Pinda [Pindamonhangaba, ex Novitiate of the Salesians] and Lorena [Imperial Palm Avenue, Salesian
University]. The only thing left is the sonority of the name, Lorena, though I frankly do not know why
it sounds good to my ears. But even in this case Lavrinhas wins, at the end of my childhood the first
impact with the world beyond the mountains of my birthplace: a poetic landscape meets the tender-
ness of the word.
From the other village I keep in mind a mix of “pindaíba” (bankruptcy) with “mamangava” (Bumblebee),
by prosodic association. It would be necessary to reread Dr Sigmund. And I remember, thinking of Pindamonhangaba, the paternal figure of Father Luis pointing at the horizon to the outline of “Pico Marins”,
look up there, your mountains, he said, the crest of the Sierra.
All that [cheeky prick of memories!], did it really happened … or are all those things just revived shadows?
Of the last century? Of the last millennium?
Photo: St. Joachim Palast (Seat of the Salesian University)