Posted in Uncategorized
Praça de Figueira, Lisbon: lunch break has just finished and everybody is hurrying back to their jobs. Everyone except the tourists sitting in the cafés, a few birds pecking at crumbs, and some old men loitering in the park. We are here to talk to the African immigrant community about their journey to Europe, but it’s not an easy task.
Copyright Alexandra Bertrand
We try approaching some people, but most of them only speak Portuguese and are not friendly to us – three white smiling students asking for an interview in English. We’d like to know something about their living conditions, but it seems that no one will talk to us. Until we find a young man from Angola, who introduces us to his friends. We invite them to talk in a café: talking is easier with some refreshing drinks.
John Baley Wiston is a healthy man. His hands are strong, but his eyes are gentle and his voice is pure. He has a lot to say and finally he found someone who is interested in the hell he lives in. He’s 43, but he looks older. Life hasn’t been easy on him since he arrived in Portugal in 1993, on June 6. He remembers this day very well as he arrived from Liberia, a formal British colony with a name full of hope. I ask him why he didn’t move to England instead and he simply replies: “I came here by coincidence, I had no choice. It was during the war in Liberia. The only way to save your life was to jump on any wagon, so I came here by boat. It took two weeks”. Even though he has been a legal resident since 1997, John doesn’t feel Portuguese: “The emotions, background and mentality are different”.
Like many male African immigrants in Lisbon, Wiston works in construction as a labourer. The work of a labourer is dangerous and involves little financial security: “Many people die, but if you refuse to do something, they fire you. These are only temporary jobs and it happens that we don’t receive any money for the work we have done”. Supervisors are called “gargados” and their strategy is trying to shy away from their responsibilities: “They have no respect, they intimidate you and abuse you, telling you any type of things”, says John, “They make you feel like a slave”. Labour unions exist, but they can’t work if workers first don’t speak out. “Africans from Portuguese colonies never speak out. They are scared, they’ve never been used to having labour rights. Africans from British colonies don’t behave like this. But if we are divided, as workers and as Africans, we will never change things”. Sometimes the government organises security checks, but they’re insufficient.
Copyright An-Sofie Kesteleyn
John lost all his family in Liberia, and hasn’t been able to go back and visit his homeland, nor can he afford to move forward with his life and start a new family. He is stuck in time, a prisoner of a dreadful situation. If he had the opportunity to study and learn something, if Portugal gave him this chance, things would be different. He would like to have his own business, he would find his own way, anything which could make him independent. Then he would send money to his country. “I’m forced to do my job. There’s nothing I can do here. It’s not question of liking it or not.” If he could say something to the European Union, he would say: “There are so many Africans who could be engineers, lawyers, because they studied, but they don’t have the opportunity. If you don’t want all these immigrants to come here without any role, you have to start solving the problem from the roots. You don’t have to think about Africans here, but you have to help Africans in Africa. They need technologies, schools and hospitals. Without money they can’t do anything. My generation has problems, the forth generation will have more and more problems. Poverty is not a natural thing, it’s a man made thing, caused by capitalism”.
John is charismatic, full of information, and is always smiling, even though inside he is sad: “I feel like I am handicapped by this senseless world”. But he trusts in the next generation of Europeans – maybe the future will be better. For the moment, he has to face reality. “The most important thing is to find a form of relief for yourself. I find it in faith and in music: ‘If music be the food of love, give me excess of it that suffice the appetite’: it’s Shakespeare.” I ask him to write the quote on my notebook, because I can’t remember it. His hand shivers, the letters are barely legible.
Ilaria Lonigro
The glamorous attractions of Lisbon tend to hide away the real life inside them. Sometimes, living the boulevards and having a glimpse on the narrow streets, parallel with the wide boulevard is like watching a reality show, taking place in a studio with no recording cameras. The two sides of a story are best shown by chance and by having luck as your guide. This is a short glimpse of such a reality show.
