I’ve always thought that we were the same and only now do I realize that this smiling girl in the photo and I are no longer the same person. How can someone change so much without noticing?
I hold in my hand the black and white photo that one of my neighbours took one day when I was playing with my friends in the street near my home. Looking at this photo, I wonder… who is the real me? Is that girl with the vibrant eyes my genuine self? Perhaps... or perhaps she’s just the happy and carefree version of myself. The girl, whose mind was full of dreams, knew nothing about what was already taking place in the remote forest, in the other part of that country that was 14 times bigger than Portugal. Without even suspecting that a war had started, the girl in the photo played with her dolls and planned her future. “I want to be an airhostess”, she repeated with conviction. But, now she has grown up and her life is totally different from what she had dreamt. Few dreams could resist the war! She, or maybe I should say I, well… I am not an airhostess and, actually, I began to hate aeroplanes, since one of them transported my dying father to South Africa and returned him in a coffin. It was from the window of one of those planes that I saw my country for the last time.
I close my eyes and I can see the streets of Luanda, my friends, my neighbours and my house. All of that has ceased to exist and only the power of imagination can reunite those people and recreate the atmosphere of those times. Times so far way and yet so vividly remembered.
I open my eyes and, from this cape, the westernmost point of Europe, I see the Atlantic, the ocean that separates my homeland from this country; the ocean that unites the European, the African and the American continents; the ocean that stands in the middle of different countries and cultures, just like me and thousands of people in this world. I listen to the wise ocean and to the sound of its waves and waters in continuous movement and constant renewal.
Nothing not even the oceans stay the same!
I hold in my hand the black and white photo that one of my neighbours took one day when I was playing with my friends in the street near my home. Looking at this photo, I wonder… who is the real me? Is that girl with the vibrant eyes my genuine self? Perhaps... or perhaps she’s just the happy and carefree version of myself. The girl, whose mind was full of dreams, knew nothing about what was already taking place in the remote forest, in the other part of that country that was 14 times bigger than Portugal. Without even suspecting that a war had started, the girl in the photo played with her dolls and planned her future. “I want to be an airhostess”, she repeated with conviction. But, now she has grown up and her life is totally different from what she had dreamt. Few dreams could resist the war! She, or maybe I should say I, well… I am not an airhostess and, actually, I began to hate aeroplanes, since one of them transported my dying father to South Africa and returned him in a coffin. It was from the window of one of those planes that I saw my country for the last time.
I close my eyes and I can see the streets of Luanda, my friends, my neighbours and my house. All of that has ceased to exist and only the power of imagination can reunite those people and recreate the atmosphere of those times. Times so far way and yet so vividly remembered.
I open my eyes and, from this cape, the westernmost point of Europe, I see the Atlantic, the ocean that separates my homeland from this country; the ocean that unites the European, the African and the American continents; the ocean that stands in the middle of different countries and cultures, just like me and thousands of people in this world. I listen to the wise ocean and to the sound of its waves and waters in continuous movement and constant renewal.
Nothing not even the oceans stay the same!
1 comment:
Luanda has a sweet and sour taste. I can recall so many stories that have been passed on by family and friends. This one is like those stories I used to listen to. Profound, immense, just like the ocean.
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