Working The Claim for diamonds

Chapter Four: Working The Claim

The window for the dry season was closing; we were anxious to leave the Maraba heat and the mosquitoes behind and get out into the jungle to get moving. The pumps and hoses arrived at 3:00PM on 13 September in a six-seat single engine plane but the shipment of supplies from Maraba didn’t come until the 15th. Duval jumped in and took a complete inventory. He installed the outboard motor on our used 30-foot boat that he had purchased, now covered with a heavy green canvas canopy. Everything seemed ready and we were elated. At 9:00AM on 16 September we were fully loaded with men and materials and underway with our pilot, heading upstream on the Rio Araguaia. Onboard were ten men, Dick and I, Duval our straw boss, Charoot our pilot and six Garimpos. Our boat would not accommodate all the heavier gear, particularly the three pumps and hoses so we made arrangements for the same boat hired to ship our supplies from Maraba to take the heavy stuff onto Santa Isabel. After we arrived in Santa Isabel at 7:00PM we discovered we had left Dick’s brief case in Araguatines with all our money and checkbook. We were feeling dreadfully humiliated and discouraged. Worse case meant backtracking all the way to Araguatins, a nine hour trip, and possibly Belem if the second boat did not happen to find and pick it up. Unbelievably, when we met up in Santa Isabel they had found the brief case and saved the day!

Unable to get accustomed to hammocks, we set up our two new folding cots we purchased from Abibe along with thin mattresses across the bow of the boat and slept soundly until we awakened at 6:00A.M. to an overcast, foggy and misty morning. Both boats made their way upstream towards the well site, having to halt our progress at a rapid and a twelve foot water fall. Unable to run this part of the river we unloaded both boats carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment 300 feet above the falls where the unburdened boats could negotiate the fall and meet us above the torrent of water. At noon we finished the portage and reloaded the boats, continuing up river to the well site. At 1:00P.M. we beached both boats a quarter of a mile from the Isle de Cocoa and began shuttling gear into the well. Everyone was enthusiastic to get the operation started so everyone moved quickly setting up a temporary camp, getting the pumps operating and putting together a makeshift kitchen.

At 3:00P.M., twenty nine days after arriving in Brazil Duval lit off the first 2-inch pump sending the first drops of water out of the well. We were jubilant! The second pump was soon on line spurting water but after considerable effort we could not get the third pump going and it might have to be returned. The workers were not an attractive lot, short and stocky with wide noses set on deep pock marked faces, but they were excellent woodsmen and when the pumps started spitting water they became very excited smiling through their missing teeth. In the flurry of activity to get camp and equipment set up, 3-4 men had cut their hands and arms. They started coming to Dick and me for first aid which we were happy to provide. The rains were not far away, maybe eight weeks, so it was essential to drain the well as rapidly as possible which meant running the pumps 7 X 24. The third pump would have to be sent back, fixed and then returned the next time Charoot, our boatman, went into Araguatins.

On 18 September the water was down four inches. If we continued to operate 24 hours a day we estimated that in ten days we could begin digging and washing the gravel in the upper sides of the well as the water receded. It became clear that to get the well emptied we needed to run the hoses far enough away from the immediate area so the water would not run back into the well which required all of the hose we had on hand.

We set up routine maintenance for the pumps, a refueling schedule and organized a re-supply plan for gas, oil and supplies to keep us going. The pumps already sounded like they were laboring so scheduled oil changes were deemed critical especially while running for long periods. Every 24 hours the pumps were shut down to change oil, make minor adjustments, check for problems, clean and re-gap the spark plugs. Since some skill and knowledge was required Dick, Duval and I took on these duties to ensure they were routinely and completely done. The gas tanks on the engines were small and had to be filled every hour. Refilling from the 18 liter gas cans became very cumbersome and tedious. Necessity being the mother of invention we jerry-rigged empty fuel cans to gravity feed gas to each engine. We were now refueling every 10 hours instead of every hour for each pump making Duval very happy.

While the pumps droned on, the workers completed the main hut, a 20 X 40 foot shelter open on four sides on top of a small hill. The structure was made from small trees lashed together with a pitched gabled roof. This skeleton was covered with long overlapping palm branches protecting us against the sun and rain. The sides had been left completely open allowing the occasional breeze to circulate. The floor remained dirt and sand but was partially leveled. Dick and I took over one end and hung our mosquito netting over our cots. At the opposite end the workers hung their hammocks from the support poles but without the luxury of netting. We stored gear and some food in the center of the hut. The next week a smaller hut was completed for cooking, complete with fire pit, makeshift tables and empty gas cans for seats. In a few of the empty gas cans and extra burlap sacks we stored food stuffs, mostly the ubiquitous standard fare, beans and rice. It felt as if we were starting to create the beginnings of a village in the middle of the jungle.

