Memories

Yesterday I was going through my old pictures because we decided to make an album of old memories. I found pictures of when Zé Maria and I started dating, over 6 years ago (oh my god, 6 years!), pictures of all the places we travelled to together, pictures of our first house when it was still empty, pictures of our engagement party, of our honeymoon, of me pregnant (those I would rather not have kept).

And then I found this picture.



I can't believe it's been 4 years since I came back from Mozambique. I can still smell the air, I can still feel the warm humidity that takes over your entire body, I remember the red earth, the big round orange sun rising in the sea. In Portugal the sun sets in the sea and it's beautiful, but you can't watch the sun rise in the sea here. I can still hear the silence, the overwhelming silence I could never hear anywhere else, a silence that crushes you.
But most of all I can still hear them laugh, I can still hear them sing, I can still see them dance. And when they dance all their problems disapear, they are no longer hungry, they are no longer sick. For a few moments their eyes light up and they are not scared, they forget the horrors they have been through before they arrived at the orphanage.
And I miss them so much. I will never see them again, I will never know what happened to them, I will never be able to tell them how much I miss them but I will always remember them. Maybe, just maybe, I made a diference in their lives for those few weeks, maybe for a few weeks I helped them believe that someone does care. But they have changed my life forever.