Copyright Alexandra Mihale
Marcques de Pombal simply stays there on his bed-plate, close to the city centre, facing the Rio Taja, just like a sailor on top of his Galley’s mast, looking for land after a long journey. It is the most impressive monument in the area, perfect to play the role of block-start for any itinerary in Lisbon.
Heads, towards the Avenida da Liberdade, living Marcques behind. The Avenida is heading towards the Atlantic, dammed up by old palm and chestnut trees. It is one of the main arteries that link the rest of Lisbon to its heart, the Baixa.
The tourists seem to mind nothing but their cameras while some policemen are solving a traffic jam caused by a small accident near the Eduardo the 7th Park. A day as any other; around, the city minds its own business. You are one of many.
Further into the “Liberdade”. Next to a bank, some businessmen seem to have forgotten about the green light and keep on doing their math out loud. They are not foreigners but also speak words few understand. Here and there, strangers kindly take the pictures of foreign lovers, when asked to. The tired rest their feet lying on the benches. Pigeons do the same thing, sitting on the heads of some famous writers long passed away.
Copyright Alexandra Mihale
When Liberdade meets Alegria, it’s tales. Left. Here, the boulevards’ glamour disappears swiftly, while the traffic noise dissolves into ragged walls covered more by drying clothes than plaster. It may seem uncanny but Lisbon’s flavour does not disappear. Here begins the middle-class life, protected from the tourists that invade the city, just like a swarm of clicking insects, taking photos one after another.
Here, instead of photo-cameras, people walk with groceries bags in their hands, while backpacks are only worn by the little-ones returning back from school. Luis and his family are standing in front of their house, enjoying lunch, in the space left free by a car that parted from the sidewalk provisory parking lot. They’re having fish.
“We stay like this when we are all at home. This is fish. It is good”, Luis says, while his wife laughs loudly of her husbands’ attempt to speak a foreign language. The “sight” of English seems to attract some other people and pairs of eyes to appear in the windows like some portrait exhibition framed by an unconventional artist.
Heads, Tales, Tales, Heads. The Miradouro de S. Pedro de Alcantara appears. Here, autumn feels at home, amongst the continental trees undressing their leaves. The city seems to belong to the tourists again. Clicks everywhere, sometimes rookie flashes. Sitting on a bench, in a part of the Miradouro where ripple of the fountain water replaces the clicks, Simon writes his lessons.
He is from London, and came to Lisbon a few years ago, as a teacher. “I never thought I’d stay here. But the city got to me. It will be a hard decision to make, the one of returning home. I am here for two years and already start feeling at home”, says the 27 year-old English teacher, looking towards the Baixa, which seems so silent from above.
Copyright Alexandra Mihale
Heads, Tales, Heads, doesn’t matter. The grilled like streets of the Baixa always take you to the same place after a while. Although confusing it’s quite impossible to get lost. Tourists swarming everywhere, terraces, cafés and bars packed up with people, eager to have a taste of the Portuguese Alenquer, Bucelas or Porto wine, and why not, Sagres Beer or Sangria. All these, on the fade sound of Fado music, sang out through the speakers set up on a classical car on the Rua da Prata. Genuine Portuguese music bringing smiles of satisfaction on hundreds of lips talking God knows how many other languages.
Slightly Heads and then high above, in the café on top of Santa Justa Tower, Leonardo sings his part. Wearing a warm coloured T-shirt, with the guitar in one hand and a soft, rather feminine voice, he brings smiles and buoyancy between the couples or the tourists enjoying their afternoons on top of downtown Lisbon. He sings about love, in it’s own language, spoken both here and back home, in Brazil. Although most of the people there don’t understand his words, everybody seems to get the idea. And this makes Leonardo happy. “Beautiful voice”, said in more than one language is being said while going down the iron stairs of Santa Justa. Then, it’s tales again, for the last time: the Rossio Square. This lively, broad square makes up the lungs of Baixa. Many choose it as a starting point of an itinerary guided by chance on the streets of Lisbon.
