Journey

Who am I? I am a faceless and nameless blog user. I attempt to use my blog to inspire me to write a story, or should I say history. I post to test the tastes. I am not a cheerful writer nor am I a motivational writer. I want to write the story of a family that exists. A real story. And this blog serves me to check what styles are welcome and what are not. English is not my first language. I am Portuguese. But after 23 years in an English speaking country, I attempt to write English, perhaps with a flavor of Portuguese in it.

Believe this is ok! We live in a shrinking world with languages and cultures mixing so heavily that I believe in a few decades English will relinquish its first place to a “engineered” language, fruit of social media and the increasing communication amongst cultures.

Not so long ago we lived in a world with no communication, a world where traveling was for the elite, a world without luxury cars, and branded clothes, a world with black and white TV and perhaps two channels to chose from.

I am from that world. I am 44 years old, not so old I chose to believe, but I feel ancient. I remember greeting my first Motorola cell phone just about 19 years ago. That is nothing. It is when my daughter was born. And I was one of the first in Africa to have it -always keen on gadgets!

My story is a story of a family in a Africa that is long forgotten, never spoken of, never written about! I am not the silenced women of millennial cultures interfering with modern age, I am not the holocaust, I am not a rape (although this still pervades in the story of my family), I am not oppressed, hungry, starved,. But I am the fruit of a story that unfolded in a country no one speaks of – Mozambique! And my story is the story of millions that went through what my family went through. The stories that were never told! The stories of families that ripped their hearts when leaving Mozambique in 1974/75/76/77 and never spoken about! They just took in and love Mozambique from a distance.

It has always been about the oppression, the whites and the blacks! I have a story that has no white or black. No oppression nor oppressing. Just the pure love for a land that we call home but rejected us!

I hope that by telling my story, others from Mozambique will come out into the light and tell theirs, rather then hiding in longing memory groups that only prolong the suffering for all those that live as true Mocambicanos, forming memory groups that never, ever bring consolation!

I will tell the story of the family Brito in Vila Pery, Mozambique!

I sit in front of the fire tonight…. A glass of white wine, The Hobbit playing on my screen… My son wrestling with my yorkie, my husband on email and my daughter out for movies – Hitchcok.

This is me Silvia Maria Correia de Brito, daughter of Maria de Lourdes de Magalhaes Mendes Correia e Custodio Evaristo Neves de Brito. my sisters are Catarina Maria de Magalhaes Correia de Brito, Maria Joao Correia de Brito.

Let it all commence…

Why I need glasses to read

My soul is hungry for breath taking experiences. My existence is growing restless so tired of a manufactured world without essence. I long for days without cement and highways and cars and police cars and ambulances. Radio news on rape and murder and political games that manipulate the consciousness into believing that we are right and they are wrong; that we have leaders that have our interests close to their hearts.

All I see around is misery! I see physical misery in the eyes of the children begging for money to buy drugs and are filled with tears when I give them clothes or food as if thanking me for recognizing that beyond their disastrous existence they are still children. I see young women and men starting to enter the machine, they all talk the same, dress the same, eat the same, it is as if I am witnessing a mass production of corporate breeds.

I am tired of trying to fill the emptiness in me with the illusory satisfaction of possession. Want, want, want! More luxury, more labels, more climbing up a ladder that doesn’t exist. I want to stare at a wild flower, not a branded garment in the window of a shop I cannot afford.

My eyes are stuck in the infinity of horizons shaped by mountains, the serenity of horizons hanging far in the ocean, the immensity of the horizons in the planes of Africa.

Decompression

What is it in change that we are so fearful of? Why does our self-preservation instincts chose discomfort and unhappiness over change? With only one step we could turn it all around,make it better or worse, but the fear of uncertainty, the fear of failure and subsequent destruction, paralyses us and we freeze in life.

We no longer have the power to simply take calculated risks. We are controlled by an engine, we are but a tiny piece of matter necessary, or not, to keep the machine running.

Life cries out for change, sends out signals, you look around and all you see is dust accumulating, wood cracking from dryness, webs infinitely and progressively covering every tiny corner of life. But dare not perturb the annihilation of existence. Your dreams lie there, buried somewhere under the dust and the webs. What would come out and jump at you if you start digging through all the rubble to bring them out?

Sometimes we just have to open the windows and let the sun light come in. Grab all we need to get rid of whatever is covering who we are, fill the cracks., and dust! Dust of! Dust down! Dust up whoever or whatever comes in your way.

And the sun shines in…

It’s been like pulling a cork out! And last night the pressure came all up! Now I needed another week to re-settle and unwind and just be,! But will have to do with three more days instead, and in one of them a trip of 600km roughly! Well this is how life goes, no point in fighting!

I know I am going back to a changed environment and perhaps very unpleasant, but so what? I will embrace the change that life is crying out for, take that blind step into the abyss of possibility and faithfully knowing that I will land in some amazing place pregnant with discovery.

The bird sings

And so it is that everyone left and we stay behind in absolute tranquility, lazy existence as the morning sets in. The bird sings daringly and loudly hiding in some tree branch that I cannot see. This is me, loud but faceless, hiding behind curtains of behaviors that I display but which are not a reflection of all I am. Just a fraction of being.

I am not sure if what I feel is the ultimate determination to emerge from within or the lazy despondency of just letting go swimming against the current.

I want to strip myself of all the facades that keep me from existing openly and freely. I want to stand in the highest branch and proudly sing to the world that wants to listen, and nothing else matters. Only the serenity of existing.

Being

Is there a point in talking? Firstly, you are made to feel insignificant as a culture! You look for support around but all you get are laughs, ignorant commentary and the attitude that you are too insipid,

Then you still try to mingle, but all you get is this attitude that, as a woman, you are not even allowed to have your own mind about the world, never mind telling of your own experiences! Your experiences are your husbands experiences! Your mind does not exist because you are too insignificant and mindless to even think! And if you, rather keep quiet so that you don’t perturb the system!

I have never been a feminist! On the contrary, I do agree that a woman is a woman and a man is a man! We both have our values, our benefits and our not so good sides. I don’t want to see man trying to be feminine and I certainly hate woman trying to be masculine!

But do not treat me like an object you have found lost and paralyzed in life, which you just breath upon to give life! So what if other woman around are different? Must I seize to exist, even if for brief moments, so that others don’t feel uncomfortable and your manhood comes out intact?

Speaking for what!? My silence should speak a thousands words…

Stillness

I know this feeling, the Africa heat of an autumn afternoon, the indigenous vegetation seemingly safe but pregnant of life. The voices of workers breaking the silence. This is engraved in my DNA. I know this stillness of Africa, comfortably familiar.

Sunrise

The sun rises above the sea, orange and bright! We are getting ready to play golf. There’s nothing like a family golf morning, the quietude and magnificent beauty of Zimbali golf course is an instant energy recharge.