Summers past

by Ana

Furadouro, Ovar, Portugal

I lived on that beach the entire summer of 1976. Culture shock levels were still high, but living 100 meters from the beach was memorable. We were one of two groups of the extended offspring that had set roots in Mozambique. Everything about Portugal was different from Beira. I still remember the only black man in town. I suspect I was in denial about the permanence of the exodus from Mozambique. I learned to think of Furadouro as a piece of my family's history. I hold on to stories of the fishermen bringing in fish that supplied my grandmother's business, the smell of salt coming from the long vacant tanks in the "armazem". The cemetery was the final resting place of a long line of Troias. In Ovar I saw more elderly than ever before. Most of the family never left there. And me? Do I belong to one part of the world?