A moment into the past shared with my own grandchildren: Life as a child in the Azores

Last year I had the opportunity to take my two oldest grandchildren to the street where I lived when I was a little girl. A street on a small island off the coast of Portugal, the village is Feteiras in Sao Miguel, Azores.  I explained to the kids that we all lived in that little house. The street is made up of houses made of cement and brick with a big field at the bottom of the hill. the field leads to the ocean.  Zachary wanted to know where did I play? Well, how to explain to children who have so many toys, video games, tablets, internet, televisions in every room that we did not have any of those things. How do you explain that we made our own toys out of sticks, rocks, dirt and that we played hide and seek and chased each other in that field?  We did not have a car, a bicycle, a skate board., or a scooter.  We walked everywhere including school. There was no school bus to take us to school. We walked to church every Sunday as a family. For family fun and fun with our neighbors the moms came together on the front step with a radio powered by batteries and listened to shows on the radio. I can't remember what the shows were, I imagine they were some kind of novella and sometimes it was music. The children played together in the street while the parents listened to their novellas. I do remember that often there were chickens running around too and we normally were barefoot as shoes were reserved for school and church. The babies were usually in the mothers arms and the men were often away working or if they were home, they were having their home made wine or moonshine. There are some memories of these times ending badly when dad or one of the other men would drink to much and treat their wives badly. That was pretty common. Women were not treated very well by their husbands. It took many years  (weigh into adult hood),  before I was able to understand that this was cultural and socioeconomic. It was a hard life for families. 

I did get to go in that little house on one of my visits a few years ago. The current owner invited me with my niece and daughter in law to come in to the house. There were some updates, but that small attic upstairs where we all slept was as I remembered, except that it seemed so much smaller. 

It is a small house made of brick and cement. the front door opens into a long hallway with a tile floor, but in my earliest memory, the floor was cement. There is a small room on the right and another small room on the left. The room on the left was a bedroom that my parents used occasionally, but it was reserved for when they had company from the US or Canada. Although they did sleep in that room when there was a new baby. I imagine to keep the baby from waking up the rest of the kids. There was a small crib in the room. Mom was pregnant every year, so imagine, there were other times that they slept in there instead of the small attic with all the children. The room  on the right was small and I remember all of us sitting in that room listening to the radio. There was no television and up until I was about 8, there was no electricity. The room was light  by a kerosene lamp. there was another open door area with a curtain that led to the two room attic where we all slept.  At the end of the hall was a door that led to a small kitchen. There was a stove and a table and chairs, To the left was a open chimney area with counters made of cement. Mom cooked in this open wood burning oven, mostly I remember her making bread. Then there was a door to a small back yard. There was no swing set or toys in that back yard. Every piece of yard was used for planting and chickens. There was a small clothes line and a basin with a scrub board where mom washed all the clothes including cloth diapers. They were not cloth diapers bought in the store, they were made by mom and my grandmother. There were usually two children in diapers at any given time, since mom had 9 babies by the time she was 31 years old. 

The memories came rushing back when I walked in this little tiny house. What a gift to have the opportunity to walk in there as an adult. I remembered it being so much bigger. Then, the gift of sharing a moment on the street and on that  field with my own grandchildren. Zachary was 9. The same age that I was when we left that little house in our best outfit and two suitcases for a family of 9 and took a taxi to the airport to move to the US. That was the dream. We were leaving for a better life. More to come about that life. 

Idalina (Linda) 

With Zach and Leah where I used to play
November 2019

With Zach and Leah in Front of my childhood home
November, 2019