Saudade, São Tomé, São Tomé and Principe

Almada Negreiros: From Saudade to Eternity


Battery-powered MP3 Radio
A boy from the Saudade area holds a Somitec radio.
From Saudade to the World
Mist hovers above the Almada Negreiros House-Museum.
back to longing
An employee of the Almada Negreiros House-Museum goes down the porch stairs.
Banana with Plenty
Large bunch of bananas hanging on the porch of the Casa Museu Almada Negreiros de Saudade.
Children of Saudade
Joaquim Victor, also born in Saudade, shows a book about Almada Negreiros.
Commemorative Plaques
How was Roça?
Joaquim Victor shows old images of Roça Saudade.
The Balcony over the Jungle
The top porch of the Almada Negreiros House-Museum.
Lower
Houses lost in the fog and lush vegetation of Saudade.
Somitec sound
A boy from the Saudade area holds a Somitec radio.
The top of Old Roça
The porch of the House-Museum surrounded by the threshold jungle of the PN Obo.
Negreiros Shape
Representative figure of Almada Negreiros, the entrance to his House-Museum of Saudade.
Almada Negreiros was born in April 1893, on a farm in the interior of São Tomé. Upon discovering his origins, we believe that the luxuriant exuberance in which he began to grow oxygenated his fruitful creativity.

As we almost reached the humid and luxuriant domains of the old Roça Saudade, we were distracted by a strange sight.

Both sides of the cobbled slope appeared there, like vegetable beds, made of a kind of tufts of cotton and yellow leaves, others, older, of a worn orange, all of them victims of an autumn that the equatorial Sao Tome don't know.

We open the doors of the Jimny to get a sense of touch. We are in this experience when two São Toméans appear from the bottom of the slope, walking on the said carpet.

One of them, the youngest, wears wellies, red shorts and a blue sports polo shirt, an alleged uniform of the Australian football team at Camp David.

By itself, the picture already proved to be unusual. As if that weren't enough, the boy has around his neck an MP3 radio player, portable and peculiar, branded by Somitec, Made in China, nor did we expect anything else.

We detected some surrealism in the scene. We strive to portray it. The boy holds the phone with both hands. It gives us a hint of a smile that goes well with the green foliage of the background.

He and the adult follow the velvet path. We stayed a moment longer to examine it.

When we resume the journey, we are struck by what would have resulted if, instead of us, it had been the multifaceted and restless Almada Negreiros to cross paths with such a picture, moreover, in his land.

While we were considering it, we surrendered to the evidence that, even in the short period he lived in the heart of the island, equatorial eccentricities would not have been lacking.

Sao Tome was in question.

Few islands hide the wild and end-of-the-world exoticism in the middle of the world that São Tomé and Príncipe preserve.

Arrival at Saudade and at the Almada Negreiros House-Museum

We complete the ramp. Shortly after, we come across the space of Roça Saudade.

It was bounded by three or four bamboo canes.

Opposite to a cut and black figure of Almada highlighted in a well-kept garden, front or back – the position of the figure seemed ambivalent to us – to the renovated building of the property.

We went to the other side of the facade. An L-shaped staircase leads us to the building's secular masonry base, now restored.

We unveiled the wall that sheltered the steps, illustrated with the famous beginning “Basta pum Basta!” from the Anti-Dantas Manifesto, supplemented with quotations from Negreiros:

“The people I admire the most are those who never end.” Civilization is a collective phenomenon. Culture is an individual phenomenon.” the latter, from “Cultura e Civilização” that the poet also inaugurated with “A table full of beans”.

Joaquin Victor. Son of Saudade, Mentor of the Almada Negreiros House-Museum

On the other side of the mural, a new staircase awaits us, this one made of wood. And, at the top, the young entrepreneur Joaquim Victor, also a son of Saudade.

It was Joaquim who was responsible for restoring the birthplace of Almada Negreiros, even if, at first, he did not know – as almost nobody knew in São Tomé and Príncipe – that the artist was from Roça Saudade.

