xai-xai

when i was a kid, my winter holidays were spent in Lisbon.
when i was a kid, my winters were cold.
when i was a kid my christmas day i wore a sweater... and tights, and boots, and a coat.
when i was a kid, my new year's eve, when i was allowed to stay awake, was freezing cold (well at the time i thought that was the coldest i'd live), but everything was in Lisbon.

my daddy, on the other hand, spent his winter holidays in Xai-Xai.
my daddy would drive north out of Lourenço Marques, enter the Province of Gaza, probably like us buy some cajunuts on the way by the road (or probably not, but by the way they're yummy), cross the Limpopo river bridge (you only pay it on the way south) and arrive to a little paradise on a hill where the horizon is very far away.
my daddy as a kid had his summer holidays in what would later be my winter.
my daddy as a kid spent his christmas days swimming in the Indian Ocean.
my daddy as a kid would transfer to Xai-Xai to the little house on the hill built by his daddy.
my daddy... (uffa, how frustrating...) was allowed to be awake on New Year's Eve, the Xai-Xai hotel looking over on the great big ocean, and kms of sand would probably help you make childish dreams and hopes for the new year come true...

jeaulous?

yes daddy, i am... i was and now i'm even more. no matter how abbandoned the hotel looked, and how many times you'll tell me, "it was different in those days" i'm still jeaulous. the house is still there, i saw it, i for 10 minutes stood in that garden and saw the Indian Ocean just like i believe you had back in the days... i loved it...

no house in the Algarve will ever have that effect. and no Christmas holiday in Portugal will ever be like those you lived in Xai-Xai.

by the way... maybe we could just buy the house from whoever has it now and just move there, all of us... we could live off of the fishes A.T. catches, and my children would have the same images you had.
i'll make the plans, you convince grandma!