La Promesse de l'Aube, de Romain Gary

The more I read from Romain Gary and his pseudonym Emile Ajar, the more I like him and admire him. His writing is just too beautiful, the stories and characters moving, making one feel really good and optimistic about the potential humanity in people (even if, oddly enough, he killed himself). I was literally delighted all through the reading of La Promesse de l'Aube, as I had been reading La Vie Devant Soi, Les Cerfs-Volants and L'Angoisse du Roi Salomon. Also enjoyed immensely his sound mind in La Nuit Sera Calme. I'm just glad there are other books by him I didn't read; something to look forward to.

Journal, by André Gide

André Gide is someone I've come across many times, as a writer who has had great influence on other writers. I read some of his books - I can't remember much of La Porte Étroite or Les Faux Monnayeurs, that I read many years ago, but I liked a lot Les Caves du Vatican and Corydon, that I've read more recently. But I was wonderfully impressed by his Journal. Reading it, I felt like there was someone who felt as I did. It was most interesting witnessing his evolution, his evolving feelings. I loved the way his feelings resonated with my own. His was such a sensible mind. I really wish there were other sound minds like his.

Mindelo - last days

Back to Mindelo, enjoying the restaurants, the music, the memories. The fish market, so lively and genuine, the African market with the immigrants from Guinea. And best of all, our friends from the old times – the lovely D. Ondina who treated us to a Cape Vertian tea with cuscus and lots of delicious pastries, and Maria da Luz, in whose house we had a wonderful lunch of cachupa, cheese pudding and cold hibiscus tea. They were all so welcoming and nice.

So, I really enjoyed this trip to Cape Vert. It was nice to see again the places I remembered from my childhood, to see a country coming of age, to meet friends. And to listen to mornas and feel the morabeza!

Santo Antão

We went for a day trip to Santo Antão, the greenest island in the archipelago. Long gone – fortunately – are the days of Nauta and Carvalho, the boats that used to make the crossing, extremely unsafe and untrustworthy (it was not uncommon for people to fall overboard or for the boat to turn around due to the wind); now there are good ferries that cross the channel between Mindelo and Porto Novo in 40 minutes and with no hazards.
I had been to Santo Antão before, also on a day trip, and remembered it as a most beautiful and magical place (probably also because I was living in the dry São Vicente then). And it lived to its reputation – it’s indeed a magically beautiful place. We hired a guide recommended by a friend in S. Vicente, and it was a perfect choice (Nhô Adelino d'Garça) – he was funny and helpful, we talked a lot and learned so much about the island, its stories and folklore, and shared memories of old songs.

Santo Antão is a remarkable volcanic island – one crosses the mountains and reach lush and green valleys, with banana trees, acacias, sugar cane plantations, where they produce the grogue, the spirit so characteristic of Cape Vert. We tasted it at a trapiche, where lovely girls tended the shop. Ribeira Grande – the same in the song Nhô Anton Escaderode – is a lovely little town where we had lunch listening to two girls rehearsing their singing, as is Ponta do Sol, with its quaint colonial buildings.

From there we went to the Fontainhas village, rated by some as one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. It’s indeed beautiful, the old road is impressive, and we gave a ride to a few kids back from school at Ribeira Grande – they usually walk several miles to their villages.
Santo Antão is a land of contrasts – the lush valleys and the barren hills, impressive mountains and rugged coasts. It would be wonderful to stay there for a few days and do some hiking along those mountains – even with my fear of heights.

São Vicente - looking for remains of the past

This being a kind of down-the-memory-lane trip, I was of course anxious to see the places I remembered from my childhood – and I was somewhat fearful that, since I was not yet 9 when I left, I wouldn’t recognize any of them. I was actually surprised how accurate my memories were. My old school was no more, a new building is in its place. But the Pracinha with its bandstand, the palace with its spiral staircase and the terrace, the eagle by the harbor, the Leão’s drugstore, were exactly as I remembered them (curiously, I had no memory whatsoever of the Belém tower replica).

I felt especially thrilled when I found the places where we used to live. The old army officers’ mess is now a university, our old apartments became classrooms, and the dining room – where I spent so many hours looking at a reproduction of Brueghel’s Peasant Wedding – and the living room now auditoriums. But the building is the same, even if now surrounded by villas of doubtful taste, where once were bare hills where we used to play. And the old three cannons were still there, one of them turned sideways to make room for a sculpture representing Baltasar Lopes’ books.
And our old house was still standing! Recently renovated, it was much uglier than it used to be, but they kept the inside plan, the cleaning woman was there and let us in, and how strange it was to see again the old verandah/living room, our bedrooms, the back yard and the front garden, I could picture our dear German Shepard there, the bed where I used to read, the kitchen where once lobsters jumped out of boiling water, the place where once a cockroach crawled inside my sandal scaring the living daylights out of me…

My mother and sister were lavishly received at the high school where they had been teacher and student. The teachers were extremely nice and deferential towards my mother, and the students were lively and funny. The name changed, but the building is the same.

We rented a car to go to Baía das Gatas, the beach where we used to go on weekends. The road is new and fairly good; leaving Mindelo was not that easy, due to a lack of road signs, and we were somewhat shocked by the poverty of the city outskirts, contrasting with the relative prosperity of the centre. We stopped at Salamansa – the beach still wild and beautiful, the village still very poor, although we didn’t see goats with a tin can on their necks as there used to be.

Baía das Gatas was a huge disappointment. What used to be a vibrant beach is now a deserted and forlorn place, not only it seems much smaller but also mostly abandoned and neglected – I guess that’s because there is now the beautiful Lajinha beach in Mindelo, so people don’t have to go to Baía das Gatas as they used to when it was the nearest white sand and protected beach.

On the other hand, the drive to the São Pedro fishing village was lovely. The place is beautiful, the lighthouse we had seen from the plane upon landing is on a fantastic setting. Fishermen had just come from the sea, big tunas were unloaded, old women were repairing fishing nets, stray dogs were roaming the beach, teenagers were talking and cooling in the shade, cats dozed, a couple of children were helping their elders. And the sun was setting and the whole place was just beautiful.