Neighbors Stories and photos submitted You often hear immigrants say that one of the biggest positives to living in Portugal is the people. Randy and I have experienced just that … from the often whispered “Com licença” to folks who speak English jumping in to help our struggling attempt to speak in Portuguese. I’ve had more people go out of their own comfort zone to help me accomplish whatever task I was attempting at the time. Thankful and grateful are words I say often, but sometimes they’re just not strong enough to fully encompass the way I feel. My soul feels happy. What happened today is another level of acceptance, community, and caring, shares Cecilia Rogers. Today, Randy and I went to the house to wait for the water company to connect the house to the waterline, install the meter, and yanno … let us have running water. We weren’t sure what time they would arrive, so we left Coimbra around 0900 and made the 1.5-hour trip. It is a beautiful drive, so we don’t mind. Crossing rivers and watching the mist slide down the mountainsides into the valleys … I mean there are worse views, right? The winding road through town is just wide enough for two regular-sized vehicles to pass ... anything larger than that and you either pucker up or just wait for the other vehicle to pass. I spend most of my time looking down at the river meandering its way through the valley. So … the long short of it is, the water will not be hooked up until next week. I was sort of bummed, but, hey, it’s an adventure and we’ll be just fine. I was resigned to that fact ... but wait! We’re ushered to the backyard where Antonio, Gloria, and the gentleman from Arganil hooked the house up to their well via a temporary garden hosestyle solution. We have water! Not great pressure, but we have water! While we’re at the back of the house, Randy asked Antonio’s opinion about the water heater and how best to hook up the gas. Antonio took one look at it and let Randy know it’s hung too low and that we needed another hole drilled in the shelf for the gas line since we weren’t using gas to cook, only for the house water. We thought we would just take care of that later … but they had other plans. Antonio went and got his drill. We’re talking industrial drill-throughthe-foundation-of-Fort-Knox type drill. It was beefy. And,
to no one’s surprise, made short work of repositioning the tank and the 2-inch diameter hole through the 10 inches of concrete that makes up the shelf, through which the gas line will pass. So yeah, when people talk about the caring and generosity of Portuguese people, it isn’t just lip service. Two years ago today, Marcus W Laurence and Bill Mauro received their Portuguese “Título de Residência” cards: The culmination of many months of preparation—what seemed like endless amounts of paperwork, selling all of our belongings, and starting a new life in a country where we didn’t speak the language. If you had told me five years ago we’d be living in Portugal, I would not have believed it would be possible. We’ve been through a lot to get here. We have both grown tremendously and have learned even more about each other and our relationship. Oddly enough, we’ve done the same thing that our grandparents set out to do … try life in a new country. Portugal has been good to us. We’ve met some amazing people who have welcomed us and offered help when we needed it. We experienced life in a capital city and had everything we needed within walking distance. We are now living in the mountains (Figueiró dos Vinhos) and are experiencing another way of life in a small village, where neighbors readily share fruits and vegetables from their gardens and always ask how we are doing. I’ve hesitated to introduce, explains Joni Herrington, because there’s so much to say, so I’ll try to be brief. My husband and I left the USA almost a year ago. Everything we owned had just became “stuff.” At 58-yearsyoung, “living” became more important than “stuff.” So, we got rid of everything (including my antique 1987 Jeep Wrangler soft top that I loved.) Sold our house and blindly left the USA. We did the Schengen Summer 2022 67
