My first memory is of a big frog I saw in front of the back door of our home. I was about 3 years old, my mother washing clothes and that giant, immense, creature was jumping in our direction.
My childhood was full of music. We always had musicians coming to our home and playing. I also loved playing in the streets, but the best part was spending the school holidays in the countryside of Minas Gerais, in my grandparents’ home.
When I was 5 years old I got lost from my mother in a market. After walking around crying for about 5 minutes, I finally found her. She then asked me if I knew how to return back home alone from there. I said yes. Then she told me: ‘If you get lost again, don’t cry. just take the way back home. I will be there waiting for you.” I don’t think she realised that this advice would have a life lasting effect. Today, when I get lost, I remember to find my way back ‘home.’
When I was 9 years old I had a bus accident. I lost my mother in this accident. This event changed me completely and I think it defined a lot my perception of life (and death) and what I would like to do with my life.
'With my mother on my first birthday and with my school teacher Eliete, 1991'
From my mother I inherited a restlessness, a need to constantly change, to explore new experiences. That restlessness, led me to move away, ultimately to London. From my father, I inherited the most precious thing in my life – music.
In my adolescence, I used to write to Embassies of countries in Brazil, asking for magazines, booklets, any thing that could help me to learn more about the country. This was before internet. The UK Embassy was very responsive and sent me many promotional booklets. This, combined with lots English literature (translated into Portuguese), made London became a sort of imaginary place that I wanted to visit one day.
My first impression fo London was this…
I was never the sort of person who wanted to be an ‘expert’ in something. Bit I’ve always been curious and needed a more holistic approach for my artistic and professional work. I am constantly searching something new to learn, sometimes not related to my work at all – currently I am doing an online course on meteorology. I could not imagine this development without also learning foreign languages.
Each step in my career had some sort of challenge that required patience and learning from me. When those challenges came, they seemed to me the biggest I have faced. But now, looking at things in perspective, they don’t seem too difficult as they did in the moment they happened. This makes me deal with challenges and obstacles in a less stressed way today. I tend to think that there is a solution for everything, except for death. But I think the biggest challenge for me, in life, was to face the reality of the death of my mother and make some sense of life after that.
I am constantly changing my views of the world, because I am constantly meeting more people that help me to build a more comprehensive understanding of it. My family and friends, teachers, the priests I had as mentors in the seminar, my students today all shaped my views of the world.
As a scholar, I am constantly questioning labels, especially the ‘latino’ one. Being born in Brazil, in a poor background, in a mixed family and society, has taught me about flexibility, inclusivity, and solidarity. I don’t think this is something that we could claim as specific ‘latino’, but it is closer to my understanding of a Latin heritage.
with the Brazilian singer Martinho da Vila at the Brazilian Embassy in London
My favourite places in London Somerset house, British Museum, Royal Opera House. I used to love Tom’s Kicthen (then changed to Bryn Willians), at Somerset house, but unfortunatly it closed during the pandemic and it is not there anymore.
My most memorable encounter with a stranger in London was at a film screening at the Brazil Institute. After the screening we went for dinner and I was having a very nice conversation with the producer, before realising she has been my recorder student when I was 9 years old.
The kindest thing someone has done for me in London was one evening when I arrived starving at Bryn Williams after a long day of work, needing a good meal. It was late and the kitchen was already closed. The manager herself went to the kitchen and prepared me a meal with what they had available.
The worst thing that happened to me in London was depression. The best, overcoming it.
I take pleasure in…a delicious dinner, a good wine – followed by a good cachaça – good music and company of old and new friends.
When I’m homesick I prepare ‘Frango com quiabo e angú’ (Chicken with Okra and polenta) and eat it, drinking a good cachaça. Who else from Minas Gerais will understand?
With a group of students on an excursion to Italy
I remember events of my life through music and I am constantly singing – most of the time, even in my head.
I’ve learned to value tolerance. Probably because I was not as tolerant as young as I am today.
I would tell my younger self…Don’t be afraid and you don’t need to be shy.
My favourite word in English is Flabbergasted. And I still have troubles in pronouncing it.
The word I most dislike is Sheet. Because I can never pronouce it properly and you can imagine what sounds when not properly said.
with a group of students in the Braizilian Amazon
