beira 01

this won't be an easy post to write... too much information and too much pressure on making Beira sound like the best place we were in on our trip. well truth has it's way of creaping up on you and i cannot lie.

if i had to give an Oscar for surprise, then Beira would have it, definetely. It's not a busy, busy city like Maputo, maybe even a bit too stresless, too quiet, too small, but Beira is from another time, Beira wasn't created for 2007, it was made in 1907 and it keeps it's 10' and 20's look.
if you've ever been to Portugal dos Pequeninos in Portugal you'll know what i'm saying when i say that Beira, has a different scale, in all aspects.

I just can't get pass that wonderful smell of fruit trees, of the ocean right at your door step, houses that look old but so charmful, people who smile as you walk by without trying to sell things you'll never use, SUMOL on outside "esplanadas"'s tables, pastéis de nata made in the Riviera, beter than any other i've tasted... except the Belém ones of course (still portuguese!).

Beira is a... feminine city, just like Maputo would by my standards, be without a doubt a much more masculine place. Beira is feminine because when the wind blows, all the trees move like a light 1920's dress would, slowly. Maybe that is because i grew up with no other than 4 Beira women, it should be 5, but my dad's sister was only born there and moved when she was 3 to Lourenço Marques and declares herself completely "laurentina" (she's probably now telling herself that she won't get me anything for my birthday because i just said Beira is better!), and they are from different generations but to me Beira suited them perfectly.

there was another "woman" in Beira that made me sigh, the Central Train Station. well, we had to fight to be able to get these photos, ridiculously I had to use my influent family to be able to go to the director of the station and tell him that his boss allowed me to take photos... and surprising enough it worked. i swear i never used family this way... hmmm actually i did, when i had a blue card that allowed me to park anywhere, but anyway... (can't talk about it). they melted before me and allowed me to be by myself with A.T. in this amazing, empty, simple atrium where probably once had hundreds of people catching trains and now sadly is forgotten. they're doing a very good job in repairing the railway tracks all over Mozambique but the trains still don't move, and to this day there are no "people's trains" in this gigantic country. sadly... i'd prefer having travelled a bit on those trains, my grandfather would've loved it.
soon... i hope soon.

there are a lot of intelectual architectural phrases i could linger on with about this station, but the picture, i believe, speak for themselves. i tried so hard to capture that beautiful emptyness... i can't put all of them in here but maybe once you'll have time to sit with me and look at them carefully.
as i said before the women who grew up with me are from different generations, my grandmother (the pilot) and her sister, my mother and her sister (there a few more but not on a birthday and christmas basis), there are about 30 years separating them, and of course things were probably very different for each, but i bet they saw somethings the same way... or at least the same things... some of which i saw like they still remembered, others not really...

the Cathedral is back to it's original color, (next to the Radio PAX buildind and the Artes e Oficios School, on the radio they use to play "menina salta para as minhas costas"!!! translation by the deejay of the song "baby come back" it used to crack me up when my mom told me this story with "black/protuguese" accent!!!) my mother saw it 3 years ago and it was old and let go, but this year they repaint it and it's pure white, it was nice to get married there, right grandma? my mother's and aunt's former high school is still standing, grandious and still separated between boys and girls, who by the way have kept their side of the building spot clean and tidy. some of the girls asked me a lot of questions about Lisbon, about what it was like for my mother to study there, if i liked Beira, if i'd been to the beach because turists loved the beach eventhough they themselves never go there, if i and my husband (A.T. i presume) had children waiting for us back in Lisbon... and most of all they said something that i will keep forever with me "aaaahhh é tão bonita, parece uma actriz de telenovela"... ya, i know, it's hard for me! (ok, it's not from the cinema, it's just soap opera, but still, the idea was the beautiful part) ;)

i found Aunt Dana Michaelis on a restaurant wall, it's good to see family like that, she's been gone for a while now, but her drawings are spread out amongst art galleries, museums, family houses and in our hearts. it was amazing to see such a beautiful drawing, from one of her best works, the Mozambique collection in pen drawing.

and of course other buildings around town, where people use to shop, where people use to take sunday walks, such as the municipal square, or the walk toward the lighthouse where now a few abbandoned buildings creep up on you, and the mitical Grande Hotel, with it's own world inside, noone knows how many people now live there, but i counted from my far away standing point at least 5 trees, green and small, still, but so strong growing in between the walls of this massif building. apparently it use to be luxurious, it use to be magnificent, it didn't last long, the pool though, where now people wash their clothes in the water that is provided by the rain, was of public domain, but the building itself was always meant for the rich, well, i guess you should laugh at the contradictions of life sometimes, but this times, it's scary.

you wonder how they survive, the building eventhough still standing tall is loosing it's imponence, it's dying, the structure will one day give in, it windows are gone, the corridors bare, rats live amongst humans and you imagine what will happen... looking at it i knew in my heart we have to find a solution soon, those people one day will need something else, there are now 3 generations already living or have lived there, intire families, children who know nothing else. is there a sure solution? i have no clue, i hope maybe COOPI.it can help us find something to do, maybe they'll have ways of making it better. and i wanna go!