RELIVING THE EPIDEMIC

Parents' Perspectives

For three months, all we did was cry. Another would get sick, another would get sick, and another would get sick; it was impossible. ... They were finished off, one by one.

— Alfonso Torres

My relatives, you must narrate exactly how all of this began.

— Enrique Moraleda

Mukoboina: Revisiting Ground Zero

Mukoboina, the first place hit by the mysterious epidemic, could have won an award for being the most nondescript among hundreds of other small settlements in the lower delta — until it became in July 2007 the lead story on Warao Radio, the popular designation for word-of-mouth transmission within the area. That was when the first Mukoboinian child died of a strange and terrifying new disease. Mukoboina has around eighty residents and just a dozen thatch-roofed houses perched on stilts above the mud and water of a midsized tributary of the Orinoco River. It was literally sliced out of the surrounding jungle. Relatively new, it was settled around 1990 by José Manuel Florín and Alejandrina Morales. They liked the area: there was a good beach and catfish were abundant, prompting the name, which means "the place where catfish are plentiful."

There is no store, mission, school, or nursing station, although the Institute of Nutrition did fund a small "community hearth" to provide nutritional assistance for a short while. Mukoboinans live primarily off their gardens, where they grow taro, bananas, plantains, yucca tubers, pineapples, sugar cane, and other crops (figure 1.1). Most houses have a few mango and coconut trees next to them. When fish are scarce, Mukoboinan men travel by canoe to the coast, where catches are more plentiful. Residents visit the clinic and stores in Nabasanuka and make occasional trips to Tucupita, some six hours away by motorized canoe, to sell hammocks and baskets, buy consumer goods, and petition government bureaucrats. With minor variations, Mukoboina is the delta's "everytown."

Mukoboina is a primary destination on the team's itinerary in July 2008 as it begins its investigation into the cause of the deaths. Our boat pulls up at the last house, looking for Mukoboina's local representative and wisidatu healer, Inocencio Torres. Rosaura Romero, a woman of about thirty, recognizes Tirso in the boat and, accompanied by half a dozen children, welcomes us. A boy of about four, clad only in white briefs, jumps up and down shouting, "Pollo, pollo!" "He does that every time a boat arrives with criollo [nonindigenous] passengers," Romero explains. "He thinks you're bongueros [itinerant fluvial merchants] selling chickens. He loves chicken!"

Inocencio, Rosaura's brother-in-law, emerges wearing a smile that makes you feel like you have known him for years; he climbs into the boat. Taller and thinner than most Mukoboina men, he is in his midfifties. His father was a criollo fisherman who returned to his "legitimate," nonindigenous wife in Barrancas after impregnating Inocencio's mother. Although he grew up in the delta, Inocencio spent a year as a teenager on the mainland with his father; he can understand Spanish, even though he seldom speaks it. The lines on his forehead appear to map the anxieties wrought by the way his ordinarily nondescript settlement has become a focal point of death and controversy. He is a charismatic and capable leader who listens intently when people speak. The Mukoboinans know all the team members, particularly Norbelys and Tirso, one of whose daughters-in-law hails from Mukoboina.

Accompanied by Charles, Inocencio gathers residents, stopping at each family's dock to announce, "The leaders have arrived; come and tell your story!" Except for one father, all the parents are at home; they crowd into the boat, often with several children in tow. Fearing it would capsize, the last family opts to skip from log to log over the mud to Inocencio's house, which has already begun to fill up. It is divided into two sections. The one on the right features a bench-desk combination rescued from a school modernization program, where Enrique sits surrounded by fascinated children and takes notes. Conrado settles into a plastic chair near the outside edge of the room. Some fifteen other people have already gathered. The left side of the room, where the family sleeps, contains four hammocks, shielded from the sun and rain by sheets of black plastic and temiche palms. Several parents sit nearby, cuddling their surviving children, while others listen from the dock and adjacent kitchen that jut out above the river. While taking their turn as narrator, parents stand in the middle of the room, simultaneously embraced by every eye in the house and isolated in unseen worlds of pain.

Mukoboina is regarded by all parties as the ground zero of the mysterious epidemic, the first place it tortured bodies and shattered lives. Nearly every story of the strange epidemic begins with Mukoboina, so ours does as well. In July 2008, parents seemed still to be living in mourning, terrified, and furious that other visitors had come before us but had not expressed interest in hearing their stories; they just asked questions and left without sharing their observations and hypotheses. More than anyone else, Mukoboinans had been demanding for over a year, "Tell me why my children died." Now, one parent after another rises to give testimony about the deaths of one, two, or three of their children.

WILMER TORRES AND ZOILA TORRES: THE FIRST COUPLE TO FACE THE DISEASE

We had no idea what was going on. ... His little sister developed an identical fever. It was the same sickness. — Wilmer Torres

Zoila Torres and Wilmer Torres are in their late twenties (figure 1.2). Social and outgoing, they enjoyed their trips to Tucupita, where Zoila sold the beautiful moriche palm fiber hammocks she made. They had four children. Gabriel was a bouncy eight-year-old who particularly loved to imitate the roar of an outboard motor as he played in the water, racing tiny boats around on a string. Six-year-old Graciela was a charmer whose frequent smile revealed wonderful dimples. Yuri, only two, had an oval face and the same large dark eyes as her siblings. With newly arrived Maricelia, Zoila and Wilmer could not have dreamed of a happier beginning for their family.

Wilmer comes to the middle of the room, grabbing the roof beam so firmly that his strong biceps bulge. Zoila sits...