Faial Friends

Being a foreigner in another country is never easy, there are  local customs and the language to break through.

We have always been friendly to those we have passed in the street or come into contact with but still there is always a feeling of being an outsider. It helped that there is a small community of estrangerios as they are called here - that know what it is like to feel like pup who has lost its mum ma, so they naturally congregate and form strong bonds/friendships with each other, for which they may have never done with the same people if they were back home in their native country. This helped us to feel settled and part of the whole.

We are not retired and it is very important to us to become Portuguese in our thinking, language and for everyday functionality . For now the Azores is our home and we need to embrace it fully. 

One of my clients who is Portuguese and lived in America for many years has become a friend and she invited us to their home on Saturday night. They have a little Adega(a place where wine is made) in their garden, with an attached bread oven. It was in this little Adega we had dinner and all the lovely food she prepared was cooked in the bread oven. I just love it. They started the fire in the morning, while that was heating up Maria prepared the dishes, then they all went in, cooked for a couple of hours, then taken out.  Before everyone arrived, she popped them back in to warm up. When we left that evening, the oven was still hot enough to bake bread. So if you have a bread oven like they do,  it is worth having a big party and maximising its use.

The Portuguese traditions did not feel too dissimilar to most mediterranean nations way of entertaining. We had all the men sit together and ladies at another table. The food, was abundant and full of variety, no one was going hungry especially after a good plate of dessert too. Between mains and dessert most of the woman got up and busied themselves with something - plates away, food off the table, cutlery washed and ready to enjoy the sobramesas. That all said and done, the cards came out, tapestry work began and everyone settled in and enjoyed a mellow evening, laughing, talking, and enjoying some of Tony's home made aquadente.

Thank you Maria and Tony for such a wonderful evening.