Historical summary, current situation and personal testimonies of Augustinian Recollect missionaries who have worked side by side and built part of their personal history at the service of the people of Tapaua, the Amazon, Brazil.

He was born in Salamanca (Guanajuato, Mexico) in 1940. And as an Augustinian Recollect religious priest has worked in the Parish which attends to the Hospitals in the Federal District of Mexico, in the Prelature of Madera (now the diocese of Ciudad Cuauhtémoc–Madera, State of Chihuahua, Mexico). Also in Monteagudo as a novice formator, and in the Amazon between 1976 and 2007 in the four parishes of the Prelature in Labrea.

I arrived in the Amazon after sixteen years as a religious. I was a volunteer to help the province of Saint Rita who were then in charge of the mission, with the General Superior being James McGuire. I was working in Tapaua for four and a half years, in two periods twenty years apart.

When I came in 1980 there were two of us as religious; with me was Nicolás Pérez-Aradros. Life was pretty austere and in certain aspects tough because of the climate, the food, the plagues of insects’ night and day. At night there was a kind with various names: mosquito, long-legged mosquito, carapaná or the indigenous term “murizoca”. Those during the day were pium, mutuca, meruim, mucuim.

The inhabitants of Tapaua were of north-east descent, principally from the State of Maranhão, historically afflicted by long droughts. Emigrating to the Amazon, they were blessed with an abundance of water. They are people of faith, simple, with low level education, without many aspirations or ambitions, a suffering and conformist type people. The people in Tapaua were very conformist with a strong dependence on the municipal authorities, who ruled over them like real chiefs.

Our work consisted in attending to the population, and carrying out the desobrigas for the people in the interior. For a lack of teachers, I accepted giving foreign languages (English), Religion, History and I am not sure if Geography as well… The effort in the pastoral work was, as in all of the Brazilian Church, the education and strengthening of the Grass Roots Ecclesial Communities. Some of our religious brothers (a few) considered us to be adventurers, others took as heroes… My family understood that we were undertaking a job worthy of all praise.

I have joyful memories that have stayed with me from that time in Tapaua, in particular for the pastoral experience of establishing a Club for adolescents which acquired some strength, and were known by the name of “the bats”. It was a source of enthusiasm for the large group of young pranksters, and a sense of honour belonging to the select group.

I hope that the people from Tapaua continue to feed and strengthen their faith, so that with this strength that can manage to progress towards a worthwhile life as citizens, as members of the Church and as sons of God. Happy fiftieth anniversary to the parish. May God bless you all.

Cenobio Sierra, on the right, on his last stay in Tapaua.

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