Portugal Journal: Fatima Story 4

10/6 Saturday, Lisbon.

Our concierge, Maria Santos Pinheiro, of Pensão Residencial Estrela do Mondego, walked to Fatima, she said it took her four days. She slept in pilgrim hotels along the way. She said she went because of a promise she had made. She wouldn't say what.

I asked how the custom began, the walking on the knees. She doesn't know how, or when, but said that when people make promises because something bad happened in their lives, and then they just do it. They fall to their knees and walk.

She said there's a big (holm oak) tree on 93 Azinheira, near there where the Lady appeared there at the Capelinha das Aparições (Chapel of the Apparitions, where three shepherd children saw the Virgin Mary in Cova da Iria, Fátima), in 1917.

She said that people took bits of the tree, they even took the land, until there was nothing left. The faithful finished off what the anticlerical liberal factions couldn't destroy, when they cut down the wrong tree in 1922.

On 13 May, when Our Lady first appeared, and every month until October 13, people walk from all over Portugal for the Peregrinación to the Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Fátima. She said "I like it better on the 12th at night, because of all the candles. And everyone waving white handkerch1efs. There's a song the people sing when they go there." 

The  maid begins singing El Adeus de Fátima, as she makes the beds. It's a very touching, if droll, song, perhaps it is a fado, and I am moved to tears.

Ó Virgem do Rosário, da Fátima Senhora. De Portugal Rainha, dos homens protectora. Ó Virgem do Rosário, da Fátima Senhora. Do Vosso Santuário, forçoso é ir-me embora. Uma prece final, ao deixar-Vos Mãe de Deus. Viva sempre em minha alma este grito imortal: Ó Fátima, adeus! Virgem Mãe, adeus!

On 12 June, Maria said, "On my birthday it's very joyous. And when you're there when you see Fatima, it's very touching. I cried and I cried," she said.

Thousands and thousands of people attend the services, and most of them have walked to Fátima on foot. The Virgin is paraded around the courtyard on a raft of white flowers, and everyone singing O Fátima, Adiós! while waving a sea of white handkerchiefs. Even the rosaries are white.

"The house where the shepherd children were born, is still there", she said. Milagros, the candles... You've got to believe in something." she said. "Heads legs children—that's what the Milagros are made for. You make a wish and you throw it in the fires that burn day and night."

Maria said that sometimes when people get married, they leave their flowers at Fátima for no special reason, other than for a blessing.

She said there's a lava-pés, a place where you wash your feet, and then the nuns will bandage your feet. She said that it's a recent custom, not an old one.

She explained, Our lady was brought to the Basilica on 13 May and was there until 13 October. When she was brought back, we sang a special song, Fátima, adeus! because she went around the world.  People pray with the rosary, they pray for whatever they want, there is no set thing that they pray for. Whether or not they believe, it doesn't matter.

Now the maid is singing it too because she doesn't believe. I left 1,000 escudos with Maria to buy us two heart milagros at Fatima, next May, one for me and one for my aunt Canice, whose heart keeps rhythm with the help of a new pacemaker.

Portugal Journal: Lisbon London SFO
Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3
Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2
Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1
Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge

Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3

10/5/2001 Lisbon-Fátima: We took the metro to bus station to Fátima where we're on the blue line, things aren't clearly marked and it isn't easy negotiating as there's so much lack of information etc. We miss the bus to Fátima. 

My cousin and aunt are too slow in the morning and again we missed a significant portion of the day. It's raining and we're wet and miserable.

Yesterday was a total waste in that they all were so late getting ready, it was noon before we even got out the hotel door. I said to them previously, if you want more time in the morning, just tell me and I'll go out by myself but as usual it didn't happen.

Then my aunt wanted to go to the bank. Sinead had to go with her. So Sean and I went on ahead, only to get caught by the trolley inspector, who insisted that my 24 hour pass, which I just bought, was no good. We been told so much conflicting information from the information people were beginning to feel ripped off.

This is the third time it's happened and so I began to holler and scream and we missed our bus stop and had to walk two miles back to the Monastery of Jerónimos and we missed Sinead. 

Sean was tired, and I wound up carrying him on my back for blocks. I was exhausted by the time we got to the monastery I wanted to cry, but I had to maintain face, and not have a meltdown, for Sean's sake. 

I sat in the hot sun waiting for them for 4 and a half hours. They'd ignored our Plan B to meet at the information booth and went on inside. I was pretty upset.

The upshot is that I ran through the monastery and cloisters, through the back door, so I didn't have to pay, I managed to get to the Museum of Archaeology, but the Celtic stuff was in storage so that was a waste of time.

