16th of June, 2018.
I actually did not want to ask for help at the police station. I think I was having a feeling that I should try another option. But those police man who drove me to Palma insisted so much that I ended up going over there.
I first talk with one officer. He says it would be OK for me put my tent around.
An hour passes, and I guess I talk with two or more officers and everybody is just saying that would be fine if I spend the night over there.
After almost three hours waiting (how stupid was I? Why didn’t I just leave, right?), I go to one room where the jerkiest and stupidest officer asks for my passport and starts to make questions. He asks me how could I be a woman if I do not have breasts. Laugh. You should see him making the gesture of “big breasts”. I am so shocked with his stupidity that I almost could not believe that he is serious. After my moral sermon, he try to defend himself saying that he is used to with Mozambican women, and they all look different from me. I just tell him the obvious: that people are different and if there is something I learned after visiting thirteen countries it was that. Out of nowhere he asks me what I would do if someone fall in love with me during my travel, like him, for example, and asks me to marry him. There are some things which only time and experience in life can give you. Knowing how to deal with this kind of situations is one of those things.
I go outside totally outraged and just got a little better when another officer come and tell me not to worry but, unfortunately, there are some people (and he makes a sign with his index finger, rolling a circle beside his head, which we make when we are talking about crazy people) who have no idea about how to talk with other people.
Middle time a woman start to scream with that jerk, inside of the same room I was before. And guess what? He does not do a thing.
Suddenly, this man who comes from nowhere say I could not stay over there because it is not a pension. He talks with another “superior”officer or something and then both start to wonder what they would do.
When the jerk approach and the three of then start to talk, they say something about ”first impressions can be mistaken”, so I just enjoyed the opportunity to mentioned the sooner event with the jerk and how he mistook me per a man. So he also takes the opportunity to make the joke about the marriage stuff again. All the bastard stupid three man laugh but me. I had to show them how stupidity and disrespectful they were being.
It is when it happens: I do not know if they really thought a woman would had laughed of the joke so if I did not it because I was to offended as a man, or (and this is in what I believe) if they just got to pissed of my different manners (also called principles) and decided to punish me. I police woman is called (awaken, according to her) to check me out and confirm if I am a woman or not. You can laugh, my dear reader, but that is the truth. I wish I had laughed at this moment. I wish I was in such a peace of spirit that the only thing I could do it was laugh and being sarcastic, going outside and make a whole moral speech to those “police officers”, about how their country it is fucked up, because if they cannot see de difference between a woman and a man how could they see between a criminal and an innocent? But unfortunately you probably already know what happened: I cried. And it was not a small crying, it was a long and unstoppable crying. The police woman also had to search my backpacks and that also pissed me off, so what I did? I cried even more. I was trying to stop but I could not. Fucking sensibility, which make me so weak when I just want to be strong and mad and fucking sarcastic.
The police woman is actually nice and I understand she is just doing her job. She even offer me to stay with her, in her house, but I have to refuse. I do not want to be involved with anything related with the police stuff. So I tell them I will leave because I would prefer to ask for help on the streets, where I would be treated better, than there.
On the streets, I ask information for a mother who is feeding her baby. I ask her where s the closest church, and or the place where the nuns sleep. She walk with me until the church, and we knock at the priests house but the is no answer. So she point me on the direction of the nun’s house. Once in there I call two times before I see a light. Dogs bark. A nun come outside to talk to me. I could explain just a little bit of what had happened before I start to cry a little bit again. Damn it! But she decides to trust on me and let me go in.
Once inside I start to explain everything that had happened, when the other nun, a old lady, ask me where I am from in Brazil. I tell her I am from Parana. Then she ask me where in Parana. And I answered Ponta Grossa. She finally say: “I am from Curitiba”. Both them are from Brazil: Sister Vilma from Parana and Sister Ines from Bahia. They were in Mozambique for a few years already. We have a nice conversation and they explain to me what was going on in the country and how the guerrillas were acting. Everything started on the five of October in 2017: in three different cities, in the North of the country, three police stations were attacked. Some guys came in pretending to report anything and when they have the chance they just shoot everybody in there. And what started as a police hunting, ended up as genocide with a lot of innocent people dying. A lot of foreigners were involved what made the government believe that some big countries from North America or Europe are involved. Why? They just found a lot of natural resources in the country: ruby, gold and gas, so according to their maths, there are a lot of people trying to take control over the country and take advantage of that whole easy money. There were shooting on the streets often and all the citizens were warned about not given anybody lifts on the roads or let anybody coming in and stay in their houses. So everybody who stopped for me and the nuns who let me in, were not just being very generous, they were putting their safe on risk for me.
Now that explains why the police officers could have reasons to be suspicious but does not excuse their totally wrong way of dealing with the facts. Unfortunately, in my opinion, they are not prepared / trained at all to be in such important position.
After all the talk, Sister Ines and Sister Vilma make me a delicious midnight snack with coffee! I loved!
Very early in the morning I head up to the road and they to the church. Before I leave, we have some delicious breakfast and they even give me some food for the travel. So cute! And I have to say, during daylight I could see the place where they live and it is so nice! Simple, but really cute! With some fruit trees and some a vegetable garden…