Adrian M. Popa
Posted in Travel
“It’s so big you can’t fit it in your mouth! – It’s so small you can’t see it!”. Boys and girls shout at each other across the street in quiet, residential Lisbon during the “praxes” or initiation ceremony for the first year students at Escola Superior de Communicacao Social (ESCS). The new students, or “caloiros”, are led by senior students in chants, some full of blatant sexual innuendo and crass competitiveness.
Copyright Alexandra Mihale
Nelson Chantre, a second year student at ESCS helps me to unravel this vibrant ritual, as the colourfully painted students dance and shout around us. The caloiros are separated into four teams and adorned with frivolous costumes – mafia, pirates, zombies or Mexicans – and spend a week battling it out in a celebration designed to welcome them to their new life as a university student.
For the senior students, who are also the organisers of the ceremony, the dress code is a much more serious matter. Whilst they fully participate in the celebrations they must also dress in a strict uniform – black trousers or skirt, a white shirt and specially tailored waistcoat and jacket. Most also wear the “capa”, a special cape which (occasionally lovingly decorated with badges) which they wear over their left shoulder. ‘Why the left shoulder?’ I hear you ask. “Because it is near my heart”, Nelson explains. For Nelson, this ceremony is not just about getting drunk and singing nursery rhymes – it is also a symbolic ceremony marking entry into a new system of rules, and a new way of life. “ The uniforms that we wear symbolise that we are all equal, but we must also teach the students to have respect for the rules, and respect for the school”.
Copyright Alexandra Mihale
The caleiros have a lot to learn, in this game of symbols and subtle signals. Scratching the surface, I discovered that if you are wearing your jacket, your “capa” must not be more than 10m from you. Also, one button undone on your waistcoat means you are single, two buttons undone and you are spoken for (certainly useful information).
Still, what is the point in all this ceremony? As the students begin dancing the ‘party train’ there is no doubt that they are having a good time and getting to know each other better (if perhaps a little too well), but why all the crazy costumes and shouting? “Integration” says Joana Goncalves, who is joined by her fellow Zombie and Pirate, “Without this ceremony we would feel like outsiders around each other” Francisco Inacio adds. Even Vanessa Duarte, a seemingly shy 18 year-old, admits, “the sexual songs make me feel normal with everyone – we are not embarrassed!”
Copyright Alexandra Mihale
The praxes ceremony certainly puts “Fresher’s Week” in the UK to shame – getting drunk and getting laid seem to be the two main purposes of our ‘ceremonies’. Yet in Portugal, the aim is rather to break down barriers between young people with diverse interests and backgrounds in a fun and sociable way. Whilst in Holland some universities have degrading ceremonies in order to initiate students into cliquey ‘fraternities’, in Portugal the point is to make everyone seem approachable. Comparing European culture is not a task I would like to assume, but whilst watching the colourful caloiros, I couldn’t help but feel like I had missed out on an important life milestone.
Tanyella Allison
Posted in Travel
How can you travel worldwide without a lot of money for hotels? The new generation has the answer: hostels!
Copyright Thomas Alboth
A night at a hostel is sometimes eight times cheaper than at a hotel. The average price in Europe is around 15 euro per day. The biggest difference between hotels and hostels is that at a hostel you rent just a bed, not a room. You often stay in rooms where there are 4, 8 or 12 bunk beds.
“I’ve been in the army for 2 years and now I have to chill out, so I’m travelling through Europe”, says Chen Winter (21) from Israel who next week will start her job as a librarian. She is actually staying in Scotland at the moment, where she is already in her seventh hostel. “I don’t have enough money for the Ritz, but I want to travel so I just have one option: a hostel”, she laughs.
Hostels offer more integration programmes than hotels. The Budget Backpackers hostel in Edinburgh, where Chen has spent 2 days, organises daily free city tours for their customers and social evenings at a traditional Scottish pub in the city centre.