Joaquim Victor, felt, by the hours that were and by our tired air, that we needed to recover energies. We sit at a table on the porch terrace, overlooking the mist-covered jungle that extends from there towards the Atlantic.

Joaquim Victor explains that the only document that describes the old Roça Saudade is the book “Almada Negreiros Africano” by Father António Ambrósio, a missionary in São Tomé, a writer dedicated to recording the ways and customs of the island, and who described it as follows:

"The house where Almada was born, at the headquarters of Roça Saudade, was suspended over a deep grotto and opened to the east by a tropical-style balcony, overlooking a sea of ​​greenery that, after the first break, spread in an apparently gentle swell for several kilometers long, in the shape of a lace fan, to the ocean sea.”

 At the table, instead of beans, Kim, as he is also known, serves a garfish, accompanied by sweet potato, eggplant and passion fruit. We savor the interior of São Tomé in a delight that competes with the beauty of the landscape on the edge of the enigmatic Ôbo Natural Park.

Roça Saudade, the Equatorial Cradle of Almada Negreiros

It is unknown to most Portuguese and even lovers of Almada Negreiros that the artist was born there. And that he lived the first years of his life in these chlorophylline confines of Ecuador.

Joaquim Victor explains that Almada Negreiros began to be discovered in São Tomé and Príncipe only in 2014, due to his intervention in Roça Saudade.

From then on, it became a kind of historical fashion that he has been promoting.

As a testament to her childhood in São Tomé, the wall surrounding the staircase still displays part of one of the poems in which Almada celebrated childhood and maternal affection.

"I'm going to learn the steps of our house by heart. Then I come and sit next to you…”

"Mom! Put your hand on my head! When you put your hand on my head it's all so true..."

The mother mentioned, Elvira Sobra de Almada Negreiros, was a wealthy Santomean mestizo. Her husband, Almada's father, was António Lobo de Almada Negreiros, born in Aljustrel, lieutenant in the Cavalry, journalist, writer, essayist and Freemason. Later, he was appointed administrator of the municipality of São Tomé.

The Presence of Father António Ambrósio in the Life of the Negreiros Family

Father António Ambrósio, whom we have already mentioned, in addition to being a kind of chronicler of São Tomé, was responsible for the sacraments in the interior of the island.

He carried out the baptism of the newborn Almada, in the Igreja da Trindade, today, capital of the district of Mé-Zóchi. And he narrated it like this in his book "Almada Negreiros African"

«On the twenty-fourth day of June in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, in this Parish Church of the Holy Trinity, Municipality of S. Thomé, Diocese of S. Thomé e Príncipe, I solemnly baptized a male individual, to whom I gave the name of – JOSÉ- and who was born in this parish, at Fazenda Saudade, at three o'clock in the morning of the seventh of the mcz d'April of the year of one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, illegitimate son of the legitimate son of António Lobo d'Almada Negreiros, married, born in Portugal, owner, farmer and Dona Elvira Sobral de Almada Negreiros, married, born in this parish, owner, parishioners of this parish, residents of the aforementioned Farm, paternal grandson of Pedro d' Almada Pereira and Margarida Francisca de Almada Lobo Branco de Negreiros. It was godfather José António Freire Sobral, married, owner and farmer and godmother Dona Marianna Emília de Souza Sobral, married, owner and farmer, all of whom I know are their own. And for the record, I recorded this record in duplicate, which after being read and conferred before the godparents, they signed it with me.”

His father António Lobo, also a renowned author, insisted on dedicating a poem from his work “equatorial” to the shoot, on April 7, 1894, at one year of age.

One year! a kiss of light

On your face, child!

softest hope

That blooms and seduces!

The bonanza never ends

That your forehead translates,

Like a kiss from Jesus

From the mother in virginea braid

The Tragedy and the Return of the Almada Negreiros to the Metropole

In 1895, just two years after giving birth to José Sobral de Almada Negreiros, Elvira Negreiros died. The death of his wife hurt António Lobo's “Suavíssima hope” and the courage to continue in São Tomé.

