Yesterday And today...

Disarmed from intrusive thoughts, there she rests watching an article on African traditions.

At the very heart of the jungle, a robust middle aged man sings.

 Under the sound of rustic melodies, falling drops of water, circling amongst the mountains mingles to his voice.

The offering of a ritual began. 

 A surrounding ai-é ai-é, flies from his mouth, back to his ancestors.

The empty space between the hollow walls of Nature’s mother, responds in an echo, which, seems to bubble incessantly.

 The ai-é ai-é, which, is been distilled by the man's throat, resonates melodiously, compiling a sense of universal harmony.

In this sublime moment, Lucília Augusta has the most complete certainty that all living beings delight together in this very same sound! All united by the same orchestra, the Nature's mother, sounds.

“My roots!”

  Silently she says.

“Now…that was what my Silveira kept referring to! He was my predator and my saviour all at once! He always made it clear, that I should go back to my roots. Sometimes out of pure prejudice, but philosophically he could not have been more right.”

 Lucília Augusta felt rocked by the mystery, while mentally transferred to a world of alienated “civilizations.”  - Straight into an intoxicatingly wild world, from where she drinks, Marufo and garapa, (a traditional African fermented drink)- until she throws up from the excess.

  Violently she sobs, crying of nostalgia for a past that could have been hers. A past of which, she had rather experienced instead of reading of.

 Heart, mind and soul, she weeps, while hugging that part of her that is so evident in her features.

 Lucília Augusta dances by, hugging herself, feeling such a strong vibration well within, and, allows it to flood into her soul.

 Dressed in vibrantly bright colourful cloths, unconcerned she laughs out loudly and loudly.

 These are the colours of Africa, the Mother Africa, which runs non-stopping through her veins.

 Hurls her body onto the ground and on behalf of all of the departed ones; shamelessly she covers it with soil. Then, stands up, still dressed in rags and alone ... singing and dancing amongst the wild mountains - by the sound of the ai-é ai-é.

She listens selflessly to the repetition of the drums, to the repetition of the ai-é ai-é and to the repetition of the echo. Unconsciously allows the self to merging into it and in perfect harmony, follows its rhythm.

 Still swaying by a zest of an intimate vibration, she shudders and frees up a strange and involuntary cry.

 Feeling refreshed and thirsty, barefoot she goes to the river, and drinks water from an indigenous bowl.

 Drinks it again in hollowed gourds and it tastes like an almost unknown distant childhood.

 It quenched her thirst.

 It was an unnamed thirst, which always insisted on returning to her.

 Instantly she offers it a long name:

“The thirst to know how to be.  - The thirst to know how to live.  - The thirst to know who you are!”

From now on, this thirst will not torment her anymore. For now, it has a name.

 Lucília Augusta thanked all the wise man for their affection and for the opportunity, they gave her to; once again, touch the ground that saw her birth.

Thanks them again for not being alone. For not being lost. For having being given the chance to know the name of the thirst, which always came back, slaughtering her being and never said who it was.

The Kissange,( African musical instrument) keeps on playing.

“I'm not alone!” she recalls.

 The Kissange!

This keeps playing on its own! Because no fingers were capable to follow the speed of madness, with which it moves.

“Thank you, humanity… Thank you, humanity!” 

by: Manuela trindade