The unidentifiable beauty in taking responsibility.
Fire, yes the whole country seems to be on fire. Somehow we even got used to those big black clouds that appear in the sky, that red horizon at nightfall. It looked like a landscape out of some zombie movie, the first time we saw the devastating results of a big bushfire. We passed the Portuguese border at Guarda and drove with our old mint-green van towards Coimbra, two people and a little dog, on the run for all the aggravation and stress they had to deal with in a former life as misunderstood creative minds. Leaving the flat and wet, black, muddy, plowed clay fields of a region, where being angry and selfish seemed to become the excepted mindset, in search for a more relaxed environment, better views and blue sky’s, the first encounter turned into a meeting with a sight that looked even darker than the one back home. Our van was the only coloured thing around for as far as you could see, until we saw a red tractor driving around in which seemed to be a dead valley. A little farmhouse looked untouched and its walls were reflecting brightly in the sunlight, the contrast with its surroundings couldn’t be greater, as if God used Photoshop to make the scenery look even more dramatic. Many years later we would get to know what it feels like when your house and belongings are under threat by giant flames.
Sometimes it’s just a sad twist of natural faith, but mostly these fires are the result of irresponsible behaviour or just plain criminal acts. The well-known cigarette was thrown out of a car, glassware left behind that mutates in a magnifying glass, barbecues went wrong, or sparks of a metal blade while cutting grass are among those acts carried out with neglecting any common sense. Stupidity is wildly spread and it’s a big relieve every year when the village “festa” is over, without some drunk causing a fire. The worst category of people are of course the sick ones, that well, just think it is exciting to ruin nature and the lives of other people. Some get caught, go to prison and start all over again once they get out. It didn’t come as a surprise that police officers had to free one of these arcanists when some northern villagers were trying to hang him last year. Close to our village even a dispute between two lovers ended up with a hillside in flames. “I just took the gasoline and matches because I was angry”, she said, burning down not only their own eucalyptus plant but also the neighbours water pump, the telephone posts and the crops that were on the land.
The irresponsible behaviour seems to flourish with the intake of beer and wine, a ritual that’s kept greatly alive during the “festa's” all over Portugal. Mostly here in our village, it remains within the stupidity of laying in front of the car when you want to pass the village square or waking up when the garbage man pulls off the rubbish that others buried you with when falling asleep next to the bin. At Sagres and Superbock they are laughing their pants of when it turns out that the barrels are empty after two nights and happily deliver the next truckload at 10 AM, while the drunks from the night before are holding on to the improvised bar just because any movement would turn into a painful encounter with the hard tarmac. It seems that the influence of big beer companies became a major part of all the festivities we visit nowadays, concerts, festivals, sports matches and even art exhibitions and theatre plays. We, the Dutch, do seem to rely on our biggest brewery in almost any public event. There’s a bit, well a lot, of double standards though. Our “Lord of the Rings” was sent home by the Dutch Olympic team for drinking a few pints at a sponsored venue called the Holland House, momentarily setup in Rio de Janeiro. Gold medalist candidate van Gelder should have known he wasn’t allowed to drink beer in his private time while being a gymnastic at the Olympic games. Funny thing is, he was drinking Heineken, invited at the Heineken House, the major sponsor of the Dutch Olympic team. A crazy decision as we all know even our King drinks Heineken when meeting up with Puttin. Maybe it’s a good idea to force Superbock and Sagres to sponsor the GNR so they have enough manpower to be present and keep an eye on things during summer festa’s. The green colour of the GNR cars isn’t that fancy anyway, why not drive around with red, gold striped vehicles…
The unidentifiable beauty in all these sad and devastating events of bushfires is the way the Portuguese community is acting. Not only supporting it’s firefighters but also watching out during nightly shifts and helping each other whenever a threat occurs. When the valley across our house was on fire we didn’t even notice it. Shutters were closed for the obvious reason, the TV and the fans were on, feet on the table and suddenly, boom boom boom… The neighbours warned us just in time to drive the car away from the flames, take our personal belongings, well, insurance papers, passports and tobacco, roll out the garden hose and try to keep the flames away from the house. By that time hundreds of people were walking around, filling buckets with water, passing them on like it was a military trained procedure. The old 1950’s village fire truck was on the scene in minutes, saving the only house on the wrong side of the street. It took about half an hour before the real firemen arrived from the nearest town, by then the villagers had everything under control. Nobody got hurt, no properties were damaged and the olive trees in the valley were flourishing after a few weeks, nature is strong in that perspective.