There were two stone Celtic warriors with torcs, shields, and bigotes. I asked a docent about them, and he took pity on me, and guided me to the library. I looked up and cross-referenced some postcard photos. There was lots of gold, but mostly plain gold. No La Tène culture, I slogged through Portuguese anthropology books, and discovered it was easier to read Portuguese, than to speak it.

Then we went onto the Torre Belém. By this time it was 4:35PM and the guard wouldn't let us in so I guess I won't get to see the inside. Altogether, it was a shitty day. The very two things I wanted to see most. I hope today improves. Blame it on the full moon.

It's 115 km from Lisbon to Fátima. At Fátima, believers board the bus. Imagine plays on the radio. We are sardines, soaked through to the skin. A young cancer survivor, with the bug-eyed beauty of Sinead O'Connor, boards the bus. Was she one of the lucky ones?

At Fátima, I gazed into the eyes of a young boy, olive skinned, and old before his time. My indulgence, for all the living and the dead of the World Trade Center, I buy candles to light their way.

added, rev. 9/17
the story continues:
Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
see also Fatima Notes
AFTER READING BROWNING’S SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

Portugal Journal: Lisbon London SFO 5
Portugal Journal: Fatima Story 4
Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2
Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1
Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge

Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2

2
10/3–4 Wed. Lisbon: I can't sleep – that chocolate mousse after dinner was too much. My mind was racing. There are cockroaches in the bathroom, and I can't reach them. One jumped on my leg trying to hide from the light.

They're all snoring in the other room—even the baby. Not the cockroaches, my family. The baby Sean nearly got burned in the shower this morning. It was a rough start.

Suddenly the time is running out and there is still so much to see. Lisbon is growing on me. The trolley pass finally did it. It gave us wings, and the city with its seven hills became friendly, not like that crazy taxi ride from the dive that we spent the first night in.

There was no lift (elevator) and I thought Canice was going to die going up all those stairs. Five flights. The first floor begins above the reception desk. Which was already one flight up so the fourth floor was really nearer to the sixth floor then the fourth.

I had to exercise my Spanish or Spanglish in order to survive here. Sinead and Canice can only achieve rudimentary communication as most people don't speak English here. But I'm able to prattle on, and get the nuts and bolts out most of the time. Except for today at the castle.

The castle WC was in the lower depths of the ramparts and I thought my bladder was going to burst. The WC guard wanted valuta and I saidI was desperate throwing down some escudos but still she screamed at me. How much did she want. I eventually understood that she was saying: too late too late. And pointed at the symbol of a man.

It was the men's room. I ran down the hall like a crazed woman, and the little old ladies took pity on me. I was wild eyed and they let me go in first.

Linda was right, at times the Portuguese is is different from Spanish as Chinese is to Russian, though I think that's an unfair analysis. I can understand a fair bit but the Brazilian soaps on the TV don't help much. The women with painted eyes look as silly as the retro 60s woman in the airport. Elizabeth Taylor's paint job on Cleopatra come back to haunt us on late night TV. All the TVs in this hospidaje, or pension (pensão) happen to watch the same canal, or channel as there's only one satellite receiver so we flick the channels—all forty-something of them to the same inane game show with men lounging around, dressed in skins and bad makeup jobs. Big Brother it's called, a talk show of sorts, I guess. 

All the azuelos, the tile buildings, surprise and delight the eye. The trolley is a magic ride. We took the number 15 trolly down to the recently restored Torre de Belém (or Torre de São Vicente, the patron saint of Lisbõa) and we saw the Gothic Manueline monastery of Jerónimos (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos) by moonlight.

Both are Unesco world heritage sites. Torre Belém in the distance, like a wedding cake confection, surrounded by water. Hard to imagine something of that beauty inspired by the art of war.

At Vasco da Gama's monument, (Padrão dos Descobrimentos) we traced our route on the stone map of the world. I wasn't too sure I wanted to celebrate Vasco's discoveries as Europeans in the New World (or India) weren't too good for the local populace—no matter how you reassembled the history. Vasco da Gama is buried at the monastery of Jerónimos. A faint odor of pepper and cinnamon in the air.

All the gold and silver altars we've seen, are mind-boggling. On Praça 25 de Abril, a woman shows us a back room at the Igreja Convento da Graça, one of Lisbon's oldest churches, made of azuelos and painted ceilings. Last night's downpour took its toll and a portion of the ceiling vault fell through, and I realized that much of the ceiling detail is based on illusion.