Helpless, the administrator decided to return to the Metropolis.

He lived, in the early days, in Lisbon. He committed José Sobral and his brother António to the Jesuit College in Campolide. Both remained there until 1910, when the Implantation of the Republic dictated the closure of the establishment.

The turning year for the XNUMXth century was going to have the unavoidable event of the Universal Exhibition in Paris. António Lobo was appointed responsible for the Pavilhão das Colónias with which Portugal boasted.

did not live in São Tomé.

José Sobral de Almada Negreiros, the predestined Almada, grew up in Roça Saudade only until he was two years old. It would be impossible to find any of his artistic legacy from Santome on the property.

Precious legacy of Roça Saudade

As Joaquim Victor points out, the reality proved to be different with regard to the family's experience in the countryside until the end of the XNUMXth century.

“Over time, the house has deteriorated a lot. It became a latent danger for the children who lived in and around Saudade, who ventured to explore it and play in its ruins.”

The restoration work managed by Kim started from the original foundations of the porch house. They were made by hand, with a lot of patience and with the rewarding discovery of hundreds of pieces from the times of Almada's parents and grandparents.

Part of them came from renowned Portuguese pottery factories such as Sacavém and Alcântara.

Joaquim, insisted on keeping them, with the intention of later exposing them.

We deviate, for a moment, from the Casa Museu Almada Negreiros, with the idea of ​​taking a look at the nearby São Nicolau waterfall.

When we return, another group of students arrives in the former Roça Saudade, coming from the capital, of the many who now learn about Almada in schools.

And who, proud of their birthplace in São Tomé, travel to the heart of the island to visit it, in introspective incursions into São Tomé culture, in semi-orderly explorations of the island's equatorial civilization.

São Tomé and Principe

Cocoa Roças, Corallo and the Chocolate Factory

At the beginning of the century. In the XNUMXth century, São Tomé and Príncipe generated more cocoa than any other territory. Thanks to the dedication of some entrepreneurs, production survives and the two islands taste like the best chocolate.
Príncipe, São Tomé and Principe

Journey to the Noble Retreat of Príncipe Island

150 km of solitude north of the matriarch São Tomé, the island of Príncipe rises from the deep Atlantic against an abrupt and volcanic mountain-covered jungle setting. Long enclosed in its sweeping tropical nature and a contained but moving Luso-colonial past, this small African island still houses more stories to tell than visitors to listen to.
São Tomé, São Tomé and Príncipe

Journey to where São Tomé points the Equator

We go along the road that connects the homonymous capital to the sharp end of the island. When we arrived in Roça Porto Alegre, with the islet of Rolas and Ecuador in front of us, we had lost ourselves time and time again in the historical and tropical drama of São Tomé.
Rolas Islet, São Tomé and Principe

Rolas Islet: São Tomé and Principe at Latitude Zero

The southernmost point of São Tomé and Príncipe, Ilhéu das Rolas is lush and volcanic. The big news and point of interest of this island extension of the second smallest African nation is the coincidence of crossing the Equator.
São Tomé, São Tomé and Principe

Through the Tropical Top of São Tomé

With the homonymous capital behind us, we set out to discover the reality of the Agostinho Neto farm. From there, we take the island's coastal road. When the asphalt finally yields to the jungle, São Tomé had confirmed itself at the top of the most dazzling African islands.
Sao Tome (city), São Tomé and Principe

The Capital of the Santomean Tropics

Founded by the Portuguese, in 1485, São Tomé prospered for centuries, like the city because of the goods in and out of the homonymous island. The archipelago's independence confirmed it as the busy capital that we trod, always sweating.
Key West, United States

Hemingway's Caribbean Playground

Effusive as ever, Ernest Hemingway called Key West "the best place I've ever been...". In the tropical depths of the contiguous US, he found evasion and crazy, drunken fun. And the inspiration to write with intensity to match.
Saint Petersburg e Mikhaylovkoe, Russia