One of the young men fighting the fire by walking close up to the flames with the firetruck hose was the same drunk fool who laid himself down in front of cars that wanted to pass the village square a few mornings before and forced me to drink a beer as a kind of toll to pass. Although I knew how irresponsible he got when looking thru the empty bottom of a few glasses, we shared all the beer we had in the fridge after the frightening event. The following festa’s he’s been as crazy as the ones before and even got his leg bruised because of his yearly 4 day ritual of laying in front of cars… Its OK, who am I to judge that lunatic behaviour when knowing that when the going get’s tough, he takes responsibility and is one of the first to help others out. I just wish there were more people with authority taking an eye on things to prevent blokes like him doing something stupidly irreversible in the heat of the sponsors' glory hours…
Sometimes it’s just a sad twist of natural faith, but mostly these fires are the result of irresponsible behaviour or just plain criminal acts. The well-known cigarette was thrown out of a car, glassware left behind that mutates in a magnifying glass, barbecues went wrong, or sparks of a metal blade while cutting grass are among those acts carried out with neglecting any common sense. Stupidity is wildly spread and it’s a big relieve every year when the village “festa” is over, without some drunk causing a fire. The worst category of people are of course the sick ones, that well, just think it is exciting to ruin nature and the lives of other people. Some get caught, go to prison and start all over again once they get out. It didn’t come as a surprise that police officers had to free one of these arcanists when some northern villagers were trying to hang him last year. Close to our village even a dispute between two lovers ended up with a hillside in flames. “I just took the gasoline and matches because I was angry”, she said, burning down not only their own eucalyptus plant but also the neighbours water pump, the telephone posts and the crops that were on the land.
The irresponsible behaviour seems to flourish with the intake of beer and wine, a ritual that’s kept greatly alive during the “festa's” all over Portugal. Mostly here in our village, it remains within the stupidity of laying in front of the car when you want to pass the village square or waking up when the garbage man pulls off the rubbish that others buried you with when falling asleep next to the bin. At Sagres and Superbock they are laughing their pants of when it turns out that the barrels are empty after two nights and happily deliver the next truckload at 10 AM, while the drunks from the night before are holding on to the improvised bar just because any movement would turn into a painful encounter with the hard tarmac. It seems that the influence of big beer companies became a major part of all the festivities we visit nowadays, concerts, festivals, sports matches and even art exhibitions and theatre plays. We, the Dutch, do seem to rely on our biggest brewery in almost any public event. There’s a bit, well a lot, of double standards though. Our “Lord of the Rings” was sent home by the Dutch Olympic team for drinking a few pints at a sponsored venue called the Holland House, momentarily setup in Rio de Janeiro. Gold medalist candidate van Gelder should have known he wasn’t allowed to drink beer in his private time while being a gymnastic at the Olympic games. Funny thing is, he was drinking Heineken, invited at the Heineken House, the major sponsor of the Dutch Olympic team. A crazy decision as we all know even our King drinks Heineken when meeting up with Puttin. Maybe it’s a good idea to force Superbock and Sagres to sponsor the GNR so they have enough manpower to be present and keep an eye on things during summer festa’s. The green colour of the GNR cars isn’t that fancy anyway, why not drive around with red, gold striped vehicles…
The unidentifiable beauty in all these sad and devastating events of bushfires is the way the Portuguese community is acting. Not only supporting it’s firefighters but also watching out during nightly shifts and helping each other whenever a threat occurs. When the valley across our house was on fire we didn’t even notice it. Shutters were closed for the obvious reason, the TV and the fans were on, feet on the table and suddenly, boom boom boom… The neighbours warned us just in time to drive the car away from the flames, take our personal belongings, well, insurance papers, passports and tobacco, roll out the garden hose and try to keep the flames away from the house. By that time hundreds of people were walking around, filling buckets with water, passing them on like it was a military trained procedure. The old 1950’s village fire truck was on the scene in minutes, saving the only house on the wrong side of the street. It took about half an hour before the real firemen arrived from the nearest town, by then the villagers had everything under control. Nobody got hurt, no properties were damaged and the olive trees in the valley were flourishing after a few weeks, nature is strong in that perspective.
One of the young men fighting the fire by walking close up to the flames with the firetruck hose was the same drunk fool who laid himself down in front of cars that wanted to pass the village square a few mornings before and forced me to drink a beer as a kind of toll to pass. Although I knew how irresponsible he got when looking thru the empty bottom of a few glasses, we shared all the beer we had in the fridge after the frightening event. The following festa’s he’s been as crazy as the ones before and even got his leg bruised because of his yearly 4 day ritual of laying in front of cars… Its OK, who am I to judge that lunatic behaviour when knowing that when the going get’s tough, he takes responsibility and is one of the first to help others out. I just wish there were more people with authority taking an eye on things to prevent blokes like him doing something stupidly irreversible in the heat of the sponsors' glory hours…
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