Wondrous interiors to fool the eye into believing the fabulousness of their new world and wealth has no end. All this gold from the Americas what extraordinary artifacts were melted down so that we may celebrate religion?

I saw a submarine traverse up the Tagus River with a couple of military ships. From Vasco da Gama Square I could see the far shore was comprised of oil tanks. I can't seem to escape them. The tragedy of 9/11 seems to be fading a bit, but today as we come down from the castle or the citadel, I found myself in in tears once again.

Sinead, in the bank this morning, was talking to a Portuguese man about 9/11, and later a newspaper tumbled down the street and stopped at my feet. Even in Portuguese the headlines were perfectly clear.

Many people in Lisbon certainly have Moorish ancestry, but here and there, the Celt is still visible, though more so in the Azores.

I'm getting a bit tired of being sidestepped all the time as tourist bait but we have taken to fighting with the kiosk ticket sellers and taxi drivers who insist upon cheating us on on every turn. Usually usually we pay, but not without a fight.

Lisbon is definitely a bit rougher, but we are, for the most part, left unmolested because we are three women traveling alone with a small child.

I collected lots of folklore, but mostly from my family. It's been hard collecting from the Portuguese. You need to build a relationship first, and that takes time. When we haven't got a lot. Also, we're not meeting the Portuguese in Lisbon it's not as friendly as the Azores.

As Sinead said, yesterday her palm is still itching that means give it away, not a good sign in that yesterday a lot of money part parted itself from us unwillingly and hopefully that's in the past but her palm still itches.

I'm sitting in the hall listening to everyone snore behind closed doors in the middle of the night. Wired and allergic to all the cigarette smoke, I'm sitting on the floor, an ignoble midnight studio.

I'm certainly seeing lots of things. First time away from home in five years. Hard to believe it's been that long. I've always had such a travel bug and now I'm not used to all this stimulation. I think travel requires a certain fortitude. Certainly with family. 

We absolutely hated Lisbon when we first arrived. We almost packed it up and left town. I'm glad we're giving it another chance because it really is an extraordinary place.

At the castle, the opidda, where Roman, Visigothic and the later layers of history are visible too, but not much of the 12th-century castle is original. Zealous restoration and re-Christianization creates a Disney-like effect. But I love walking along the ramparts with Sean. White peacocks and sickly cats added a surreal effect. Gone is the bustle of a medieval city, though the Alfama surrounding it, is a warren of streets enticing one onward.

Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3
Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon
Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge

Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1

Tuesday October 2, Pensão Flor dos Cavaleiros, near Praça Largo de Martim Moniz. It ain't beautiful but at 4500 escudos it's a port in a storm. We are in the underbelly of Lisbon, or Lisbõa. We find out too late that there's no lift, Canice has a pacemaker, her heart can't take the stairs, we're on the 4th floor, which really means the 5th floor, and there are only two beds, a double bed which Canice and Sean snag, so Sinead and I sleep head to toe in a tiny twin bed.

10/3 After much scouting around, we land new digs Estrela de Montenegro for 9000 escudos a night, not bad divided by three. It has a lift and three beds. Survival on the wrong side of the plaza, a difficult proposition.

So our wanderings, in we stumbled into O'Gilin's Irish Pub (not an Irish name), on Rua dos Remolares, off Praça Terracina, near the armory. We're eating tapas and drinking Guinness in Lisbon! An Irish ceilidhe instead of a fado? No Irish food though. Before that there was a poetry reading. About the only word I understood was the word poesia.

Today we rode the number 28 train along the Tagus River, glimpses of it between buildings and city canyons. It's so big, it's like San Francisco Bay. Amid the blind musicians and the deformed James Merricks on the streets of commerce, we wandered not quite tourists, on Rua Agustus, Julius's heir, on the street of banks and Cartier. Eiffel's protégé built the elevator to nowhere. We overlook the city. Lisbon is as seedy as Lima, but less dangerous.

Van Morrison on the tape deck, or on the other side of the world they would be shocked to know that he's a neighbor.

I'm so behind on my writing. I expected to be writing much more but survival is too difficult. Sinead and Canice were out of escudos for days, so I'm the local bank.  I was afraid we wouldn't get off the island. it's a hard transition from the Azores to the bustle of Lisbon I keep calling it Lima. And for good reason. We are in the underbelly of the beast.

• Portugal Journal: Lisbon London SFO 5
• Folklore: Stairs & bad luck
• Folklore: Common Sense
• Portugal Journal: Fatima Story 4
• Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
• Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3
• Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2
• Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1
• Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge