I do not surround myself with enough people who make me grow. I know this is an unfair statement towards those who actually do. The truth is that, in my experience, doers, constructive people, entrepreneurs and innovators are, for the most part, positive people. They see the glass half full. They visualise the good, the positive, the end. The achievement*. In contrast, for negative people, the focus is predominantly destructive. Nostalgic. Obvious. Formatted. There is the metaphor of the crabs in the bucket. They all try to climb towards freedom. When one manages to reach the edge and climb out, the others pull it back down and do not let it leave. They do not want to. They cannot bear to see them leave. The* haters*. The conformists. Those who do not want to do just a little bit more. I look at my life and try to step outside my comfort zone from time to time. I have done so several times. I intend to do it again. And routine, “the hamster wheel” as I usually call it, blinds us if we are not paying attention.

Company was truly important during the pandemic.
And I was incredibly lucky.
Fortunate.

Throughout the periods of national lockdown, some longer than others, the municipalities were given coloured alert statuses from one day to the next. Red, orange, green, blue, pink with blue spots, black, beige, purple. The rules changed constantly. If one day we could not leave the municipality, the next we could not leave the house; if one day we had short quarantine periods, the next they were extended; if one day we could not do this, the next we could not do that. The news made it all seem like a game. Government officials contradicted one another. The world had two focuses: preventing the spread and developing/producing the vaccine that would solve all the problems. The world was ghastly.

Company was the solution.
And I, looking back, was in the best company of all.
Happy, even.

The pandemic had very bad consequences. I have already mentioned some of them in the previous chapter. But it also had positive outcomes. Some of them, even, were wonderful.

While I was going round and round inside myself for the reasons I have mentioned in the past (business plan, human resources, production flow and B16’s vision for the future), I needed good company. While I was licking the wounds caused by the three phone calls that cancelled the positive results I had expected for 2020; while I was managing the absence of the Viking and trying to coordinate our needs with new team members, while I was mourning the project that was supposed to take me back to Maputo that same year; I needed entertainment to absorb all the psychological confusion I was experiencing. It was complex. I had no way of keeping my feet on the ground. Everything was negative and new. I felt it. I perceived it. I identified the thoughts and confronted them with positive ways of being.

I also smoked far too many “laitas” that year. There was no need for so many. But I smoked a lot every day. And prices rose considerably because of the shortage. Everything was tightly controlled. Scarce. “Laitas” have consequences for us. Apparently they are good, but they have subliminal effects on the mind: memory loss, mood swings, schizophrenia, lack of focus. You have to know how to control all of that. And, if it is not controlled, unexpected attitudes emerge in unexpected moments. I have not smoked for several years now. But I remember that at that time there were “highs and lows” in my mind.

Before I knew it, I had moved through all my problems in a gentle, joyful, happy, complete way. It was us. Just us. Me, Rute, Olívia and Tofo. Just us. Complete. Happy. Safe. Complicit. Confined in Ludo. My Ludo.

In 2005, when I joined the immaculate Teatro Municipal de Faro as director of marketing and public relations, I changed cars and rented a house in Gambelas. Right next to the plot of land where the private hospital was built, which at the time was just an empty patch of earth. In the midst of my hard work at the theatre, I still managed to find time to cycle, run, walk, explore by car and get to know Ludo, as few people do. During my adolescence we often went to Ludo to do teenage things. At this later stage of my life, it was interesting to remember those teenage years and add a more adventurous and exploratory perspective to them. I know that “lawless” land well. That border between the municipality of Faro and the municipality of Loulé. That abandoned place where nature still breathes, speaks, connects and exists. With its particularities in winter, spring, summer and autumn. Always different. Always unique.

Which became Rute’s Ludo. And Olívia’s Ludo. And Tofo’s Ludo. Our Ludo.

On the day my Tofo passes away, I am not sure where I will hold his farewell ritual for the journey into the new world. Whether in Sagres, where I buried my first dog, Renato Filipe; or in Ludo, where he was happy and kept me company so many times. I think that, by writing these lines, I have just made my decision. I even know where. In that place where he smiles so often.

With or without travel restrictions, it was common for us to enter Ludo through one of its entrances and, as soon as we found ourselves inside, all the paths would lead us to whatever we intended to do that day. It was easy to get wherever we wanted. I remember Rute being amazed, on several occasions, at how one road connected to a place we had been before; how one area was so close to another; how a new place, just beyond the previous one, could be so different and distinct from it.

