Broad Beans on the Wall
By Cristiana Pereira, Sintra, Portugal
My plans for June were drawn well in advance: I would finally take the “Camino de Santiago” with my son. He was named after the pilgrim saint, so reaching the holy city of Compostela, in Spain, was a mandatory trip. More than anything, it was an opportunity for deep sharing. Walking 75 miles on foot would allow us plenty of time for conversation and silence, laughter and complicity, scolding and fallouts, maybe even tears. Alas, the coronavirus would have it differently.
Today, in a brief respite amidst our forced confinement, I march on the asphalt towards Casais de Cabrela, a hamlet perched on a hill in Portugal’s municipality of Sintra. We have moved here on temporary exile from Mozambique, our home for the past 13 years. We have no idea when there will be a plane to fly us back home; we can but wait. And just like the pilgrims who find everything they need along the way–and if they don’t find it, it means they don’t need it–our newfound neighbors make sure we lack nothing. Day in, day out, everything we could possibly need appears magically on the fence wall: freshly baked bread, lemons and cabbage from a local garden, iron-rich spinach and coriander, and even broad beans from someone’s Sunday feast. When we return the gesture with homemade oatmeal cookies, we realize they unwittingly taught us a sense of community.
Today, I’m on a different kind of pilgrimage. As I walk home from a short trip to the supermarket, I dwell on Elif Shafak's words: “Be sure to make every journey, a journey within.” In my heart, I carry the warmth of Mozambique, that simple way of greeting strangers in the middle of the street just because our paths crossed. People in Europe seem to have lost that habit. If I say hello, they stare at me with a puzzled expression or just ignore me.
With older people it’s different. They want to know where I’m from, where I’m staying and where I’m headed. They want to listen, but they also want to share. They want to tell me about their son who enjoys walking just like me, except that he’s blind. “He sees with his ears,” I remark and the father cheerfully agrees. They want to tell me about their husband who suffered an aneurysm a year ago and has been in a rehabilitation center ever since. “I used to visit him every day, but I’m not allowed now, and it pains me so,” says the wistful wife. I find them on their balconies soaking up the sun, enjoying the fresh air, watching the world go by. After all, little has changed for them. The isolation was already there and it wasn’t mandatory.
Our isolation, my son's and mine, has everything I imagined for our pilgrimage: conversation and silence, laughter and complicity, scolding and fallouts, maybe even tears. Never before have we been so isolated, but never before have we been so connected.
One day we will look back and remember the times when we could afford time–for ourselves and for others. And maybe from there we can draw the strength and energy we need to weather the social and economic storm that’s brewing–by remembering the union, the connection, the solidarity, the sense of community, the broad beans on the wall. If there’s anything that COVID-19 has shown us, it is our shared humanity. No one truly knows what tomorrow has in store for us. As the pilgrim’s prayer goes: “Make us strong in faith and happy in hope.”