“The biggest problem with hostels is that it may happen that you have to share a room with strangers” – says Ilaria (21), a student from Toscana who stayed at hostels in Italy, Norway and Portugal. She had just one bad experience at a hostel she visited in Rome. “That was really horrible. I was in a room with Mexican boys who didn’t take a shower and they left their socks on the floor.” Ilaria usually chooses hostels when she wants to save money. “The quality differs from country to country and from hostel to hostel, but in general I was really happy with hostels.”
Of course security can sometimes be a problem. Damiano, a 27-year-old PhD student from Bologna, has been staying at hostels for seven years. He has been in Great Britain, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, US and in Portugal where he was a victim of theft. “Somebody has stolen my camera, digital recorder, glasses and electric shaver. When the police came, I was told to go to the police station but they said that there was nothing they could do about it..”
“Hostels are not just a means of shelter, they’re a life style”, says Ania (24), a student from Poland. She has stayed in many hostels throughout Europe and met a lot of open, friendly and “crazy” people who don’t worry about the hostel’s condition or size. Her favourite hostel is located in the Latvian capital of Riga. “I met a guy there who is only responsible for the atmosphere at the hostel. He is talking with everybody and making you feel like home.”
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Marcin Antosiewicz
Posted in Travel
Pumping hip hop beats are filling a run-down gymnasium in the old centre of Lisbon. We can feel the heat and the smell of sweat in the air when we walk in. A group of guys with muscular bodies are doing “headspins”, “turtles” and “windmills” across the floor – the acrobatic moves of the “Formula Armada” breakdance crew.
Copyright Yannick Brusselmans
There are 10 people in the group between the ages of 18 and 28 from all over the world: Angola, Brazil, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland, who all live in the close suburbs of Portugal’s capital. The “B-Boys”, which the dancers refer themselves as got to know each other through friends and breakdancing events, and now they meet two times a week for training.
One of the founders of the group is Wilson Magalhaes, a 21 year old Angolan, who started dancing at the age of 9, imitating his older brother Owaldo and his uncle who were also performing. “But my biggest idol is Michael Jackson” he comments. Together with his brother Owaldo he founded the group “Formula Armada” in 2004. The main idea behind the group is to have a positive impact on young people and to find a way to cope with the struggles of life. “We are like a family”, says Wilson and stresses that, “everybody is an equal member”.
Copyright Yannick Brusselmans
Maria, 27, is one of the two “B-Girls” of the crew. For seven months she has practiced with “Formula Armada” after she met the crew at a national Breakdance championship. She was adamant that she had no problem keeping up with the boys, even though breakdancing is a very athletic and powerful sport – she keeps the boys in line.
At the moment the group is developing a unique style and they are becoming more widely known, both in Lisbon and beyond. Since winning some national competitions and even appearing on national Portuguese television now they regularly get booked for events and shows. Wilson tells proudly that they have started to earn some money with dancing and that they also obtained some sponsorship. Right now they are touring across Portugal with a Hip-Hop Formation named “Makongo”.
More info: www.myspace.com/formulaarmada.
Breakdance is a dance style which was originally performed in the streets and which is known as a part of the hip hop movement. It was first danced by African American and Puerto Rican youths in Manhattan and the South Bronx of New York City during the early 1970s. Normally it is danced to Pop, Funk and Hip Hop music.
It is said that Breakdance or B-Boying was an alternative for the youth apart from the violence of urban street gangs. The Breakdance culture is known to be free of any race, gender or age boundaries and today it is a worldwide practised and accepted dance style.
Manuel Rhode
Posted in Culture
Fado undoubtedly is Portugal’s most famous music. The mournful tunes and lyrics usually performed by one singer and one or more guitar players can be heard in the taverns of Lisbon’s working class bairros every night. According to Portuguese Fado enthusiasts this music is probably the oldest folk music in the world, however it is not music for only old people.
Copyright Damiano Razzoli
In the beautiful narrow streets of the Alfama quarter of Lisbon, big-lettered signs with the promise “Fado tonight” on them grace the front of every tavern. A young Portuguese woman with long black hair and brown eyes talks to tourists who meander through Alfama. With her black t-shirt and stylish jeans, she does not look any different from other young women in Europe. But when she closes her eyes and starts to sing, her music goes right into your heart, touches your soul and suddenly you understand that the lady standing right in front of you is really special. Raquel Tavares (23) is one of the most popular young Fado singers in Portugal.
