About me
In kindergarten, flowers perfumed happiness. (…) Memory called out for time and the teenager appeared. (…) The youth no longer ran after dreams, but the drops of blood fixed his gaze on the clouds. The adult, in these, continued to paint his dreams. This is the synthesis of my book of life: a story of acceptance, overcoming and reframing.
Emanuel A. R. Furtado
Who am I?
I was born in the village of Arribada, in Santa Catarina, Santiago Island, Cape Verde. I come from a humble family, but the emptiness and silence of my parents caused nothing in the innocence of my smiles and the melodies of my happiness. With the arrival of the winds and storms, between pages six and nine of my book of life, the thirteenth page was the milestone for me to begin painting words, whether in the clouds or on sheets of blank paper.
In youth and in adulthood, the difficulty in predicting the triggering of emotional triggers and in knowing how to deal with the shrapnel from the shots deepened my interest in reading and writing. Without imagining it, literature was taking over my being, as the reframing of concepts and everyday events transformed into a process of overcoming.
As a working student and student worker, I have developed my educational and professional skills with dedication and commitment. Even though social aspects were under the sights of triggers, I always sought to choose and stay on the paths of dignity and respect.
Why create a website?
At this point on the timeline (the year 2024), I have decided to embrace literary writing body and soul. I therefore wish to share my life experience, my writings and my learnings with others. My goal with this website is to promote my works, share content of collective interest and interact with readers. On this site, I intend to publicise my published works and those currently in progress. My literary focus is on: autobiographies, short stories and poetry. Through a blog, my desire is to share content of general interest, in the expectation of stirring consciences and provoking assertive decision-making on the part of each and every one of us.
All of us have a story to tell! At every turning point, in the stages of the timeline, I cast new seeds, each one germinating in my corner of acceptance, of overcoming and of re-signification. In every drop of breath, a new page opens in my book of life. And my gaze shall remain fixed on the clouds, until the end of the line!
Emanuel A. R. Furtado
Personal journey
07 – 1969
The registry book of the Land Registry Office of Santa Catarina records the birth of a human being who was given the name Emanuel António Rodrigues Furtado.
Up to page 5
My childhood was marked by a garden of flowers that perfumed happiness. I would play and run around with the other children, amidst smiles, laughter and playing in the rain.
From page 6 onwards
The first outside words emerged, close, but tortuous. But it was also the beginning of the arrival of charlatans, scoundrels and aliens who laid out the first carpets of thorns in the garden.
Pages 9 and 11
Three stormy events, respectively, deformed the structure of my head, fissured the mountains of my heart and tore the leaves of my mind, leaving deep scars along the entire length of my timeline.
Page 13
The first (proper) words began to fill the lines of the sheets of paper that were becoming blank in my book of life. Without me being able to imagine it, this was the opening page of my literary horizon.
Page 16
The structure of adolescence was unable to bear and break the chains of pain and suffering that I had been carrying on my shoulders. And the encounter with tropical depression was inevitable, with me not even imagining that the changes in the climate of my being would still cause a great deal of damage.
Pages 22 and 40
The passings, respectively, of my mother and my grandmother, caught me completely off guard and profoundly shook my entire emotional structure.
Pages 44 and 50
Two curved arrows struck and gravely injured the cellular structure of my reasons and my emotions. The plunge into the bottomless pit was inevitable, but, as there was no water for me to drown in, I used the very chains that had been thrown around my neck to answer the voices calling to me from the horizon.
Today (Page 55)
I have managed to reframe events and concepts, giving them new guises and meanings: I embrace challenges with love, faith and the power of belief; I mix black and white with white and black, add the colours of the rainbow to them and brush new dreams over the very same clouds of yesteryear.
Educational and professional background
Pages 6 to 12
My primary education (1st and 4th grades) took place in Arribada and Pingo Chuva, while my preparatory cycle studies (5th and 6th grades) took place in Assomada, in the municipality of Santa Catarina.
Page 17
The heavy rainfall and gale-force winds brought by the storms and the tropical depression forced me into the (in)voluntary abandonment of my penultimate year at the Liceu Domingos Ramos in the city of Praia.
Page 19
After nearly two years of droughts, rough seas and prolonged anxiety caused by a lack of employment, I found my first job, in the state public sector.
Page 20
An opportunity for vocational training abroad came up and I believed it would be possible to achieve the dreams I had been painting. But it was short-lived.
From page 24 to today
Upon returning to my homeland, I embarked on a journey as a working student, undertaking every initiative that could cause to fall from the clouds the drops of ink necessary for me to continue painting my dreams and breathing the pure air of honesty.
Page 39
It represents a symbolic milestone: I’ve achieved my degree of resilience, the fruit of the sweat of my labour and determination.
Today (Page 55)
I am a permanent civil servant in the Cape Verdean public administration, because God works in mysterious ways. I continue to defend the same principles and values that were passed down to me by my ancestors and I wish to leave an example of good practice to my children.
