The fires in Bolivia, suspected of being set to expand the agricultural frontier in forest areas, prompt me to undertake a trip in 2020 to Chiquitania, the most affected region and the last tropical dry forest in Latin America.
This first experience of three months visiting these places allows me to come into contact with the Mennonite community settled in the area since the 1950s.
The Mennonites are an Anabaptist society focused on agriculture.
Here they are dedicated to the extensive production of transgenic soybeans and corn and to raising livestock.
They reject modernity, violence and laziness.
Conservative and traditionalist, they speak Plautdietsch (also known as Mennonite Low German) and a few speak correctly in Spanish.
The condition of women is particularly difficult, always forced into subordinate roles.
Back in Italy, I realize that there are some pieces missing to complete my report.
Thus, I return to Bolivia in January 2023. Aboard a 1993 Hyundai Galloper I travel through cities, markets, communities, soybean and corn fields, extensive cattle ranches, forests and desolate lands.
I immerse myself in tropical nature, in that light of the ten minutes before sunset, in the aroma of plants, fruits, rain, diesel from cars from the eighties, sweat and pesticides.
Sounds of nocturnal animals, of mechanical contraptions, of restless horns, of biblical chants in an unknown language.
Screams drowned out by the fear of God.
Henrique Loewen's daughter looks out the door of her house in San Miguel Gruenwald - a colony of 23 families of farmers and ranchers, without running water, sewage or electricity -, intrigued by the presence of the photographer. Fabiomassimo Antenozio
From the Santa Cruz market, where pesticides and products for the countryside are sold among signs and scriptures in the Mennonite language and references to sacred texts, I leave for the countryside to regain contact with this Anabaptist community.
Upon arriving, I discover that one of them, Isaac Peter, whom I met in 2020, has had surgery for melanoma in his mouth.
Three years later, the tumor has reappeared and expanded, paralyzing the left side of his body.
I find him lying in bed, with a weak voice, surrounded by his wife, his daughter and some neighbors.
They explain to me that he did not want to return to Brazil, where medical care is free even for adults.
He did not want to leave the field or his family.
I continue the trip to the Santa Cruz Cancer Hospital, where I meet two people who will have a profound impact on me: Eva, a seven-year-old Mennonite girl with ovarian cancer, and her mother, Catarina, who weeks later falls ill and in less than Within two hours he died, supposedly a victim of dengue.
Frans, Eva, mother Catarina and little sister Anna head down Harderman Highway to the Oncological Institute of Eastern Bolivia for a check-up after Eva's second chemotherapy session. Fabiomassimo Antenozio
I leave without knowing if there is a direct relationship between pesticides used on crops and the rate of cancer among the Mennonite community.
I return to my path towards the town of Concepción.
I want to meet again with other Mennonites that I was able to meet on my first visit.
These live in the only colony that uses only horses as motive power.
The settlement has a unique charm and the people who live there are different from other Mennonites, purer, less interested in material possessions and more focused on spirituality.
Here, trees of Amazonian origin coexist with palm trees and cacti.
I leave the colony and an image accompanies me.
A school located in a church, where I find boys dressed in overalls and shirts, girls in blue or green dresses and a black scarf on their heads.
They all go barefoot because in their culture contact with the earth is important.
With them, two teachers: a man reading aloud from the Bible, the only text they study and learn from, and near the front door, his wife, teaching addition and subtraction to some girls.
Here they only teach reading, writing, counting.
It is not drawn, it is not colored, it is not painted.
They don't know what that is.
In San Miguel Gruenwald, Abram Loewen and his son Juan activate a rudimentary seed cleaner using horses. Fabiomassimo Antenozio
Henrique Loewen, by the light of a candle, with his daughters, looks at the photo of an old friend of his, Isaac Peter, who suffers from a fatal melanoma. Fabiomassimo Antenozio
Philip Weibe, in his soybean field in the Steinbach commune.
He looks for the soybean worm, one of the main reasons for the use of pesticides.Fabiomassimo Antenozio
A dog tied up near a pile of used agrochemical containers.
In Bolivia alone, a volume of 210 million agrochemicals was imported in 2020. Fabiomassimo Antenozio
Juan Von (on the right) and Jacob clear a neighbor's land in the Taibó neighborhood after reaching a commercial agreement to obtain wooden sleepers from trees in the Chiquitano dry forest. Fabiomassimo Antenozio
Isaac Peter lies in bed, in his last days, with family members who care for him in Riva Palacios.
He suffers from melanoma in the mouth. Fabiomassimo Antenozio
Mennonite children, at the San Miguel Gruenwald school.
They learn to read and write with the Bible in their language, Plautdietsch.
During recess, they play only on the grass, the boys on one side and the girls on the other. Fabiomassimo Antenozio
Panoramic view of the San Ramón open pit gold mine, in Chiquitania.Fabiomassimo Antenozio
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