Maybe I should start by saying that I was born in Maputo. Well⦠language can be tricky and with lots of hidden socio-political meanings. Some of my ancestors had been in Africa since the s.
I was a baby when Mozambique became independent. My parents left Africa and moved our family to Lisbon. I grew up in a Portugal recently liberated from the dictatorial Estado Novo regime that ruled the country from to There was a sense of hope. I also grew up at a time when Portugal, and Europe more broadly, reluctantly started to reflect on their colonial past.
A big part of my family history and memories were different from those of most people around me, and had very little resonance with my everyday life. Everything was very different in Portugal, but the colonial past was always present. At home, I could see my family's history in a handful of photographs from various places in Mozambique displayed around the house β some of the furniture I used every day in Lisbon appeared in these photographs.
I could also hear the past in the music played at my grandparents' house, in particular the sounds of the timbila , a percussive instrument from Zavala, a region situated roughly km from Maputo. The past also came to life through stories β my family's oral history and in particular my grandfather's passionate research of the locations he lived in: Its music, plants, languages, and cultural heritage.
From an early age I accepted my European identity. Maybe I was happy to be considered European because of the friction between the context I was growing up in, and the strangeness of my family's colonial memories. My mixed identity was, nevertheless, uncomfortable β I did not seem to belong anywhere in particular. I never felt completely at ease with my choice. If someone asked me where I was from, I always said I was born in Maputo, even though I had not been in Maputo since my family left Africa.