Ludo is magic. And it is easy to understand why none of the local authorities or municipalities can manage to do anything with it. They are afraid. They do not have the ability to understand the place. They know they will make a mess of it. It would take someone with a superior mindset to know how to make the most of that place. To give it dignity. To return it to the people with the respect it deserves. With rules. Order. But also the freedom that still remains. From Ludo we go to Quinta do Lago, Quinta do Eucalipto, Troto, Almancil, Patacão, Gambelas, Ria Formosa, Vale das Almas. In Ludo we see all kinds of animals. Some people go there for bird watching, to ride horses, to see rodents or simply to take that photograph of the flamingos at sunset with the salt pans in the background. In Ludo there is endless flora. Dry, wet, large, small. It is in Ludo that we go to collect pine cones for the winter fireplace. It is in Ludo that I build sandcastles with my children. It is in Ludo that I dig holes, pits and hiding places. It is in Ludo that we see 4×4 tracks, trails torn apart by motorbikes or silent bicycles gliding along. It is in Ludo that we see people, animals, families and friends smiling. It is in Ludo that night becomes terrifying, interrupting the silence with the sounds of frightening, cinematic animals. It is in Ludo that the starry sky or the full moon works its magic. I have made love in Ludo. I have slept in Ludo. It was in Ludo that I ate unforgettable picnics. It was in Ludo that I spread out my yellow blanket and read books to the sound of the wind. Ludo is everything. Ludo is nothing. And it is also in Ludo that the “human animals” dump rubble, rubbish and the remains of times gone by. There are dark sides to Ludo too. There are also stories of witchcraft. Incredible as it may seem, there are tags in Ludo too. And parties. And raves. And, until the recent fire, a community of hippies also lived there, connected to the sunset, nature and life. It is also there that we witness traces of the bad side of mankind. About a year ago, thousands of trees were cut down. Yes, thousands. And not a single news story appeared about it. It is what I call the land without law. But it is my land. And I will kill if I ever feel threatened. Because I feel at home. And at that time, during the pandemic, with my beautiful family, I would not only have killed, I would have made a point of hanging the bodies from the tops of the trees as a way of announcing to the world that this was no place for games. Just like Gangs of New York. Ludo is not only mine. I have great friends who love it. But it is also mine. Ours.

It was in Ludo that we were confined.
It was in Ludo that we watched our daughter grow.
Our dog run, jump and be happy.

And while I was mourning the Reconstruir Moçambique 2020 project in my own way, while I was grieving the absence of João Guerra, while I was transforming myself into a Phoenix, rising from the ashes with the air, energy and strength of my own family, Ludo was our glue, our unity, our point of balance, our outdoor home.

But it was not only in Ludo that we were confined. We also went to Sagres, Monchique and São Brás de Alportel. We also explored the mountains that surround us. In a foolish, naïve and simple way. Arrive, stop, set up camp and wait for the landowner not to come and ask us to leave, as actually happened on one occasion. We did it throughout the areas surrounding our Algarve capital. In every direction. We explored the compass rose. They were endless days. Long weeks. Long periods.

Our Algarve is beautiful. So beautiful.

Throughout the lockdown process, the loyalty of MAR Shopping Algarve made a profound impression on me. Videos filmed by various people would reach me and, with the help of a video editor called Rui Aguiar, I would receive them, cut them, edit them, transform them into MAR content and send them back to be published on social media. Successfully. Very successfully. It was during the Covid period that MAR launched the Healthy Days series. One of the most successful online features. Hundreds of thousands of views, many times over. Sports videos. Filmed at home. Without fear. Without shame. With a great deal of confidence, in fact. And the editing was not the best, at first. But people watched them. And shared them. And we felt the feedback. Later, as the restrictions eased, we began producing this content seriously. Sometimes with two, three or four cameras simultaneously. With reflectors, lights and other equipment. This was the beginning of that journey. In a way, those times left us with a certain sense of nostalgia. And I will never forget this Client’s loyalty.

It was also that year that Rute and I had the opportunity to take an alternative construction course. We went to Famalicão (without Olívia) for a weekend, to learn how to build houses using tyres, glass bottles, plastic bottles, pigments to colour walls made from natural mortar, among other construction secrets we never imagined existed. It was an enlightening weekend that gave us ideas for the future, both for ourselves and for new opportunities that life might bring if our second homeland project ever moves forward.

The only serious difficulty during the pandemic was really the issue of vaccines. Not that year, but in the years that followed, I believe in 2021, when they arrived. That subject was abrupt, difficult, intense. The only atrocity was the obligation to get vaccinated, with complex threats if we chose the opposite. And we were (and are) in favour of the opposite. We were not vaccinated. Much of the content we consumed told us not to do it. And we tried to remain faithful to the way we saw the matter. But it was difficult. Very difficult. The world, the country, the region, the city, our surroundings, our family, everything was putting pressure on us to get vaccinated when everything was telling us not to. And then the threats began. If you are not vaccinated you cannot do this or that; if your daughter is not vaccinated something terrible will happen; if… fuck! Christ! What pressure! What manipulation! What oppression.

