Trabalhador (Brazilian worker)

My work experience in Brazil two years prior to my return in 1976 on a permanent visa had been somewhat predisposed with two-hour lunches, translators, and the best hotels and restaurants. My new project was near Belo Horizonte in the interior. This was far from the coastal cities and shantytowns surrounding them. A small-town guy could appreciate a place like this. The Brazilian government dictated the industrial location and foreign companies could build production plants if 60% of their production was for export. How else could you cure a trade imbalance?
My assignment was a conveyor installation at a new Fiat plant. After a brief introduction, I was in charge of thirty electricians and mechanics and the translator just walked away. Three weeks later, I had not heard a word of English above my own mumblings. I was speaking Portuguese at a level that provided a deeper understanding of those around me.
Contagem was the name given to this industrial area. An expressway was built from Belo and the airport to accommodate freight and people like me. I knew the right-of-way was afforded to vehicles. Pedestrians had to take their chances. With a six to six (dawn to dusk) workday, God helps those workers that crossed the expressway. I soon realized the people lying along the highway, sometimes covered, sometimes not) were workers who did not make it. With such menial jobs paying a few dollars a day, the people needed to walk many hours in the dark to get to work. Bus fare was not an option at the poverty level. One body lying there was more than enough to understand their strife.
An overhead conveyor system will run twenty feet above a plant floor and there we had three levels in places. Six feet below the trolley was a suspended access walkway of steel fencing material. In the States there would be side-rails but not here. Roberto de Piero and I were comparing notes at the end of the day. I saw a shadow from above then a pathetic thud. A short distance away was our trabalhador who simply walked off the edge. He was bleeding so profusely from his head I could not look but Roberto cuddled him like a baby. Medical help was an hour in coming. Insurance did not exist and disability had no compensation. We should not have allowed him to be up there. Delirium would set in after such a long workday, especially if he was one whose two-hour walk to work created a sixteen-hour day. Roberto was one of a very few supervisory people that held affection for the struggling working class from whence he came.
There was an attitude for workers to excel at all cost. We were without basic equipment. A hacksaw blade was a primary tool. With only a blade, a good mechanic could cut through a two inch I-beam in an hour, sometimes less, but hands bleeding. Everyday there was a line of people waiting to replace a fallen comrade.
I have forgotten, but I will guess his name to be Itimal. A good electrician, I took as an understudy. A code reading system for carrier routing required an intelligent guy like him. I had returned from lunch which by now was a fifteen minute snack of rice and beans, to see Itimal trying to repair a code reader with the conveyor running. His back was to an approaching carrier; I dove for the emergency stop but too late to save his ring finger. I saw him six months later doing well without the digit.
Maybe I too was under duress from the Fiat people pushing the project. Italians were not redeemed until a recent trip to Northern Italy.