult than expected, malaria was complicated by ocular herpes, produced by the urine of bats.

The loss of his defenses during convalescence facilitated that rare infection. This caused intense pain in his eyes accompanied by loss of sight in one of them.

The ocular herpes is incurable and could only alleviate the irritation, or the copious tearing with medicines, he knew that after the treatment, when his defenses diminish again, he would return

In those days, he managed to reunite the health promoters and old members of the Peasant Organization, who learned of the return of Father Julio from Italy, while he was there, he sent money to keep cows and pigs on the farm, now he would return together with Father Gracia, for that reunion on August 27, 2012.

That day there was a parade, the old members and their extended families arrived, mounted on horseback, in buses, trucks, with banners.

The caravan was a kilometer long. At the rebirth of the Peasant Organization, the government's Minister of Agriculture and a delegate from the Ministry of the Environment attended, also two fat men, one of them was the mayor of Muisne, another of the many, since the one who came to the position, the workers of the Cantonal council would strike him, if he did not comply with his whims, which was high wages, overtime, vagrancy with salary, it had become a custom in local politics to remove mayors who win elections or those who replace them. The union of the Municipality was the true power in that island and canton.

At the meeting, there was food, music, games, and a solemn session. The parents along with the older members remembered the dead or assassinated leaders, the achievements, and now the failures.

The special guest, who was the Minister of Agriculture, took the floor

- The main problem of the ranchers, who stole their cattle. You ask for permission to carry weapons and about the problem of property papers in the Mache Chindul Reserve, where the peasants can register their lands as their own since they are in a reserve, that is, on state property, which allowed them to possess it. but not your property. That does not allow them to access credits, or sell them. We are going to talk with the Ministry of the Environment, the President, the National Assembly, if necessary, to allow you to have the ownership papers for your land - said the Minister.

Máxima asked to speak. -To all attendees, I will tell you my opinion, which does not agree with the minister, with his advisor, or with that of the residents of the Mache Chindul Reserve

That statement focused the audience's attention on her, after silent suspense. - I believe that if the property titles are handed over to the peasants, the properties of the reserve will be sold immediately to the drug traffickers and the companies of Palma Africana. In the Reserve, illegally, a president of Ecuador and the largest African palm companies bought land, where they now have huge plantations, the same happens in Boca del Rio Sucio, which now has African palm everywhere.

Máxima did not stop when they wanted to interrupt her to reduce tensions among the attendees. - Palm growers use pesticides that kill insects and pollinating species. They do it to face the plague of the budworm, which has ended the Quinindé plantations, but that poison also kills bees, butterflies, wasps, all flying insects, pollutes rivers, where it kills fish and toads, With deforestation, the rains disappear, because it changes the retention of water, which the leaves of the trees do, and not the African palm, which desertifies the soil, degrades it.

- Well. but ... what does that have to do with the fact that the peasants do not have property titles? - they claimed. Immediately the doctor alluded-The peasants who plant palm, receive the tender plants, pesticides, and fertilizers from the palm company. The peasants abandon their lands, they go to places where there are colleges or universities, they come only when they have to fumigate, weed, or harvest. Neighbors see the productivity of their lands lost.

Many of the attendees wanted to interrupt her, but she continued - When the price falls, the peasants cannot pay the credits that the company that buys their fruits gives them, finally they end up selling their land at the price of a plagued chicken. That will also happen in the Reserve, where there are also coca crops in the middle of the foliage, which luckily do not become the property of the drug traffickers, who only buy the leaf.

After that meeting of the Peasant Organization, plus the poor housing conditions, the mosquitoes, the bats, the antipathy that aroused between the drug traffickers, the loggers, and some neighbors created tensions.