“I started singing Fado when I was five years old”, the Fadista says. “I performed in the bars and I loved it.” Asked why she started to sing the Portuguese traditional music Tavares answers “I just had to”, and explains: “You cannot learn Fado, you have to have it in you.” Raquel Tavares grew up in Alfama within half a kilometre’s distance from the “House of Fado”, a museum dedicated to the Portuguese music, so her career as a Fadista does not seem surprising but rather predestined. It was actually not her parents who brought her to Fado though. “My mother is a Fado singer as well, but she started later than I did. So she came to know Fado through me, not the other way round”, the multitalented artist who won the Portuguese version of ´Dancing with the Stars´ says. Since the age of 18 Raquel has been a professional Fadista performing all over Europe and also in the US. She is very proud of the characteristic music of Portugal. “It is our culture, our tradition. We have to show you what we have.”
Copyright Diletta Pignedoli
Although Raquel is a member of a new generation of young Fado singers, she does not like the experimental Fado which is mixed with other music styles. “I do not believe in the new Fado”, she firmly says. Apparently that does not harm her popularity among young people. According to her, the age spectrum of her fans is wide and there are young and old people who come to hear her sing. “We have very young songwriters and very young poets as well”, the Fadista stresses.
Asked about the secret of Fado 23-year-old Tavares explains: “Fado is a way of being in life, but the most important thing is emotion. Many people do not understand one word of what I am singing about, but they feel my feelings.” Her songs thus mostly are about feelings, emotions and life and also about her hometown. “Lisbon is my inspiration”, the beautiful woman tells. As sharing your feelings with strangers sounds very intimate one might think it is hard to perform in front of a big crowd. Raquel though prefers a big audience to a little one: “I love to sing in front of many people. It is way harder for me to do it in front of a small group.” A success for the young lady is when she sees that she could really touch the hearts and souls of her listeners: “If I make you cry, I am happy”, the Fadista says.
Sabine Stang
Posted in Culture
“Pardal pardo, porque palras – Grey sparrow, why do you chatter away?”, Vanise Amaral reads out and looks expectantly at the faces of her students. “Pardal pardo, porgue palras”, they dutifully repeat the tongue twister. Amaral’s students however are not kindergarten kids but grown up students who decided to spend one or two Erasmus semesters in Lisbon.
In room F1 of the “Universidade Lusíada de Lisbon” about ten pairs of eyes look more or less attentively at Portuguese teacher Vanise Amaral. Ewa from Poland sits next to Elena from Italy, and while in the last row, Riina from Finland looks fresh and well-rested, Daniel from Germany has to fight his tiredness. It is eight o’clock on a Friday morning, time for the new Erasmus students of the Lusíada University to begin their Portuguese class for beginners. For three weeks the students have been following the lectures, one more week lies ahead. Still, it is not easy for them to talk to the inhabitants of their new hometown.
“Yesterday I tried to speak Portuguese with a taxi driver. He did not really understand me and I did not really understand him, but nevertheless it was nice”, Smaranda Alexandrescu laughs. She was born in Romania, grew up in Luxembourg and now studies in Brussels. Since all the university classes of the 23-year-old are held in Portuguese she is very confident that it will improve soon: “I just have to get through it”. Riina Kaartamo (27) from Finland also believes that she will make progress: “I live together with a Portuguese woman. Until now we actually talk in English, but we will start to speak in Portuguese soon.”
Although all students of Vanise Amaral’s class agree that Portuguese is not an easy language to learn, their problems differ. “For me the ‘sh, sh, sh’ is the most difficult”, says Elena Bartolozzo from Italy as she grimaces and makes sibilant sounds. Her neighbour Ewa Pol from Poland disagrees: “That is easy for me because we have that in Polish as well. I think it’s hard that one word can have so many meanings.”
