The trip to Calheta in the words of Telma ...

"Iolanda,

I was fortunate enough to have been brought up in a family where the verb to share  was compulsory in our day-to-day routine. When I set up a family of my own this verb kept on being inflected and with a heartflet smile I have been noticing my daughters still keep on sharing the little they have with the ones who haven't much.

This is simply to say I have always co-habited with poverty close by and because of being used to watching it left Lisbon on my way to Calheta de São Miguel expecting to face that well known reality and thus being prepared for any situation therewith associated.

I was completely wrong.

I didn't find poverty nor did I meet anyone hungry.

What I saw were unfinished houses as opposed to degrading ones ... I met people who live their daily lives taking advantage of the little they have and valuing anything and every situation.

I came across Women-Children and Men-Children, once Children-Children is a luxuy they can't afford.

I have played, talked and wandered about with those children and in doing so realised the tenderness with which they mentioned you, the story books you had given them and even the theatrical play they had learned and staged under your direction, whose unrehearsed "out of stage" performance I had the pleasure of watching.

I loved to have met "our" children. They deserve everything we might be able to do for them.

I left Calheta in a pondering and stunning-like attitude, and on the way back home concluded that life had again shown me I had a lot more to learn than to teach.

Let us not try to change their values ... Let us "enrich" their life experiences by adding a touch of colour and widening their horizons instead ...

Thank you for having allowed me into your project.

I want to keep on being part of "this new family" ...

Telma"