ONE COLD AUTUMN MORNING

I was born on November 22^nd 1978. At the time, my mother lived in Cruz Quebrada with my grand-mother, my uncle and aunt, and two small children, my brother and sister. I have no memories of the house we lived in, because we moved when I was about one year old. However, I do have some recollections of it, though not real, due to the pictures in the family albums, which I have seen many times. It was a two storey house with a garden where my brother and sister played with my uncle’s brown-haired dog. Because the pictures are old, they have a yellowish tone, which I have transferred to my “memories”, as if it is an old colour movie. I “see” the flowers and the leaves in a faint red and green.

My father was working in Angola and my mother had also lived there, but having become pregnant again, she decided to return to Portugal. At the time, Angola was at war, there were no health care services and it was difficult to nourish the family. I remember my mother telling us how she spent hours in the queue, just to buy a few basic products. I can only imagine how desperate my mother must have felt, not knowing if she would have food on the table that night.

I was due to be born around the 10^th, so my father came for my birth. However, I was comfortably settled in my mother’s womb and my father had to go back to Luanda. I still waited for a few days before I decided it was time to face the world. That cold autumn morning when my mother received me in her arms for the first time, my father was already working in another continent in order to support his family.