The Garimpos were extraordinarily handy with what they could accomplish using their machetes, shovels and other small hand tools. They were not a handsome lot with most of them missing several front teeth. For the most part they were happy-go-lucky individuals with a live and let live attitude. Normally they had two sets of clothes – one for work and one for evening. The working set of clothes was indescribable; pants ripped, torn, patched and re-patched in every conceivable area and the patched knees still full of holes. A vine replaced his belt to hold his tattered rags around his thin gutless frame. His button-less shirt, if he had one, was in similar if not worse condition hanging over his shoulders torn and worn out. Shoes were a luxury; when worn at all they were “Made in Japan” shower shoes for after work.

In the evenings they would be down by the river washing their working clothes and changing into the better set for evening. Their only luxury seemed to be smoking; rolling their own cigarettes by cutting a small section off a long rope of tobacco and wrapping it in any handy piece of paper available. Most did not have established places to call home with no idea what goes on in the world outside of the jungle. They had prospected for diamonds off and on for over 20 years. The areas called Minas Gerais and Mata Grosso are better than here but they believe that there are some diamonds, possibly quite a few.

Dick and I had been told that our cook was excellent, “boa”, in Portuguese, but it did not take long to find this was not the case. In fact this was the first time he had ever cooked. Even the mechanics of using a can-opener baffled him for some time but he eventually mastered it. He was a hard worker and a man of good spirits so we did not have the heart to send him away. After teaching him how to make hot chocolate he was unable to grasp making it only for breakfast and came up with it for every meal. Out of his kitchen came two meals a day, the unvarying staples for all of us: beans and rice washed down with river water. Unknown at the time was that an infestation, a weevil of some kind, had beaten us to the beans’ inner core, devouring the primary nutrient, leaving us the outer husk to fill our stomachs. On occasion we treated ourselves to a canned spaghetti dinner which was a wonderful break from the constant diet of rice and the not-so-nutritional pre-eaten beans. Concerned about parasites, Dick and I boiled our water in empty gas cans and then filtered it into a jug that kept it relatively cool but always with a distinct residual hint of gasoline flavoring. Later we suspended the container from one of the roof supports in order to keep the ants from enveloping it. To improve our meals Dick and I added a Kool-Aid mix to the drinking water to hide the gasoline flavoring but this would later prove to be problematical. We were sure that the men thought we were crazy boiling our water that they drank directly out of the river.

Two of the men with the spears, shotgun and trusty machetes supplemented our beans and rice dinners with fish and small armadillos. One of the animals resembled a large rodent, possibly a capybara, difficult to look at much less eat but necessary for its protein. More protein was taken from the river we bathed in. Piranhas 12 inches long with torturous rows of menacing razor teeth protruding out of an immense mouth and jutting lower jaw were speared and eaten. Piranhas not devoured immediately were filleted, and splayed out on tree branches, dried in the hot sun creating jerky for later eating. Few people can claim to have eaten piranha rather than the other way around. Occasionally our menu was sumptuously augmented by the natives who knew we were in the area and came by to sell us roosters, some deer meat and fish. Being from the city I mistakenly thought roosters crowed only at sunrise but clearly this is not the case; they squawked and screeched at all times of the day and night. One little old lady refreshed our spirits and diet with some eggs and tomatoes. Bananas, a delicacy, even showed up a couple of times.

Ever since I had arrived in Brazil I had been battling a severe case of diarrhea and I just now discovered, through the process of elimination, the culprit. The Brazilian cafezinho -- the ever present thick black espresso taken before breakfast, after meals and before meetings -- was the source. Like tea in Asia it is customary to offer this black syrupy Brazilian drink for any reason and I felt quite embarrassed when I now declined the muddy substance garnering much laughter after gingerly explaining in Portuguese my problem. But mercifully the diarrhea was gone!

With two pumps on line we started to move water, over 8,000 gallons per hour, a room full. Our estimates of the well’s length and width were fairly accurate but the depth was only speculation. Moreover there was a Crocodile living in the well making us reluctant to swim out into the middle to determine a more precise measurement. We guessed we needed to pump over a half a million cubic feet of water which was going to take us 18-20 days of continuous work with just two of the three original pumps. Running the pumps continuously wasn’t a good idea but we were in a race against time. Early one morning we found one of the workers on the ground on all fours unable to stand much less walk, dazed and disoriented so we couldn’t immediately determine what had happened. When he was able to speak he told us he had slept close to one of the pump engines to keep warm, his head resting too close to the exhaust port of the motor. He was nearly asphyxiated. In a few hours he was fine but it was a close call.

