“This is a personal project that I started a few years ago.... I try to document life in small/rural villages in the Portuguese mountains. Most of these "aldeias" (villages in Portuguese) are located in the center of the country. My mother was born and raised in one of these villages until she moved to Switzerland to find a "better" life.
My goal is to capture how these people live and work hard to survive. Sometimes they don't have electricity or running water. They get up early to bring the animals to the fields, and besides their daily work, they go to church every day and afterwards the men meet at the local coffee shop to chat and play cards. In the evenings they sit around the fire and enjoy a glass of homemade wine and bread with fresh cheese from their own sheep. It's a simple life with a lot of routine, but they are happy and don't need more. Time has a different meaning there. Everything goes slowly "com calma" as they use to say...which means "step by step".
These villages are in danger of extinction because the younger generation has moved to the big cities or emigrated to other countries to work.
It is sad to see how the population is decreasing year by year and at the same time I can understand the younger generation. It's not always easy to live there, and when they have the opportunity to study in Lisbon or another city, they take it.
I think it's important to document this way of life and the traditions they maintain and I hope that one day I can show my children or the new generation what it was like to live in these rural areas.
Sometimes I try to imagine what my life would be like if my mother hadn't moved away...”
