Luanda

My mother is leaving to Luanda this evening. She will stay there until the end of January. I thought I might be able to see her down there. There had been a work-related mission in the planning, but the Presidency canceled it today. I was disappointed.

I wanted to see my mother's childhood house in Bairro Operário now that it has been redone. Some other time. It would be fun, and a bit strange, to stay there together. "We'll find you a mattress in a corner somewhere", my mother said on the phone. Her little childhood home in that place of dirt roads and no gardens.

I thought of the earth the colour of ocre, and the bay, and the sky expanse above it like a pulsating heart filled with light. Good to fly, just ask the cranes. Maybe next year I'll go to Luanda, the town of my birth.