From 2012 to 2015 I lived in Maputo with my best friend, the best companion, the warrior of all adventures, my wife, Rute Gago.
In 2011 I received an extremely interesting invitation to head to Southern Africa, and with that opportunity it became possible to finally resolve the bankruptcy mentioned earlier.
Mozambique was a period no less difficult for various reasons, but above all because of the distance. It is not the kind of distance we have within Europe. If we really need to, we are not “home” from one day to the next. It is different. It is truly far away. By car it is more than 12,000 kilometers, and by plane close to 8,000 kilometers. By car it takes several days of driving, and by plane it is nearly 11 hours sitting in a cramped seat, with plastic meals, at best. Out of curiosity -and to save money – we once did 54 hours of flying, on a journey with multiple stopovers and a great deal of discomfort along the way.
In any case, depending on the means of transport, it is around 10,000 kilometers of distance… A trip that requires planning. Scheduling well in advance.
If ten years have already passed since we returned from the “blue country”, I can deliberately establish a relationship of one thousand kilometers for each year of transformation that has taken place up to the present day. Because yes. Because I want to.
As I said, it is far away. It is worth lingering on this framework, on this state of affairs.
Mozambique changed the color of our blood. It tattooed itself onto our bodies. It carved itself into our minds. We love that country, those people, that way of being, that place, that present. After four years, after many projects, after much courage, learning and a great deal of “baggage” to tell stories about, another remarkable chapter came to an end. It was the year 2015 and we had just completed the project that changed our lives forever: the reconstruction of the Inhagóia Primary School. A moment without parallel. Something that, when remembered, gives you goosebumps. Makes you cry. With pride. With joy. With longing. This introduction is not meant to address that project (Rebuilding Mozambique), but merely to frame the moment, the people, the places, the environments, the situations and the “vibes”.
One of the topics most popularly debated in our society today is immigration. I experienced it up close. I emigrated and was an immigrant in Mozambique. An abrupt cultural shock. A necessary growth. An unparalleled learning experience. In my heart I have dual nationality; in my passport I do not. I did not reach the ten years of residence authorization. I did not pay the amounts. I did not meet the requirements. I feel on my skin the sacrifice that many of the people I met there made to obtain that status of an “accepted person”. It is not like here. Everything is far more complex. Difficult. Socially tense. We learned about this subject up close, in our skin, in our stomachs. We know how to talk about it. We can talk about it. And we observe what unfolds in our society each day. In this strange, ephemeral world of short memory that we are all living in. By way of example, I worked for four years in that country, paid my tax contributions (as always, wherever I have worked) and, upon returning to Portugal, no monetary value was attributed to my pension; there was no equivalence; no contribution of mine was validated. They ask me: if you go to the Mozambican tax authorities and bring a valid document, there is a tax agreement that… blah blah blah. I did all of that and not a single cent. T-I-A (this is Africa!). Only those who have experienced it know. I have come to terms with it.
The Rebuilding Mozambique project needed time, and we needed conditions to live. We could not wait much longer in that place without serious and solid prospects for the future. We made several approaches to sponsors and to other highly valuable contacts we had. There were very serious demonstrations of interest, but it was not the moment. It was not the moment.
It was something we never understood – neither I nor Rute – whether the project “could have been”, or whether it simply “was not” because it had to be that way. At that time, we made the best decision for us. Today, after all these years, we know it was the best decision. But along the way, we did have doubts. Not out of regret for being here, but above all because of the longing for the place, the people, the moments that made us grow.
There are projects that are priceless. There are rewards that cannot be measured in money. I am not like that; I do not agree with that way of being. I have my limits. And Rebuilding Mozambique was, without any doubt, THE priceless project; one that cannot be quantified in money; one that was not done out of monetary ambition.
I frequently recall the look in the children’s eyes when they saw the work we did… there is no price. There is none.
Life is made of experiences, of learning, of moments, of people, of places.
We were destined for other flights. For other places.
We wanted children. It was time.
Mozambique did not give us that nest.
And Portugal was a desire.
This de-cision gave rise to the first 1,000 kilometers of distance that I deliberately correlate with each year of existence of B16. There will be other thousands—and others and more others—that I will explain in due time. The truth is only one: that cut, that rupture we chose, brought us to this moment; and, despite its complexity, life is in the right place.