Due to errors in fuel consumption estimates, our dwindling gas stores needed to be replenished. Charoot, our boatman, ended up making several re-supply runs to Araguatins, a three-day round trip, to pick up gas, oil, food and supplies. In the meantime mosquitoes and other winged creatures were growing, so acquiring nets for the workers’ hammocks was a high priority. When Charoot returned from a supply run Dick and I were anxious for ‘mail call’ and eagerly met the boat to offload supplies with hopes of word from home or at least a Time magazine.

Mail sent and received came by a very circuitous route. When Charoot went out on a supply run he would take our mail to the mayor of Araguatines who then gave it to the pilot of Curzerio de Sul Airlines who flew it to Maraba. Abibe would then intercept it, put postage on it and give it back to the pilot for his next trip to Belem. When the pilot reached Belem the airline manager would take it to the Brazilian Post Office and then hopefully it would go to the States. I say hopefully because on occasion someone might take the stamps off the envelopes and the mail would go nowhere. The general practice in Brazil was if you were sending important correspondence you sent a duplicate letter or package just to ensure that one gets through. Mail from the States to us usually took one and a half months.

After settling into a quasi routine the two most persistent issues we faced were the bugs at night and the heat of the day. During the day the bugs were not as prevalent but in the evening when it cooled off they came out in droves: flies, gnats and no-see-ums, mosquitoes all buzzing around our head nets trying to squirm through. One could almost tell what time it was by the type of winged critter that encircled us. One of the workers, a native lasting only a few days, quit due to the mounting number of bugs. When we ate we had to cover the rice and beans on our plates with another plate, quickly remove it, snatch a bite and then replace it. The flies were like kamikazes dive bombing our gas-tainted water laced with Kool-Aid. Invariably when taking a sip there were 2-3 “mothers” splashing around on the surface. At night getting under our mosquito nets protecting our cots was an elaborate process and done very quickly with precision, requiring a can of bug spray to finish off the inevitable few aggressive malcontents that came in with you. The final step was tucking the netting up under the mattress to prevent the more tenacious blood-thirsty carnivores from finding an entry.

The sun had become torturously hot with temperatures reaching 120° from 11:00A.M. - 4:00P.M., forcing us to increase our water intake. My small spring-wound clock included a temperature gauge with an upper limit of 120°. Each day the needle was pegged to the maximum so it might have been hotter. Between the humidity and the sun the heat generated was so oppressive that moving about was laborious; everyone dressed in shorts and sweated generously. Late in the afternoon Dick and I found time to cool down by wallowing in the river for an hour, chatting, contemplating, complaining and planning while we refreshed and washed our clothes. We would wear our clothes into the water, rub soap all over them and then rinse off, job done, clothes wet and clean. The draw back was having to keep an eye out for the proverbial Piranhas.

As the well water level began to fall we moved the pumps further down into the well closer to the water increasing their efficiency. The canvas hoses now had to be stretched to their limit to ensure the water would not return to the well. We were unaware that running water through them continuously for extended periods was causing them to rot. Now stretched and bent over and around rocks, small leaks began to spring up but were quickly patched with twine rapped around pieces of tree bark or canvas and sheet metal cut from empty gas cans. When more hose was needed to carry the water the workers resourcefully fashioned metal troughs from the expended gas cans to keep the water flowing away from the well.

Our boatman, Charoot, returned with the pump we had fixed, with more gas, and our cherished mail including Time magazine. We put the pump to work quickly; however, the two working pumps were struggling from operating continuously in the excessive heat. At these extreme temperatures we had to rest the pump engines more frequently. More fuel and heavier motor oil was needed so Charoot was once again sent back down river. He was getting weary going back and forth to Araguatins and was not happy about making another trip.

On 25 September while digging and washing gravel on the side of the well left dry by pumping we hit pay dirt, discovering our very first DIAMONTE! Duval estimated the diamond at 0.4 karats, small but a great beginning. We were elated and exceptionally encouraged. On this same day however the smaller two-inch pump blew a piston rod bearing, scoring the shaft so badly that it was un-repairable and useful only for spare parts. Unhappily, the next afternoon the third pump started behaving badly with carburetor problems. Duval managed to find a mechanic in the local area so he and I pulled the entire engine apart with the limited tools we had and tried to fix it. We filed the points using a flat rock and set the spark plug gap with a palm leaf. Not having the right tools was referred to as “shade-tree mechanics” The pump with the bad carburetor never came back on line so we cannibalized it to fix the blown rod pump but this effort was unsuccessful. Just as we began to find diamonds and life was looking up we were now down to one pump and needed 28 more days and nights to empty the well.

Araguatins and Rio Araguaia

Dr. Penagle, Dick Cullerton, Charoot & Duval Durant entering Araguatins