Every time the CLA (Alcântara Launch Center) launches a rocket into space, the residents of the Mamuna quilombo are aware. Not necessarily due to a warning from the institute or news in the newspaper, but because the ground of the community shakes.
It has been like this since 1990, the year of the first launch of the Alcântara aerospace base (Maranhão). Of the hundreds of peoples that make up the municipality, the Mamuna community is the closest to the area.
The Brazilian Air Force, responsible for the CLA, claims that the risk of a rocket hitting the community is low.
Nevertheless, resident Maria José Lima Pinheiro says she fears the vibration of the earth. However, this fear is far from being her biggest concern.
Part of a generation that grew up hearing that they would be evicted, Maria, 50, says she is less anxious than in her youth but emphasizes that she has a horror of being expelled from the place where she grew up.
"The fear has eased. Before, we were very terrified," she says. "If Mamuna is relocated, all the other communities will be. It's a domino effect."
The quilombola refers to speculations about a possible expansion of the base, which would likely lead to Mamuna being moved to another region, as happened with villages during the installation of the CLA in the 1980s—at least 312 families were compulsorily relocated.