All these years later, knowing what we know today, there is a great deal to be said about the Covid vaccination issue. There were many unanswered questions. Many reprisals without consequences. Many deaths without anyone going to prison. Many decisions without accountability. Many atrocities against human beings, without the appropriate consequences.

I do not want to preach, proselytise or sell demagoguery. What I want to say is that I was not vaccinated out of conviction, with the mental support of a great friend of mine, with the complicity of my beloved life partner, because I felt that it was not the right path. And looking back, I am fiercely proud of the choice we made. Of the decision we took.

Circus for the people.

This expression is profound. “Circus for the people”. When the people are about to challenge, question or express an opinion about the patriarchal leaders of planet Earth, they have to be entertained. They do it on a micro scale every day. I witnessed scams, corruption, lies and poor local authority management. I have written about it. We are talking about a municipality with 60,000 voting citizens. In Portugal, municipalities extend to infinitely larger numbers. If we go further, to other countries, to other continents, the picture will always be the same. And when the people start fighting back, here you go: circus. In Portugal there is so much football, so many soap operas, so many television programmes built around misery, so much sensationalist media. People consume it. They eat it up. They live off it. That and celebrity magazines. And perfect dentures. And bodies and lips filled with botulinum toxin. And perfect Instagram photographs. A thousand clicks for one photograph, filter, filter, post. All a lie. All fake. And I am fortunate to have lived the life I have lived. I am outraged by what I see. But I become wounded and defensive when I see people trying to force something upon me that makes absolutely no sense to me. If I feel abused when someone cancels an appointment because of a football match, imagine how I feel when I am told that my daughter cannot go to school unless she is vaccinated with the soup of death? I am already writing far too much.

I am against the Covid vaccine.
And I am the son of a doctor. A doctor who speaks highly of it. A doctor with whom I had several confrontations over that very vaccine. But who respected my decision.

I am against the Covid vaccine. And I think that the whole period was silenced, hidden, perpetuated in absolute silence. Today, it is the war. No one talks about Covid anymore. Or, at least, the news, studies, investigations and information that reach the public with shocking data and figures have no place in our media. They are silenced. Killed at birth. Filtered. Prohibited. Banned.

For these reasons and others, I often feel completely out of step with the society in which I live. Because books tell us the story of a “brave and immortal nation” which, today, is so resigned to the order of the day that it has been losing its bravery and immortality with every passing second. I studied with the best. At the university of the best. We questioned and talked about everything. Including the “people who neither govern nor allow themselves to be governed”; the “Portuguese way of being”; the country of the three F’s (Fátima, Fado and Football). “Heroes of the sea” when the Portuguese Vision has nothing to do with the Atlantic. The “splendour” belonged to other times that will not return. The Men who created it were different. Politicians trained in the schools of party youth organisations do not know how much a bucket of sand weighs, let alone how much it costs to build a “splendour”. And then, that nostalgia of ours constantly leads us towards the death of Sebastian… the one who will guide us to victory. Only him. No one else. And if it is not Sebastian, then tear it all down. Just like my beloved Pedro Passos Coelho (yes, somewhere in the middle of all this, he is my politician of choice; I am a Passista!). “To arms, to arms!”? But who? Who will defend our Homeland when we are not involved in it? Who will defend our Homeland when we are not protected by it? Who will defend our Homeland when Men of Truth do not involve themselves in it? These days, the Country is becoming tired. It is being carried along. With as little complaint as possible. And I am proud to be “cancelled”. I do not care. I am a non-religious man searching for faith, heterosexual, Passista, a classical man, a lover of bodyboarding, not racist, xenophobic towards those who do not respect others, a former emigrant and a revolutionary whenever the subject demands it. I am anti-Covid vaccine.

I do not surround myself with enough people who make me grow. Perhaps they would help me change my mindset. Perhaps during the pandemic I would have spent my time differently, with a different mindset, with different involvement. I believe so.

There is no human being on planet Earth, neither dead nor yet to be born, who could be more important than my own family. It was my Wife, our Daughter and our dog Tofo who accompanied me through this difficult period and made it easy, who painted it with magic, colour, memories and smiles. It was they who made me grow. Who made me endure. Who made me persist.

And I could not be more grateful.
To my own.
And to the Ludo.

Because that is where we were confined.
In the Ludo.