Although she admits that her students would get along fine with English in Lisbon, Amaral nevertheless thinks that it is good that they learn it. “I don’t think it is so important, because English is a great way to communicate. But Portuguese people like it when people speak their language.” For student Ewa Pol, there was no question that she would take Portugese classes. “I am staying here for one year and for me it would be a shame, if I didn’t speak a word of Portuguese after that”, the 23-year-old architecture student says.
In her twelve years of teaching students from different European countries, Vanise Amaral has noticed that there are differences between different countries. “People from the North are often shyer than people from the South, Italians for example are more open”, she says. After all, no matter where the students come from, to learn Portuguese they all have to work hard. Asked for the secret of how to learn the language as fast as possible, Amaral says says: “The best way is to try to speak to Portuguese, to try to communicate with people and read the news. But of course you have to learn the grammar too”, she says almost a bit apologetically.
Sabine Stang
Posted in Society
“Who wants to do an article on Africans in Portugal?” In a room full of European journalists a wave of hands go up. But why are we so interested in this topic? Is it just that we are looking for “colour” for our articles? Do we simply want to find some striking cultural differences to impress our readers? Or perhaps only a tag line for a spicy shocking lead?
Copyright An-Sofie Kesteleyn
For me, the question of immigration is at the heart of what the European Youth Press stands for. Our aim is not only to create awareness of the work of the European Parliament, and issues that are topical in individual member states, but also to forge a European identity: What is a European? How can the European Union facilitate the integration of so many cultures?
Samm’s story is a case in point. The 29-year-old has lived in Portugal for 16 years, but now feels lost and helpless in the country he fled to in 1992 to escape the war in Liberia. He was lucky – eventually he was granted a visa which allowed him to get a job. He worked in construction as an unskilled labourer like many of his fellow Liberians – dangerous, poorly paid, irregular work – but still he felt like he had a chance. Yet in 2004 his employer cheated him out of his taxes, and when he went to renew his visa he was refused: “The last time I had legal papers was in 2005. I told the SEF [Portuguese Ministry for Immigration] what had happened but they didn’t care about my problems. They made it harder for me. Here in Portugal they don’t have people who care.” Now Samm relies on his friends to help him out, “I won’t go and take money from the social service, I can’t do this, I have more dignity than that”.
Copyright An-Sofie Kesteleyn
The helplessness of Samm’s situation is painfully ironic: “Now I have to pay the taxes that I owe the state so I can have my visa re-instated” Samm explains, “but I don’t have the money because I am not working. And I can’t work until I have my visa – it is enough to make you go crazy.” According to Samm, the European Union is not doing enough in Portugal, although in other countries the situation is better. “The EU is doing a lot for immigrants in Holland and Spain”, he remarks. Does he feel like a European? “I feel like I have a right to be here, after all these years. I just want a stable life. If I could do anything, I would work as an interior designer. I could have had a family by now but I can’t even support myself”. He strokes his hair where the strands of grey are beginning to show.
Across the city in a quiet residential neighbourhood, Nelson Chantre, a bright-eyed, well-dressed student, is taking part in the initiation of the new students at his university. His father came from Cape Verde when he was just 17, settled and married a Portuguese lady, and Nelson was born in Portugal. “I feel an affiliation to Cape Verde but I am Portuguese. People here are beginning to feel like Europeans too,” he tells me. To me, Nelson is the epitome of the “new generation” of Europeans that are a part of our collective identity. He is a second generation immigrant, but he is also a European, and like many of us, he looks beyond the borders of Portugal and sees a bright future for himself in Europe.
Samm’s story could have been different – he could also have a son Nelson’s age, who is looking to the future. Instead, he is trapped in time, unable to move forward with his life and achieve his potential. Yet Nelson is testament to the fact that integration is possible, and desirable. Our European identity can be greatly enriched by those who by accident of language, war or colonisation in their home country, come to Europe for a brighter future.
Tanyella Allison
Posted in Society
