My Trip to Moxico and Angolan History - DAY 9
I was jogging with Maria around the city.
Since I was little, I had conscience that the colour of my skin would always be a problem in some areas I would go to. When I had to live in Portugal, I wasn’t a teenager yet. But I was victim of racism anyways. People don’t care how old you are. In Portugal, I was “chocolate” or, as always “Black savage African little girl”. At that time, I wouldn’t know what to reply to such insults, but today I know I am proud of my Bantu ancestries and I claim my Africanity. I am Black and proud of it. What part of it people don’t understand?
Coming here, I finally understood the other part. Many Black people don’t like me as well because I am what is called “Mixed”. I don’t like that word. In Portuguese, it makes me feel some kind of new race of animals. Half-breed. Half-caste. Half something. I never thought I was half of something till having an ID that says clearly, black on white “Race: Mixed”.
Maria was a couple of metres in front of me. As I passed by youngsters, they would call me “chindele” (white). I can’t paint myself in Black to tell them I am the same as they are, I am as Angolan as they are. I probably don’t suffer as they do, but I understand them. I am not a White girl, no matter what you do. It doesn’t go with soap. It is my skin! My history! Besides all, it’s ME. If I change the colour of my skin, it wouldn’t be me anymore, but somebody else.
To be a “Mixed” is such a pain! You don’t know where you really come from. There is always a part that is missing. I am Angolan, that’s all.
The Angolan population is made of Black, is made of White, is made of Mixed. That’s how the history of Angola is made. And nobody can change it. But I guess some people think I am bringing back the painful past of colonists and slavery.
Whatever I do, I won’t change the history. I won’t, I don’t want and I can’t. That’s how it is made. I am just another fruit of the past. I am half colonist, half slave. I am half chindele and half Bantu. But what can I do? If it wasn’t that “mixture”, I probably wouldn’t know half I know now…
Well… today I was called chindele, and I feel miserable!
I am the one losing my priorities now…
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