(...)
We headed back to the little fishing port to have lunch ... stopping along the way to admire the little bay and the village houses.
We had "caldo de peixe à moda da cidade Velha" (fish soup cidade Velha way) which was as delicious as it looked, followed by a dessert of "doce de papaia e queijo de cabra" (green papaia jam with goat cheese) ... equally delicious ...
We sat in the sun enjoying the last minutes in cidade Velha, once we had to get back to the pension on one of those outgoing "hiaces" and get ourselves ready to spend the last evening at Graça's before making it to the airport.
Any local drive, wheter it is in a "hiace" or any of those trucks open at the back where there seems to always be"available" space" for any extra passenger or passengers even if all the places are taken can be an adventure in itself, though the trips to cidade Velha and back were quite uneventful this time.
Once we got to Praia, we still had a stroll in the Plateau area with one last stop at Sofia's café where I met once more my rather special friend Zezito, and Henriqueta managed to send some e-mails (which are quite difficult, if not impossible to send from almost anywhere else).
We started our "slow descent" towards Varzea as if wanting to delay the inevitable return home ..."capturing" the last images of the city bustle, as children came out of school ...
Hundreds of "moving" uniforms, a reminder of how important education is and always will be, filled the streets as the sun was going down ...
As we were getting closer to the pension we started feeling this rather disturbing feeling Cape Verdians know so well ... wanting to stay yet having to go ...
And as we were packing the last things I noticed we were bringing quite a few packs of "milho cuchido", "feijão pedra", "bolacha da terra", coconut cakes and other "precious" local food the mothers of those we are helping had literally forced us to bring to the "godmothers who hadn't been able to travel to Cape Verde. ...
What a great lesson ...what a better world we might be living in if we shared what we have, similarly to those village women who shared with us the little they had ...
The rest of the evening was spent at Graça's, who after having worked at the Parliament all day long and a family to look after still found time to make us a special dinner ...
The wait at the airport before boarding the flight was spent talking to another amazingly "strong" young lady, Poliana, whom we met at the passport gate, whose unconditional love and courage to face the obstacles a rare disease one of her children has developed, as well as the prospect of an uncertain future, touched us all ...
(The end)
a nice lesson of life !!!
ReplyDeletekisses Muriel from France