Cairo, the 1st November, 2009


"Where are you from?
Permanent Saudade from Portugal"




"...For some reason or other, I am a sad exile.


In some way or other, our land travels with me


and with me too, tough far, far away, live the


longitudinal essences of my country."





Pablo Neruda, 1972

Pablo Neruda couldn't have said it better.Latin writers are my number 1 choice when it comes to telling the essential truths and describing life. The latin character itself has a humidity, a warmth and a depth I cannot find in other cultures...did I mention I love being a "latina"?!
It's like every word has this sunny quality of crude reality, the courage and openness to say it as it REALLY is and yet with a sensuous, hot and benevolent way of viewing things...ahhhh.....





Feeling proud of our own identity and realizing what we most miss in our native countries is part of the experience of living abroad. Egypt has taught me so much about my own country. Distance can clean our eyes in such an amazing way...


I have come to terms with myself and concluded I am a bit from everywhere. I am surely a bit egyptian - otherwise I could not have assimilated the music, dance and parts of this culture so naturally - and I am, deep inside, a PORTUGUESE creature in all my most secretive assets.


I have always seen myself as a bit portuguese and a bit spanish because circumstances have dictated that I would spend most of my childhood in the south of Spain. I saw myself in the mirror and received a feed-back of our portuguese Atlantic Ocean and the FIRE from Spain.Water from Portugal and Fire from Spain, that would be ME. In simplistic forms, I can describe myself like that and yet...



There's so much more to it.



I do carry my country wherever I go.


I carry our ocean, first and above ALL.


I carry my loved ones - the deep loved ones - and our sun, food, air and feeling of "being home" when being home is just a state of total PEACE.

I carry it in my dance, under the oriental facade. I surely carry it when I whisper in "saudade" of my simple people and our oranges eaten on the cultivated fields of my grandparents.


Coming from a peasant, poor family has shaped all that I am.

The oranges. Oh, how I miss the oranges...big, juicy and so sweet!
The clear notion of US all being just a part of Nature, dust materialized, nothing more than that. That humble life between animals, vegetables and the Nature's cycles...all that has shaped me into what I am. I am so thankful and proud for that!


I value hard work, honesty, self-worth and simplicity.


I am way too close to the ground and the earth to allow myself to become a "Diva". My family has showed me real life's hardships and I am proud of that background. It resulted in my "heavy duty" nature which has been protecting me from so many traps and difficult times.


Yes, I am a bit from everywhere but my roots cannot be erased and Portugal travels with me within my soul wherever I go, no matter what dresses I may wear or what language I may speak.

Living in Egypt and having to adapt myself to so many stricking differences has only made me an even prouder portuguese. Our conqueror spirit is with me and it's my country I return to when all around me is just way too chaotic and strange to bear.


Saudade...

Book suggestion on the matter:

"My invented country", by Isabel Allende (one of my latin favourite authors)