The Writer Who Succumbed to His Own Plot

Alexander Pushkin is hailed by many as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. But Pushkin also dictated an almost tragicomic epilogue to his prolific life.
Saint Petersburg, Russia

On the track of "Crime and Punishment"

In St. Petersburg, we cannot resist investigating the inspiration for the base characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's most famous novel: his own pities and the miseries of certain fellow citizens.
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The Life and Work of a Marginal Writer

Born in Goiás, Ana Lins Bretas spent most of her life far from her castrating family and the city. Returning to its origins, it continued to portray the prejudiced mentality of the Brazilian countryside
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Stevenson's Treasure Island

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Big Sur, USA

The Coast of All Refuges

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Amboseli National Park, Mount Kilimanjaro, Normatior Hill
Safari
Amboseli National Park, Kenya

A Gift from the Kilimanjaro

The first European to venture into these Masai haunts was stunned by what he found. And even today, large herds of elephants and other herbivores roam the pastures irrigated by the snow of Africa's biggest mountain.
Hikers on the Ice Lake Trail, Annapurna Circuit, Nepal
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 7th - Braga - Ice Lake, Nepal

Annapurna Circuit – The Painful Acclimatization of the Ice Lake

On the way up to the Ghyaru village, we had a first and unexpected show of how ecstatic the Annapurna Circuit can be tasted. Nine kilometers later, in Braga, due to the need to acclimatize, we climbed from 3.470m from Braga to 4.600m from Lake Kicho Tal. We only felt some expected tiredness and the increase in the wonder of the Annapurna Mountains.
Traditional houses, Bergen, Norway.
Architecture & Design
Bergen, Norway

The Great Hanseatic Port of Norway

Already populated in the early 1830th century, Bergen became the capital, monopolized northern Norwegian commerce and, until XNUMX, remained one of the largest cities in Scandinavia. Today, Oslo leads the nation. Bergen continues to stand out for its architectural, urban and historical exuberance.
The small lighthouse at Kallur, highlighted in the capricious northern relief of the island of Kalsoy.
Adventure
Kalsoy, Faroe Islands

A Lighthouse at the End of the Faroese World

Kalsoy is one of the most isolated islands in the Faroe archipelago. Also known as “the flute” due to its long shape and the many tunnels that serve it, a mere 75 inhabitants inhabit it. Much less than the outsiders who visit it every year, attracted by the boreal wonder of its Kallur lighthouse.
Ceremonies and Festivities
Apia, Western Samoa

Fia Fia – High Rotation Polynesian Folklore

From New Zealand to Easter Island and from here to Hawaii, there are many variations of Polynesian dances. Fia Fia's Samoan nights, in particular, are enlivened by one of the more fast-paced styles.
One of the tallest buildings in Valletta, Malta
Cities
Valletta, Malta

An ex-Humble Amazing Capital

At the time of its foundation, the Order of Knights Hospitaller called it "the most humble". Over the centuries, the title ceased to serve him. In 2018, Valletta was the tiniest European Capital of Culture ever and one of the most steeped in history and dazzling in memory.
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Meal
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The Beverage Machines Empire

There are more than 5 million ultra-tech light boxes spread across the country and many more exuberant cans and bottles of appealing drinks. The Japanese have long since stopped resisting them.
Culture
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Sport
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When Only Cock Fights Wake Up the Philippines

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Ross Bridge, Tasmania, Australia
Traveling
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Tasmania from Top to Bottom

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Ethnic
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The Asian Food Capital

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Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

Sensations vs Impressions

fortress wall of Novgorod and the Orthodox Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, Russia.
History
Novgorod, Russia

Mother Russia's Viking Grandmother

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Elafonisi, Crete, Greece
Islands
Chania to Elafonisi, Crete, Greece

A Crete-style Beach Trip

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Reindeer Racing, Kings Cup, Inari, Finland
Winter White
Inari, Finland

The Wackiest Race on the Top of the World

Finland's Lapps have been competing in the tow of their reindeer for centuries. In the final of the Kings Cup - Porokuninkuusajot - , they face each other at great speed, well above the Arctic Circle and well below zero.
Lake Manyara, National Park, Ernest Hemingway, Giraffes
Literature
Lake Manyara NP, Tanzania

