TAWOMG - Leaving Oporto

Dear Friends,

I am spending this weekend in Oporto. I left the city three weeks ago, after five months working in a project for a local company. It was a great opportunity to come back to the place where I lived sixteen years ago. A lot has changed in the meantime and I think Porto and Portugal improved a lot in the two decades since I visited Lisbon for the first time.

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It is not only Portugal that has changed a lot, Europe has. People my age and older certainly remember that up to the early nineties there were border controls all over Europe and every time we wanted to cross them we were subject to passport and customs control. Each country had its currency and even for a coffee we had to exchange money. The infra structure in places like Portugal or Spain were not as good as they are today. It is amazing how different - and better - the European Union is compared to twenty years ago.

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During the last months I have read a lot about Portuguese history, old and recent events. One thing that shocks is how the colonial wars in Mozambique and Angola traumatised the nation and how disastrous decolonisation was. The independence of the former colonies resulted in half a million people having to abandon their homes and leave behind what in some cases was the only life and country they had ever known. Most lost all their possessions. They were not welcome back in Portugal and were discriminated as "retornados". Their absence accelerated the economic collapse of the former colonies and local people that remained in Angola and Mozambique suffered the atrocities of almost three decades of civil war. It was very difficult to make it worse and nevertheless people that were responsible for it, like Mário Soares, dare to say that it was an "exemplary decolonisation". Do they mean an example how not to do it?

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It is also amazing that in Brazil most of the population, of any age, knows very little or absolutely nothing about all this. How could we be so unaware of this disaster? Even more so considering that many people immigrated to Brazil when they left Africa.

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Reading about Portuguese history and being physically here, it is easy to understand why the Portuguese soul is focused overseas. The powerful presence of the Atlantic coast reminds us that we are at the west end of Europe. Beyond Portugal there is only the ocean and the new world. Then come the cultural and family ties with Brazil and Africa, not to mention Asia. It is not so surprising that after so many years of economic stagnation, thousands of people are doing business or even immigrating to Africa or Brazil, in search of new opportunities. It goes with the Portuguese DNA. If you have ever witnessed the sunset from the Portuguese coast, you certainly have felt this attraction for the unknown, for whatever lies behind the horizon. That is a call that during centuries has made this country and people take the chances and go abroad. Will it ever change?

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When I left Porto I took with me the memories of the good things that I left behind: the charms of "Casa do Poema", the guesthouse where I lived; the Douro river and its picturesque riverside; the weekend lunches at Cafeína, one of my preferred restaurants in town (good food, very friendly service, nice ambience); above all, the friendliness of the people from the north.

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My new assignment as interim manager is in Alvaiázere, a small town in the centre of the country. I am lodging in Tomar. Once upon a time Tomar was the roman city Nabantia and in the 12th century it was granted a fief to the Order of the Knights Templar. It is very beautiful, but also small. It is worth a weekend visit, but then you have seen all that is to be seen. I suspect that while in Alvaiázere/Tomar I will take the opportunity to visit other places in Portugal during the weekends. The more I get to know the country, the more I feel attached to it. I am glad I am enjoying a lot more being here than the first time in 1993.

Wish you a nice week,

Maurício