Since 2019, and because I have been spending more time in Portugal since then, I have established a the tradition of celebrating the 8th of March in my house with few women of different generations. My mum and two other women of about her age, and myself and another two women of about my age. The result, apart from the beautiful food that everyone prepares, is the sharing of experiences and the learning from older times that we, the youngest women have not experienced. The older women, lived until they were adults without electricty, running water in the houses, tarmaked roads, public transport, access to secondary schools, during a dictatorship and one of them even without national health system care during pregancy and labour. It is amazing how behind rural Portugal was only 45 years ago, even for a village that is located only 60km away from the capital, Lisbon. The worse deprivation in my opinion was on access to education after primary school, but this is mainly the assessment of someone like myself with a PhD degree since the older women cannot even understand what they were blocked from getting: knowledge about the world, literature, learning of different languages, the ability and confidence to travel on their own. On the other hand, they lived in a time where every little thing was valued, the new clothes premiered in the religious festivities, the balls in neighbouring villages, the walking to the balls at night in groups and via narrow and muddy footpaths, the watching of the first Brazilians soaps in the village cafe as none of them had television at home. They also kept an unique vocabulary only used in Cambelas, which should never be forgotten. These older women are the pillars of ourselves, younger women. Their strength, resilience to hardship and love for their children is what allowed us to become independent women nowadays. I hope to keep this tradition of celebrating the 8th of March for many and healthy years.