Hemingway's Favorite Africa

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Nature
Chapada dos Guimarães, Mato Grosso, Brazil

In the Burning Heart of South America

It was only in 1909 that the South American geodesic center was established by Cândido Rondon, a Brazilian marshal. Today, it is located in the city of Cuiabá. It has the stunning but overly combustible scenery of Chapada dos Guimarães nearby.
Sheki, Autumn in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Autumn Homes
Autumn
Sheki, Azerbaijan

autumn in the caucasus

Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, lions
Natural Parks
NP Gorongosa, Mozambique

The Wild Heart of Mozambique shows Signs of Life

Gorongosa was home to one of the most exuberant ecosystems in Africa, but from 1980 to 1992 it succumbed to the Civil War waged between FRELIMO and RENAMO. Greg Carr, Voice Mail's millionaire inventor received a message from the Mozambican ambassador to the UN challenging him to support Mozambique. For the good of the country and humanity, Carr pledged to resurrect the stunning national park that the Portuguese colonial government had created there.
Karanga ethnic musicians join the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe
UNESCO World Heritage
Great ZimbabweZimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe, Little Bira Dance

Karanga natives of the KwaNemamwa village display traditional Bira dances to privileged visitors to the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. the most iconic place in Zimbabwe, the one who, after the decree of colonial Rhodesia's independence, inspired the name of the new and problematic nation.  
In elevator kimono, Osaka, Japan
Characters
Osaka, Japan

In the Company of Mayu

Japanese nightlife is a multi-faceted, multi-billion business. In Osaka, an enigmatic couchsurfing hostess welcomes us, somewhere between the geisha and the luxury escort.
Promise?
Beaches
Goa, India

To Goa, Quickly and in Strength

A sudden longing for Indo-Portuguese tropical heritage makes us travel in various transports but almost non-stop, from Lisbon to the famous Anjuna beach. Only there, at great cost, were we able to rest.
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Religion
Tanna, Vanuatu

From where Vanuatu Conquered the Western World

The TV show “Meet the Native” took Tanna's tribal representatives to visit Britain and the USA Visiting their island, we realized why nothing excited them more than returning home.
Train Fianarantsoa to Manakara, Malagasy TGV, locomotive
On Rails
Fianarantsoa-Manakara, Madagascar

On board the Malagasy TGV

We depart Fianarantsoa at 7a.m. It wasn't until 3am the following morning that we completed the 170km to Manakara. The natives call this almost secular train Train Great Vibrations. During the long journey, we felt, very strongly, those of the heart of Madagascar.
Tombola, street bingo-Campeche, Mexico
Society
Campeche, Mexico

200 Years of Playing with Luck

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the peasants surrendered to a game introduced to cool the fever of cash cards. Today, played almost only for Abuelites, lottery little more than a fun place.
Ditching, Alaska Fashion Life, Talkeetna
Daily life
Talkeetna, Alaska

Talkeetna's Alaska-Style Life

Once a mere mining outpost, Talkeetna rejuvenated in 1950 to serve Mt. McKinley climbers. The town is by far the most alternative and most captivating town between Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Rottnest Island, Wadjemup, Australia, Quokkas
Wildlife
Wadjemup, Rottnest Island, Australia

Among Quokkas and other Aboriginal Spirits

In the XNUMXth century, a Dutch captain nicknamed this island surrounded by a turquoise Indian Ocean, “Rottnest, a rat's nest”. The quokkas that eluded him were, however, marsupials, considered sacred by the Whadjuk Noongar aborigines of Western Australia. Like the Edenic island on which the British colonists martyred them.
Napali Coast and Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii Wrinkles
Scenic Flights
napali coast, Hawaii

Hawaii's Dazzling Wrinkles

Kauai is the greenest and rainiest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is also the oldest. As we explore its Napalo Coast by land, sea and air, we are amazed to see how the passage of millennia has only favored it.